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The situation:
During moderate to high-intensity exercise, hydrogen ions begin to accumulate, leading to a drop in intramuscular pH and induce the burning sensation you can feel at the end of a 400m run. This drop in pH negatively impacts the ability of the muscle to contract and thus is a major aspect in fatigue for moderate-to-high intensity exercise. Therefore, if the intramuscular pH decline can be prevented or delayed, fatigue can also be delayed.
The science:
Carnosine is a naturally occurring compound found in many animal tissues, including skeletal muscle, the most abundant source. This compound has many roles including buffering, fighting free radicals, enzyme regulation and muscle calcium regulation. Exercise training has been reported to increase resting muscle carnosine concentrations in these athlete types, with carnosine reported as a rate limiting step in buffering muscle pH. Accordingly, athletes such as sprinters and bodybuilders have been found to have higher intramuscular concentrations of carnosine. As such, carnosine supplementation was speculated to increase endurance. However, supplementation failed to the high activity of carnosinase, an enzyme which is found in most tissues except skeletal muscle, degrading carnosine supplementation as it travels through the digestive system and bloodstream.
Beta-alanine is a naturally occurring amino acid and a precursor to carnosine production. Researchers have demonstrated that beta-alanine was significantly better at increasing carnosine levels compared to supplementation of carnosine itself. This is due to avoiding carnosinase activity in the bloodstream, travelling to the carnosinase-free skeletal muscle and converted to active carnosine where it can then buffer pH. As such, beta-alanine supplementation has been shown to have beneficial effects on exercise performance such as cycling capacity, ventilatory threshold, and time to exhaustion!
The supplement:
A large meta-analysis conducted in 2012 highlighted that, on average, could improve exercise performance by almost 3%! Interpreting the data more closely, beta-alanine is far more beneficial for increasing exercise capacity rather than strength. Furthermore, the biggest exercise capacity increases where seen with exercise bursts lasting in the 1-4 minute range!
Interestingly, beta-alanine may pair well with creatine monohydrate. As we discussed in a previous blog, creatine increases the energy fuel for short, high-intensity exercise. Whilst the evidence is not completely unanimous, it’s possible that creatine provides increased energy and beta-alanine aids to reduce the additional acidity produced from utilising the extra energy. One study demonstrated that beta-alanine increased body composition (muscle mass) of training individuals using creatine, compared to creatine alone.
Side effects:
Beta-alanine users often report tingling sensations on parts of their body. This sensation is known as paraesthesia and is overall harmless. It is hypothesized that this side effect is a result of the rapid high peak blood plasma concentrations of beta-alanine with supplementation alone and will subside over the course of 30-60 minutes. Anecdotally, we have found that consuming larger quantities of water or jumping into your workout can help alleviate this side effect.
Dosage:
Most studies dose beta-alanine at 3-5g per day, with doses being split throughout the day if paraesthesia is a concern to the individual. We personally recommend starting at a dose of 3g and working up or down from there! Beta-alanine supplementation should continue ongoing as you would with creatine, with no need to cycle on or off.
Conclusions:
Beta-alanine is one of those supplements thats been around for years and you’ll probably find it in all your favourite pre-workouts! It’s not a supplement that will drastically change your performance or physique to the magnitude of creatine or whey protein. However, its relatively inexpensive, easy to integrate into existing supplement regimes or shakes and yields solid, robust results for little health risk. It’s absolutely worth a try especially for those in that 1-4min exercise burst range such as body building, sprints or swimming!
Happy training!
