BCAA 10:1:1 – Max’s Lab Series

MAX’S BCAA 10:1:1 contains:

• Micronized and Instantised BCAA’s – These BCAA’s have very small particle sizes and are specially treated to enable faster wetting and absorption

• Pepform Leucine Peptides – Specific short peptides with high Leucine content have been shown to be taken up through the small intestine wall even faster than free form aminos, giving an fast Leucine spike to switch on protein synthesis

• Free Form BCAA’s – Traditional BCAA’s take longer to absorb. They continue switching on protein synthesis after the faster instantised BCAA’s and Leucine Peptides levels begin to diminish.

What sets MAX’S BCAA 10:1:1 apart is what it doesn’t contain – It is FREE from fillers, flavours, colours and sweeteners. It is pure BCAA’s, nothing else, so you get full potency and maximum results.

How do BCAA’S Benefit Athletes?

Muscle protein undergoes constant change and re-modelling through synthesis of new proteins and breakdown of existing proteins. Together, these processes are called protein turnover and produce muscle growth or hypertrophy when synthesis is greater than breakdown, and muscle wasting when synthesis is less than breakdown.

Resistance exercise produces diverse changes in amino acid metabolism and protein turnover in skeletal muscle. High training loads require large energy expenditure, and BCAA’s when available, can be oxidized to contribute significantly to these energy needs.

However high training loads puts muscle in a catabolic state, or in other words, muscle tissue starts to break down as a result of intense weight training and can continue to breakdown for many hours afterwards. Although intense training is catabolic, it clearly does not cause muscle wasting; instead, regular training is essential to optimize muscle growth or hypertrophy. To achieve muscle growth your metabolism must shift from catabolic during and immediately after exercise to anabolic during the post exercise recovery period.

Leucine plays an essential role in this shift. After resistance exercise net protein balance remains negative (protein breakdown is greater than protein synthesis), and remains negative until enough Leucine is ingested. Dietary BCAA’s reach the blood virtually unaltered from their levels in the diet, where it can be taken up by skeletal muscle. Leucine entering the muscle cells, not only halts the catabolic breakdown of muscle tissue, but by its activation of mTOR, initiates protein synthesis and muscle growth.

Leucine’s effect on mTOR is synergistic with insulin. Together, insulin and leucine allow skeletal muscle to coordinate protein synthesis.

The take home message here is – optimal post exercise nutrition should include Leucine to stimulate mTOR, carbs to spike insulin, and dietary protein to fuel new protein synthesis and muscle growth which means protein (containing high levels of Leucine) and carbs immediately after training will stop muscle breakdown and optimise recovery and growth.

Research shows three key benefits for hard training strength and power athletes:

1. Energy for Training – During resistance training BCAA’s are oxidized to produce energy which can contribute significantly to boosting workout intensity and performance.
2. Accelerate Recovery – Your cellular and circulatory BCAA levels fall dramatically during resistance training which contributes to fatigue and delay of recovery. Taking BCAA’s during and post workout reduces fatigue and accelerates recovery.
3. Stimulate Protein Synthesis – BCAA’s, and in particular L-Leucine up-regulate mTOR signalling and other signalling pathways to turn on protein synthesis for optimum muscle gains.

MAX’S 10:1:1 BCAA’s is a high Leucine formula specifically designed to target mTOR and stimulate protein synthesis after hard training.