branched chain amino supplements?

My take:

I don't use them, nor do I recommend them. If you are getting adequate protein in, I don't really see the need. The costs far outweigh any benefits. However, again, this is assuming adequate protein intake from diet already.
 
100% agreed Steve.

The only time I would ever recommend these is to a vegan who refuses to take in any animal products in their diet.
 
I had just seen some articles that mentioned them being especially good for fueling during endurance events since they're actually stored/absorbed in the muscles instead of the liver and having to be broken down, or some crap like that. That obviously got my attention. I've got to figure out how to last longer than 45 minutes, I keep bonking and can't recover.
 
Corndoggy what kind of intensity rate are you working at? Whenever I do my training I "bonk" out at 20-25 mins because of the intensity level. It is my bodies natural response that would be unhealthy for me to push through. If your fuel is up to par maybe your pace is off for trying to push past that number.
 
Leigh P. said:
Corndoggy what kind of intensity rate are you working at? Whenever I do my training I "bonk" out at 20-25 mins because of the intensity level. It is my bodies natural response that would be unhealthy for me to push through. If your fuel is up to par maybe your pace is off for trying to push past that number.
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Well, I'm going balls out. That's the whole point of racing.

But, there's lots of others who go alot faster and they just blow right past the point that I bonk at. But, I can keep up with most any of them, even the grizled experts... for awhile at least, then I fade away. I'm just going to have to put in alot more time training I guess. It seems that whether I'm out of shape, or whether I've been training for half a year, if I go at race pace, at 45 minutes I start slowing down alot. Maybe it's not "bonking" at all, maybe it's lactic acid and hydrogen ions getting built up. Maybe I need more sport specific interval training and/or longer (3-4 hour) training sessions.

My theory right now is that my buddies who can go alot faster for alot further are mostly full of slow twitch muscles. Their legs are small, they don't look powerful, and I can beat them in sprints even on a bike. Yet, they can go for a long time and smoke me when it's all over with. Then, here I am, been a sprinter most of my life and can easily squat alot more than my buddies even if I haven't been training, so I imagine I'm full of fast twitch muscles, yet I'm trying to do endurance races as if I had mostly slow twitch. Problem with that is that fast twitch fuels off of glycogen instead of utilizing fat stores and oxygen, which means that they're going to be producing alot more lactic acid than the muscles in my buddies, leading to a buildup quicker, and also I think it probably means that they're going to run out of fuel faster.

So, my best guess is that I need to do whatever it takes to make my fast twitch muscles last through an endurance event in a similar manner as if I had slow twitch. I just don't know how to do that. I need to figure out how somebody with mostly fast twitch can race, on a mountain bike alone or in a triathlon format, for 1.5 to 3 hours, competitively, which yes, means incredibly high intensity that entire time. I need to be able to blast up a hill and not slow down at the top, then do that several times, and still have the strength to finish strong after 2-3 hours.

Maybe that theory is completely wrong, but I haven't heard much else that makes more sense.
 
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