What is bcaa, what is protein for, is it worth it to drink a gainer? You can ask your coach such questions if you recently signed up for the gym and, having mastered the technique, decided to find out how to build muscle faster. This interest is completely logical - why overwork in the hall if you can drink the “magic pill” and become like Hercules? We can argue that your coach will probably say that it is absolutely necessary to use such supplements, and even offer you to buy something. This is not surprising - the salary of fitness room employees depends not so much on classes with clients as on direct sales of sports pharmacology. And how are things really, is there a need for taking amino acids or protein shakes?
Supplements and Sports Nutrition
Before asking your trainer if you should consume protein, creatine, or optimum bcaa, which is so popular today, think about this.
Bodybuilding is rooted in the times of the heroes of ancient Greece and Rome. Achilles, Hercules, the gods of the Olympic pantheon from mythology, and ordinary Greeks and Romans had magnificent bodies, without using any additives to their usual diet. Their appearance was determined by constant training - battles and preparation for them. Surely, the growing Spartans did not ask about bcaa, why use them, but simply worked on themselves.
Why all this reasoning? In fact, getting a beautiful body with a natural rendering of muscles is real for everyone. Sports pharmacology is a business that often offers bodybuilding fans a harmless placebo. All drugs can be replaced with a normal healthy diet (we are not talking, of course, about steroids).
Amino acids - what is it
If you are interested in knowing the meaning of the term "bcaa", what this drug is and what it will give your body, let us turn to physiology.
We cannot exist and develop normally without the daily intake of proteins in our body. Part of the reason is that proteins contain amino acids. It should be noted that amino acids contain all proteins, both animal origin (meat, poultry, fish, dairy products), and vegetable (legumes and cereals).
Scientists secrete more than two hundred amino acids, and of these twenty-two amino acids are very important for a healthy metabolism.
Essential and Essential Amino Acids
The body can synthesize most of the necessary amino acids independently from other types of amino acids (they are interchangeable), but there are nine amino acids that the body cannot produce on its own. To receive them, we must regularly eat products containing them. What is the body's need for these nine essential amino acids? Every day we must consume from 10 to 15 grams of amino acids, that is, by consuming more than 70 grams of protein with food, we cover the existing need of the body for healthy functioning.
But this dosage is normal for the average person. The one who is engaged in power sports needs to eat twice as much protein (from 140 grams) every day to cover the body's need for amino acids.
bcaa: what is it and how much is it needed?
BCAAs (BCAAs) are a combination of just three types of essential amino acids. These include valine, isoleucine and leucine. How much should BCAA be consumed per day? If we are talking about an adult man whose weight is about 80 kg, then he needs 7 grams of these amino acids. Without BCAA, the development of the body is inhibited, all processes stop, including the body's ability to regenerate and recover. BCAA is an important product for everyone, but should we really take pills to get it?
Can I get BCAAs from food?
If bcaa is also found in foods, what is there to eat to deliver amino acids to the body? Let's figure it out!
Chicken meat - 300 grams per day is enough to cover the daily intake of lysine, tryptophan, histidine, phenylanine and BCAAs.
Beans, beans, peas - rich in valine, tryptophan, threonine, methionine. 150 grams per day will be enough to get normal amino acids.
Cottage cheese, cheese - contain tryptophan, lysine, arginine, valine, phenylalanine.
Egg - the product familiar to us, is perfectly absorbed, is rich in BCAAs, methionine and phenylalanine.
Fish - isoleucine, lysine and phenylalanine are contained in large quantities in this product.
Groats - buckwheat, millet, oats are sources of isoleucine, valine, histidine, leucine.
Nuts - besides the fact that they contain a complex of protein compounds, nuts are also rich in histidine, isoleucine, threonine, lysine.
The meaning of the use of BCAAs in supplements
If the indispensable and best bcaa are found in food, then why use supplements?
As manufacturers of sports nutrition and drugs say, those amino acids found in food have an unstable shape. This means that amino acids are not absorbed in their pure form, and before that they can enter into reactions and form new compounds. Therefore, the content of nutrients is not a constant value. To avoid the loss of amino acids, athletes can use dietary supplements, which include amino acid complexes (contain up to 18 types of amino acids), isolated amino acids (the additive contains only one amino acid), or BCAAs (as you already know, they contain only three types amino acids).
How do BCAAs affect muscle growth?
The fact is known that a person is a protein form of life. Therefore, the amino acids that make up proteins are essential for the body. Particularly important is the use of the most important bcaa amino acids, for which you can eat the above products or take certain complexes.
These amino acids slow down the processes of destruction of muscle tissue, stimulate the formation of a new one, accelerate metabolic processes and the burning of subcutaneous fat.
BCAA Reception
It is curious to note that when describing all the advantages of using BCAA complexes, manufacturers of pharmacological additives “accidentally” forget to say that ordinary everyday food has all these properties. Of course, using BCAAs in capsules, you will get a positive effect, but its effect will be unusual only if you do not consume proteins at all. In addition, one pill of such a popular bcaa 1000 contains only 1 gram of protein.
Is BCAA necessary?
Attentive readers, having read about the properties of amino acids, may ask themselves this question - why use bcaa preparations if the same protein consists of one third of the amino acids? And they will be right.
If you consume protein shakes because you cannot get the necessary protein from food, so why do you have to pay extra for a complex of amino acids?
You should know about bcaa that this is just an opportunity to increase the duration of your workout, but nothing more. Such a drug can also have a positive effect when you cover the daily requirement of the body for protein from food. Those who have just started to work out in the gym do not need to take BCAAs.
If you have been long and enthusiastically engaged in the "construction" of your body and are used to using sports pharmacy, then you should consider whether you are wasting money? Indeed, instead of acquiring another portion of amino bcaa, you can just as well spend money on a few pounds of meat.
Human inventions will never surpass what nature gives us. Observing the rules of a healthy, wholesome and balanced diet, you will fully saturate your body with everything you need. Supplements in the form of amino acids will not hurt you, but there is no point in overpaying for them.