What Beta-Alanine Is and Its Benefits

Beta-alanine is basically a non-essential amino acid. Many amino acids serve as building blocks of proteins. However, beta-alanine is used to produce other chemicals in your body.

Since beta-alanine is made in the body, you don’t have to consume it in food. It is also part of carnosine as well as other chemicals, which may affect performance and muscle size.

Many people use beta-alanine to improve physical performance in elderly adults and athletic performance. But don’t confuse beta-alanine with alpha-alanine. These two are not the same.

How It Works

During training, which relies on an anaerobic energy system, glucose is normally broken down into lactate. Basically, lactate is converted back to glucose, though if it is produced in excess, it can become lactic acid that releases h+ (hydrogen ions).

These hydrogen ions make muscles acidic, which is thought to affect the ability to break down glucose for fuel. Plus, it is thought that the build-up of this acid causes a burning sensation in the muscles before fatigue kicks in.

Beta-alanine, which gets converted to carnosine, is thought to buffer the acid so as to prevent it from accumulating in the muscles. The strategy of taking beta-alanine supplements helps maximize the performance of beta-alanine by taking around 3grams twice a day.

What Beta-Alanine Does

Beta-alanine usually combines with histidine, which is another amino acid, so as to form dipeptide carnosine. These dipeptides are compounds that comprise two amino acids.

It seems that beta-alanine is the rate-limiting step when it comes to carnosine synthesis. Simply put, the production of carnosine is limited by the beta-alanine amount present in your body.

But a certain review shows that beta-alanine supplement doesn’t necessarily increase aerobic endurance or muscle strength. Rather it slightly increases the time athletes may perform a high-intensity exercise, like:

• Sprinting
• Weight lifting

Benefits That Come with Beta-Alanine

Some studies show that beta-alanine helps to boost the performance of soldiers, especially during a short burst of high-intensity combats.

According to those studies, beta-alanine improves marksmanship, beta, shooting speed, and jumping power. Plus, those studies show that beta-alanine increases cognitive performance when you are under stress and improves speed during 50-m casualty carry exercises.

Another benefit that beta-alanine has is that it delays fatigue and reduces the amount of lactic acid in the muscles. A certain review on this subject found that beta-alanine supplements reduced lactic build-up during the high-intensive anaerobic performance that delayed fatigue.

In addition, beta-alanine can deal with soreness of muscles after exercise. Four weeks of taking beta-alanine supplements everyday increase carnosine levels in the muscles that buffer lactic acid.

So if you are experiencing any muscle soreness or cramps during an exercise, it is important to take beta-alanine supplements to improve the entire thing. Apart from handling muscle soreness and increasing cognitive performance, beta-alanine supplementation also:

• Support aging muscles
• Improve mass gains in the muscles
• Support keto diets

Final Say!

Beta-alanine boosts performance by decreasing muscle fatigue and increasing exercise capacity. It not only has antioxidants but also has anti-aging and immune-enhancing properties. While an excessive amount of beta-alanine might tingle in the skin, it is regarded as effective and safe to improve exercise performance.