I have been reminded lately of how much I love BCAA's. If I had to talk about one supplement that was worth all the hype we can give it, it would be BCAA's. Or "little miracles" as I like to call them. Okay, just kidding there...
The first thing is their recovery component. If you've been following what I write for a while, then you no doubt have heard me talk about how great they are for treating muscular recovery issues. If you're sore, then BCAA's can help a lot. The effect is most pronounced with muscular soreness, but I've even noticed some effects on connective tissue soreness. I know a lot of folks say they never get sore anymore, but I do. It's generally low-grade soreness, but soreness nonetheless. I don't normally notice it unless I am actively assessing it. At any rate, BCAA's help this go away faster. It helps my training go better via a couple mechanisms. Lower soreness levels mean better performance because of a lack of distracting pain. But it also means better performance because the muscle tissue that I'm using to move the weight has restored a better baseline potential. This is what recovery is all about!
But I'm clearly excited about BCAA's all over again. Why? Well, truth be told, I have been working on some body composition goals. With the IPF weight class changes, I took the cue and decided to drop some body fat and gain some more muscle. I'm also an analytical freak, so I've been tracking my weight and body fat percentage for a long time.
At first, I cleaned up my diet, started intermittent fasting, and more or less left it at that. And it was working... I dropped fat when I was cutting and gained muscle when I was bulking. But not at the same time. When I decided to add 10g of BCAA's in the middle of my fasting period, I started gaining LBM during my cut cycles! By quite a bit, too. Now, I'm no beginner athlete. I have been at this game for quite a few years and for me to notice such a dramatic change is quite noteworthy. During this time I made no other changes. Training and diet stayed the same. Sleep and restoration was the same. The only change was the BCAA's.
I have a theory on why this happened, too. Normally you have both anabolic and catabolic processes going on in the body. If you have anabolism occurring faster than catabolism, you are "net anabolic" and vice versa. BCAA's are often referred to as "anti-catabolic", although they do have some anabolic properties as well. My thoughts are that BCAA's result in less catabolism. Basically, during your fast, you break down less muscle tissue for amino acids. But the BCAA's aren't calorically heavy enough to stop the fat burning. So over the course of the week, you get just as much fat burning with less muscle degradation. Whether the theory is correct or not, one thing is for sure -- the BCAA's have resulted in the coveted "muscle gain and fat loss" combo.
As for dosing... my dosing varies depending on the objective. The baseline dose for the IF protocol is about 10g. I do this instead of a morning meal (obviously I'm fasting during this time anyway). And then if I need additional recovery, I will take 10-20 additional grams of BCAA's during the day. During extreme loads (i.e. lots of physical labor when it's hot out, plus hard training) I have increased the BCAA's an additional 10g. This is for a body weight of approximately 260 pounds.
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