BCAA and EAA questions?

[SK-XO]

I think it's basically because BCAAs are regarded as more anticatabolic than anabolic, while EAAs are considered more anabolic than anticatabolic... so it's BCAAs to protect muscle mass on a cut, EAAs to maximise net growth on a bulk.

I don't really buy it though, as EAAs at a decent dose contain enough BCAAs to hold up the anticabaolic end anyway so IMO are equally beneficial for cutting. Only obvious advantage of BCCAs is cost.

So if I combined them both together like CON advices bcaa's for around workout, eaa's everywhere else would that provide the best possible advantage for growth/anabolism + anti-catabolism? cheers.

 

[Viking]

I think it's basically because BCAAs are regarded as more anticatabolic than anabolic, while EAAs are considered more anabolic than anticatabolic... so it's BCAAs to protect muscle mass on a cut, EAAs to maximise net growth on a bulk.

I don't really buy it though, as EAAs at a decent dose contain enough BCAAs to hold up the anticabaolic end anyway so IMO are equally beneficial for cutting. Only obvious advantage of BCCAs is cost.

Intresting stuff. So it that same as the whey/casein scenario. Basically whey will build tissue, and casein prevents you loosing it.

I dont like the bulk cut bit as i dont do a bulk or cut. Just a general lean gain strategy. BCAA and EAA are much the same price so it's interesting to see which one would provide the mose benefit. I've went for 1kg EAA for everyday use in all the water i drink and keeping with the small 250g BCAA bag for workouts. Should work out well.

How important are the 30g carbs along side? I assume these should be 30g of simple carbs to help shuttle into the muscle. Problem with this is i run very low carbs so 30g everytime i took in EAA would take me way over..........and sugar/malto/glugose type stuff tends to make me feel sick after so long off them.

 

[MikeX]

I think it's basically because BCAAs are regarded as more anticatabolic than anabolic, while EAAs are considered more anabolic than anticatabolic... so it's BCAAs to protect muscle mass on a cut, EAAs to maximise net growth on a bulk.

I don't really buy it though, as EAAs at a decent dose contain enough BCAAs to hold up the anticabaolic end anyway so IMO are equally beneficial for cutting. Only obvious advantage of BCCAs is cost.

Being anabolic is surely anti-catabolic anyway?

 

[Dtlv]

Being anabolic is surely anti-catabolic anyway?

In 'net' terms yes absolutely, but its about seperate processes - we always have both anabolic and catabolic processes runnign simultaneously all the time and it's the net combination of these factors that determines overall catabolic/anabolic balance... so there are three ways to try to get a balance that is mostly net anabolic - minimise catabolism, maximise anabolism, optimise both.

BCAAs actually do stimulate anabolism by signalling several growth factors and by stimulating insulin, but because muscle protein synthesis requires a rise in blood plasma levels of all essential amino acids to occur, the actual anabolic effect is limited to EAA availability from the intracellular free amino acid pool at the time - always a fairly tiny amount.

The main anticatabolic effect of BCAAs is to instantly replace the draining of leucine from the muscle (for conversion to alanine and glutamine which are used in a roundabout way to provide energy) which occurs at a greater rate when either carb depleted, exercising, or in general calorie deficit. Adding the other EAAs seems to make sense to me as it allows for the rise in plasma amino acids required to stimulate and actually allow for protein synthesis on top of the anticatabolic effect.

One word though - the studies that support all this theory use temporarily semi protein starved individuals in order to get a clearer picture of what's happening - I think it's a pretty safe bet that for well fed individuals who should already have a fairly constant trickle of digesting aminos hitting the bloodstream the effects are more minimal. Still useful (i definitely rate EAAs and BCAAs as good supps), but probably less effective than study conditions or marketing hype for these kind of products might suggest.

 

[MikeX]

Great post dtlv, very helpful!

 

[Jamie555]

Good articles but i have seen research showing bcaa's to benefit muscle growth...

I believe that that Leu (one of the BCAAs) does directly stimulate muscle growth. The effect of insulin is synergistic with Leu in signalling protein synth in SM.

...That's the problem with research you can find studies to prove nearly any thing...

I do not think that this is as often as we are lead to believe. The problem is not so often in the data, but incorrect inferences/conclusions/assumptions drawn on the data, often by the researchers themselves. Abstracts are notorious for stating dramatic (or at least vaguely interesting) conclusions that simply are not supported by their observations. I believe that this forms a large proportion of the problems you eluded to.

Further to that there is often a problem in definitions, in that different authors attribute slightly different meaning to a word/term, which then causes a problem when people are comparing the observations of different studies. Luckily in the life sciences, this is becoming less of a problem with the existence of commonly agreed meanings to terms & their synonyms.

Then finally there are simply shoddy methodologies, or reliance on unsafe methods eg( as seen with vida's work on androgens). These maybe mistakes which are the later proved unsafe, or can be simply unsafe extrapolations on data eg( extrapolating the effect of a drug in a octopus into a human).

Most importantly of all is the matter of the null hypothesis, falsifiability and testability. Knowing what an observation proves, or in some ways proves what is not.

"No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong."
[ Source: Einstein A ]

J

 

[kingy]

i have also just got some BCAA and EAA powder and planning on using 10g BCAA pre and post and EAA during the day 20g in 2l water whould this be a good place to start