Beta-Alanine: Creatine's Longer-Lasting Cousin

The Performance Advantage

This amino acid does what creatine can’t – it prolongs muscle performance in activities that last longer than 60 seconds.


Beta-Alanine: High Performance After 60 Seconds

Creatine works. Take it consistently and it’ll be there to support your ATP-PCr energy system so you can do more reps.

The trouble is, creatine is kind of like the guy who has attention deficit disorder. He’ll be right on point, concentration-wise, for 20, 30, or 40 seconds, possibly up to a minute, but after that his mind wanders. Same with creatine.

Once your set or session of chosen exercise activity extends beyond 60 seconds, creatine’s not much help. That wasn’t a problem in the past for lifters because they rarely did any lifting or exercise that lasted longer than maybe 40 seconds.

Enter CrossFit. And HIIT. And interval training. All these exercise modalities involve 1 to 5-minute long bouts, typically with rest intervals lasting less than 2 minutes. In cases like that, creatine merely sits on the sidelines.

For any activity lasting for longer than 60 seconds or so, beta-alanine beats creatine. It’s a non-essential amino acid that, like a longer-lasting creatine, increases the amount of work you can do at high intensities.

Does Beta-Alanine Really Work?

Studies have consistently shown that beta-alanine increases strength, muscle-power output, training volume, high-intensity exercise performance, and aerobic capacity in a variety of sports.

Soccer players who ingested 3.2 grams of beta-alanine every day for 12 weeks increased their performance by 34.3 percent, compared to -7.6% in a group receiving placebo. Boxers who took 1.5 grams of beta-alanine four times a day increased the force of their punches by 20 times and the rate at which they threw punches by four times, compared to a placebo group.

Another study, this one involving competitive rowers, found that beta-alanine supplementation improved 2,000-meter rowing performance by 2.9 seconds, which is equivalent to at least a couple of scull lengths.

Even the military has found that there’s direct evidence supporting the use of beta-alanine to enhance combat-specific performance (even though they haven’t adopted its use, or for that matter, officially recommended any sports supplement).

And, since it’s a hybrid between GABA and L-glycine, two powerful neurotransmitters, plenty of scientists are also classifying beta-alanine as a secondary neurotransmitter, which is why users also benefit from its stimulatory effects.

How Does Beta-Alanine Improve Performance?

Carnosine is a di-peptide molecule that’s made of two amino acids: histidine and, ta-da, beta-alanine.

If you ingest more beta-alanine, you create more carnosine. This is important because carnosine sucks up reactive oxygen species, which soar super-high during exercise. More importantly, at least more important to performance, carnosine protects against the build-up of hydrogen ions during high-intensity exercise.

This prevents pH from dropping, thus preventing the loss or diminution of enzyme function and muscle-excitation coupling that you need in order to keep on exercising.

Can I Get Enough Beta-Alanine From Whole Foods?

The three or four of you out there that took Latin in school probably recognize that the word carnosine is derived from carnem, the Latin word for meat.

That should suggest to you that beta-alanine is found in meat and that there are no plant-based sources of the amino acid. However, you’d have to eat a small petting zoo’s worth of meat to get enough beta-alanine to have any discernible ergogenic effect.

Considering that the daily dose range of beta-alanine is between 1.6 to 6.4 grams, you’d have to Joey-Chestnut down between 400 and 1600 grams of chicken breast or 300 to 1200 grams of turkey breast per day.

Clearly, getting your beta-alanine through supplementation is easier on your alimentary tract.

What’s the Best Way to Take Beta-Alanine?

Much like creatine, you can’t just take beta-alanine right now and expect it to kick in 15 minutes from now as you pull into the gym parking lot. Beta-alanine takes its time and gradually builds up levels of muscle carnosine.

In fact, the size of individual doses doesn’t even matter much. Instead, it’s the total dose over time that affects muscle carnosine levels. Furthermore, carnosine has a super long clearance rate in the muscle, so pretty much the longer you take it, the better you’ll be able to perform any form of exercise lasting between 1 and 5 minutes.

If, after some period of time, you stopped taking it, levels would decline at the rate of approximately 2% every two weeks, which is glacial as far as clearance rates go. So take beta-alanine before a workout if it’s more convenient that way, but it doesn’t really matter much when you take it.

All that being said, beta-alanine is also considered a secondary neurotransmitter, meaning that it has a stimulatory effect. Unlike the endurance and strength-building capacities of beta-alanine that take a few days to kick in, the stimulatory properties kick in within minutes, at which point you might feel a mild tingly feeling on your scalp or arms.

This phenomenon is called “parasthesia.” It’s mildly annoying but painless, and it disappears quickly. That, by the way, is the only known side effect of beta-alanine supplementation.

Where Do I Find Beta-Alanine?

Biotest doesn’t sell beta-alanine as a stand-alone product, preferring instead to use it as an ingredient in two separate products:

In Surge Workout Fuel, beta-alanine is stacked with other ergogenic compounds like citrulline malate and betaine. All three of these, when combined with Surge’s large amounts of L-leucine and cyclic dextrin, maximize strength and explosiveness while minimizing exercise fatigue.

In Spike Hardcore Energy Drink, beta-alanine’s neurotransmitter capabilities add to those of acetyl-l-carnitine and caffeine to help you mentally and physically muscle your way through a tough workout.

Spike-Energy-Drink

If instead you choose to use beta-alanine as a stand-alone product, consider stacking it with things like citrulline malate, functional carbohydrates, and BCAAs (which is what Surge® Workout Fuel has already done for you).

Biotest

References

References

  1. Artioli GG et al. Role of beta-alanine supplementation on muscle carnosine and exercise performance. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2010 Jun;42(6):1162-73. PubMed.
  2. Derave W et al. beta-Alanine supplementation augments muscle carnosine content and attenuates fatigue during repeated isokinetic contraction bouts in trained sprinters. J Appl Physiol (1985). 2007 Nov;103(5):1736-43. PubMed.
  3. Derave W et al. Muscle carnosine metabolism and beta-alanine supplementation in relation to exercise and training. Sports Med. 2010 Mar 1;40(3):247-63. PubMed.
  4. Donovan T et al. β-Alanine Improves Punch Force and Frequency in Amateur Boxers During a Simulated Contest. Int J Sport Nutr Exerc Metab. 2012 Oct;22(5):331-7. PubMed.
  5. Hill CA et al. Influence of beta-alanine supplementation on skeletal muscle carnosine concentrations and high intensity cycling capacity. Amino Acids. 2007 Feb;32(2):225-33. PubMed.
  6. Hoffman JR et al. β-Alanine supplementation and military performance. Amino Acids. 2015 Dec;47(12):2463-74. PubMed.
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That’s because they got burned with the KNO₃ they were putting in the troops food back in the day.

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Two questions.

  1. Isn’t this in many pre-workouts? Is the amount too low to establish a consistent elevated level? Also, does it need to be taken more regularly than only when working out?

  2. Is this an “instead of” creatine or more of “an addition to” creatine type of article?

Matt Fraser (5x CrossFit Games champion) explained that he takes Beta Alanine every time before training and that it basically gave him a 3rd lung. He also mentioned that it reduces lactic acid buildup and increases ability to withstand lactic acid buildup.

Plus Beta Alanine is in Surge and it has made my workouts consistently better since I started using it =)

6 Likes

I don’t know what other companies are doing with beta alanine – not without looking up some brands. And yes, for optimal effect, it should be taken regularly for the first month or so.

And I consider it an addition to creatine.

“Don’t eat the mashed potatoes!” we were told by those who knew about the salt pepper.

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I see that it was also used in stump removal. Maybe the same thing.

The study with boxers is somewhat vague. According to study in placebo group the force increased 1kg and beta alanine group 20kg. It would be great to know what was the initial punch force, so we could get some view on %. At some point, after 6 years training you will punch pretty hard, so the 20 kg might be not a game changer.

Full study is here if you want to pay for it (or if you already have access)

I’d imagine that after 6 years of punching, that a 20kg increase over 4 weeks is quite significant though.

If you added 20kg on a bench press after 4 weeks, that would seem quite significant, no?

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Has Beta Alanine always been in Surge?

I’d use it more often if my skin didn’t feel like a static television every time I use it.

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This is the only sports supplement I notice the benefits from. Probably because I used to be a volume trainer with pretty fast rest periods (30 sec to a minute strict), and now do High Intensity Exercise (Jones style I suppose). It’s so cheap as a standalone I don’t know why everyone doesn’t, I think it’s better than creatine.

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No, not in the beginning. Surge evolved.

Oh yeah, the ol’ parasthesia. I’m kinda’ starting to like it.

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People probably still like creatine because of how it pumps the muscles full of fluid, thus giving the illusion of near-instantaneous muscle gains.

I take Surge as prescribed in the Surge Challenge.

I also take creatine upon waking (in AM) with a little dextrose.

Occasionally I have some success diluting it a bit. Put a bit in a water bottle and drink it throughout the duration. Takes a bit longer but I feel I can ease past the tingles a bit better

Ask TC? Hey brother… are there any supplements that smooth out the negative affects of coffee/caffeine - while keeping the positive?

Peace!

I think I still have an unfinished (expired, I am sure) bottle of Beta-7 lying around. Although I found it helped my workouts, I was one of the people that experience the pins and needles in my skin when taking it and found it annoying.

L-Theanine works great with caffeine. You get the energy and focus without the jitters. You can find this as one supplement. It can come as 100mg caffeine, 200mg L-Theanine or 200mg caffeine and 100mg L-Theanine. I use it and it works for numerous activities. Look it up.

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