Performance Supplements That Actually Work: Part 3 of 5

Beta-alanine

A supplement that isn’t as talked about around the dinner table is the amino acid, beta-alanine—we’ll call it b-alanine. So far in this blog series, you’ve learned about nitrates and caffeine (supplements you had an inkling of knowledge about), but now we’ll turn our attention to a molecule that has powerful effects on your physiology and educate you in organic chemistry in the process!

Oh. My. Gosh. You just ran your last three-minute interval of the day. Your legs are burning, knees are weak, and you are hyperventilating. With your hands on your knees, you feel the warm air exiting your lungs on the exhale and the cool winter air entering your trachea on the inhale. Hunched over, your shoulders fall and rise with every breath. Breathing finally slows and you realize that you miscounted and have one more interval to do. Just kidding!

You usually don’t question your coach, but man alive, you feel that he is a sadist. What is happening physiologically that makes you go through that kind of pain? He said something about VO₂Max and proton build-up, but you don’t really understand any of that. After all, he has a biochemistry degree and you took environmental science to get that pesky credit out of the way. You’ll ask more about it during the call today. 

During hard training or racing efforts, the primary method of energy combustion uses zero oxygen (an-aerobic aka without oxygen). Just as exhaust is the by-product of a car’s fuel combustion, lactic acid is one of the by-products of carbohydrate combustion during anaerobic exercise. When lactic acid accumulates in the working muscles, just as in our runner, it burns! In chemistry, we rate acidity on a number scale we refer to as “pH” (power of Hydrogen). The body does its best to keep the blood at a neutral pH of 7.4 by buffering the lactic acid accumulating during hard efforts. Many chemicals are known as buffers because they neutralize acidity. Take TUMS after you eat your pepperoni sandwich and you’ll see what I mean. Now, the buffering capacity of each athlete is determined by the training regimen and if the goal events of the athlete calls for massive buffering of lactic acid.

Now comes the chemistry! An important buffer that comes into play for us when our coaches assign intervals is carnosine. You may already be familiar with carnosine, but in case you weren’t, carnosine:

• Is formed when two amino acids, b-alanine and histidine bind together (carnosine aka b-alanyl-L-histidine)
• Has its highest concentrations in skeletal muscles
• Is a free-radical scavenger and a great antioxidant, reducing damage to muscle cells
• Binds to metals such as copper and iron keeping them from causing cell damage
• Has potential therapeutic uses in degenerative diseases such as Diabetes, Alzheimer’s and chronic renal failure

Wow! Forget the b-alanine and give me some carnosine! Oh…right. The only problem with that is that the enzyme needed for muscle cells to utilize the carnosine (carnosinase) isn’t found in muscles. So, you spend $50 at GNC thinking you are going to crush your next interval session only to realize later that all the carnosine you took pre-workout was digested and didn’t buffer any of the lactic acid generated by your body’s fuel combustion. This is why b-alanine is so important. You aren’t taking b-alaninefor the b-alanine. You are taking it because it is an essential part of carnosine synthesis! By itself, b-alanine has limited potential to help you in your Tuesday night criterium. But it can massively influence the carnosine concentration in your muscles, thereby buffering more lactic acid. In short, this means that you can spend and sustain more time at a higher intensity while potentially lowering your rate of perceived exertion (RPE).

Now comes the answers to the glaring questions:

• What durations and at what intensities will b-alanine help me most (the most obvious question you were going to ask)?
• How much do I need?
• When should it be taken?
• Any adverse effects?

The duration of intensity that will show the most improvement in performance will be 60-240 seconds (or 1-4 minutes). The caveat is at that duration, you will have to be riding/running as hard as you can, or pretty close to it. Remember what the coach mentioned about VO₂Max? That is reached when your body has maximized the amount of oxygen it can utilize during an intense effort. Lactic acid needs to be generated in order to be buffered. Anything less than 60 seconds and you won’t see much performance improvement. Any hard effort over 4 minutes will see some improvement, but it’ll still be minor. So, on a climb lasting 1 minute to 4 minutes, you will no doubt see improvement.

Now, b-alanine supplementation takes time. For health and safety reasons, there is a chronic loading phase of 4 to 6 grams daily for a minimum of two weeks. Stretch it to four weeks and 6 grams daily to see maximum benefits. It is extremely important that you don’t rush the process. Athletes that have taken large doses instead of following a loading protocol, have experienced tingling, fast changes in pH, and skin rashes. Don’t be that athlete. b-alanine is produced in the liver and can be acquired through poultry and meat, but in order to see concentrations rise significantly, you must take the supplement.

There is still research to be done on doses of b-alanine to maintain carnosine concentrations, but for now, start with loading doses and go from there.

Hi. Five. Beta.