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Home > BCAA > Core Nutritionals ABC Wicked White Watermelon 2 lb 3 oz - 50 Servings
Core Nutritionals ABC Wicked White Watermelon 2 lb 3 oz - 50 Servings
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List Price: $89.99
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Core Nutritionals ABC Wicked White Watermelon - Amino Acids - Beta Alanine - Citrulline Malate |
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Core Nutritionals ABC - Amino Acids. Beta Alanine. Citrulline Malate. Superior recovery and
endurance
Rep by rep. Mile by mile. Breath by breath. Every muscle screams at you
with pleas of mercy; every bone aches to its core from the pressure.
Yet, you still don’t quit – you push on. By hook, or by crook, you will
make it. You will succeed. You will win.
You see, you’re an athlete. You are someone defined to your core by the
competitive drive to better yourself at all costs. You need neither
trophies, nor accolades; neither cheers, nor recognition. You pay the
sweat price for every gain marked in your battle-worn ledger, detailing
the struggle your body has endured.
You’re an athlete, and so are we. We don’t make Core ABC for everyone,
we make it for you and us. We use the most effective,
scientifically-established ratio of BCAAs because we know it’s the
difference between your first mile and your last. We include
clinically-verified servings of beta-alanine, citrulline malate, and
glutamine because we know your last rep depends on it. We know this
because we know you, and we know ourselves.
Core ABC is the athlete’s BCAA. It was formulated by athletes, for
athletes, for the needs only an athlete can understand. If you can’t say
the same about your BCAA, then it may be time for a switch.
Amino Acids
If one were to think of the body as a construction project, amino acids
would be the most basic building materials: raw lumber, mortar, bricks,
and so on. While the assembly of these building blocks is of course
critically important to the function of the building – and one of the
amino acids, leucine, controls its own assembly – the quality and
availability of the materials themselves is arguably more important. Not
enough concrete? The foundation cracks and the building falls.
Your body is the exact same way. It is comprised of various amino acids,
both essential and non-essential, that comprise the cellular basis of
each and every cell in your body. When it comes down to skeletal muscle,
the three most important are known as the BCAAs – or branch chained
amino acids. Comprised of leucine, isoleucine, and valine, these three
little amino acids effectively control the rate at which your muscle
grows (hypertrophies), its contractile force, its endurance, and so on –
to say they are massively important is an understatement. For this
reason, they form the basis of any competently-designed supplement
protocol.
Collectively, as stated above, the branch-chained amino acids leucine,
isoleucine, and valine are famous for their role in skeletal muscle
protein synthesis and metabolism, and additionally comprise
approximately one-third of all skeletal muscle protein. Of the three,
leucine is both the most physiologically important with respect to
muscle mass, and the most extensively studied. Data on leucine
demonstrate this amino acid plays critical roles in stimulating skeletal
muscle protein synthesis, and ribosomal biogenesis and assembly (the
literal building of muscle tissue), along with playing a lesser role in
insulin signaling and gluconeogenic processes. As a result of these
diverse roles, leucine has been demonstrated to significantly stimulate
skeletal muscle protein synthesis, and attenuate protein degradation, by
both insulin-mediated and non-insulin mediated mechanisms.
Leucine’s insulin-mediated effects are largely the result of its
activation of the classical insulin receptor substrate (IRS)/phosphatidylinositol
(PI) 3-kinase (PI3K)/Akt/mTOR signal transduction pathway. In this
pathway, the bonding of a substrate (glucose) eventually activates a
compound known as Akt. Once phosphorylated and activated, Akt signals
the release of the famous mammalian target of rapmycin (mTOR). mTOR then
increases the translation of muscle-cell ribosomal proteins that
increase ribosome biogenesis, which is the literal production of
proteins. Leucine has additionally been shown to positively regulate
protein synthesis independent of insulin. In certain trials where
rapamycin and leucine were co-administered, rapamycin showed only
partial inhibition of leucine’s effects on muscle protein synthesis.
In more practical terms, there is a significant body of evidence
demonstrating the positive effect of BCAA’s on athletic performance.
Extensive studies in exercise-trained populations reveal that,
collectively, BCAA’s may:
- Reduce total muscle soreness after intense resistance training, and/or
further delay its onset.
- Decrease muscle recovery time between bouts of intense resistance
exercise training.
- Increase lean body mass when used daily, in conjunction with diet and
exercise.
While products with larger BCAA ratios (ratio of leucine, to isoleucine,
to valine) have recently flooded the market, Core Nutritionals has
remained with the gold standard of 2:1:1. This decision is made in
recognition of the fact that, for all its potential benefits, there is
no evidence demonstrating a realized effect of a larger BCAA ratio – and
in fact, all the benefits mentioned above derive from evidence using the
gold standard 2:1:1 ratio.
Beta Alanine
Carnosine is a bit of an odd duck: we know that it is crucial for muscle
function, and that dietary sources of caronsine are essential, but we
don’t know precisely how its working. Moreover, for decades, we had no
idea how to increase intramuscular concentrations, as exogenous
carnosine sources degraded in the body so fast as to be effectively
useless.
Enter beta-alanine. Simply a different iteration of one of the amino
acids that comprises carnosine itself (alanine), beta-alanine has proven
to be the most effective means of significantly increasing intramuscular
concentrations of carnosine – and therefore of promoting all of
carnosine’s various beneficial effects on muscle performance. If that
weren’t enough, beta-alanine has also demonstrated beneficial
physiological effects independent of its parent compound. In order to
understand why, though, we need to first understand some of the basic
behind carnosine itself.
Carnosine, a cytoplasmic dipeptide synthesized from the precursors L-histidine
and l-alanine, is present in high concentrations in skeletal muscle and
plays a pivotal role as a, “chemical buffer” in myocytes (muscle cells).
It has long been known that carnosine concentrations are highest in
glycolytic, rather than oxidative muscle fibers (roughly speaking,
explosive vs., endurance muscle fibers, respectively), and thus long
hypothesized that this amino acid is required for sustained performance
during supramaximal exercise. Recent research demonstrates that
carnosine exerts its physiological effects in long hypoxic (low oxygen)
drives by functioning as a high-capacity pH buffer in skeletal muscle,
preventing the pH ratio of plasma from dropping too low – and therefore
preventing crucial pH-dependent processes such as protein synthesis from
being inhibited by acidosis.
Despite its critical role in skeletal muscle anaerobic performance,
intramyocellular synthesis of carnosine is rate-limited by the
availability of l-alanine. Unfortunately, the majority of literature
demonstrates that attempting to increase intramuscular levels of
carnosine via either direct carnosine or alanine supplementation is
largely ineffective due to carnosine/alanine pharmacokinetics. Enter
beta-alanine. Research with beta-alanine demonstrates consistent and
dose-dependent increases to intramuscular carnosine concentrations with
beta-alanine supplementation, with certain studies showing an increase
of 40-60% with chronic administration. These same literature reveal a
synergistic effect of exercise on beta-alanine supplementation, whereby
the muscle adaptive changes associated with resistance training promote
further intramuscular carnosine production in response to beta-alanine
supplementation.
In simpler language, this essentially means that beta-alanine is a
dietary supplement that promotes its own effects in combination with
exercise. As you exercise, you simultaneously intensify beta-alanine’s
physiological actions – both directly, as well as in the production of
intramuscular carnosine. Once ingested, beta-alanine’s exercise-specific
beneficial activity is well-established. Elevation of intramuscular
caronsine content via beta-alanine supplementation has been show to
improve performance in the following ways:
- Both acute and chronic increases in total work capacity, measured by
total volume during exercise sessions.
- Highly significant increases to TTE (total time to exhaustion), one of
the most accurate and comprehensive measures of endurance. In various
trials, beta-alanine supplementation has been shown to increase TTE by
upwards of 20%.
- Increases to total muscle power output in both acute and chronic trials,
suggesting that beta-alanine’s most significant benefit is to those
engaging in power-dependent resistance training.
In total, a significant body of research exists to suggest that beta-alanine
may significantly increase muscle power output, strength, training
volume and output, overall performance in hypoxic (oxygen-deprived)
conditions and peak VO2 max (oxygen holding capacity).
These myriad benefits make beta-alanine both one of the most-studied,
and most well-rounded dietary supplements. Beta-alanine not only has
direct, actionable physiological effects, but also promotes critical
muscle physiologic adaptations that promote its own effects.
Citrulline Malate
Citrulline is a non-essential, non-protein amino acid heavily involved
in the urea cycle. Citrulline is also a critical source of endogenous
(natural) arginine, as it is rapidly and efficiently converted to
arginine in the vascular endothelium and other tissues. Arginine, in
turn, is used as the substrate by NOS (nitric oxide synthase) to produce
NO, more commonly known as nitric oxide.
Citrulline’s benefits have been shown to be greater than its parent
compound. While arginine undergoes direct hepatic (liver) metabolism
through the enzyme arginase, citrulline bypasses hepatic metabolism
entirely and it is delivered straight to the bloodstream. The result is
that gut absorption and plasma (blood) bioavailability studies comparing
citrulline and arginine have shown two things. First, that citrulline is
less readily destroyed and has greater absorption than arginine. Second,
that citrulline supplementation increases arginine levels more
effectively than arginine supplementation itself.
This translates to promising results. For example, animal studies show a
significant increase in anaerobic performance at a 250mg/kg/day serving
of citrulline, while studies in humans implicate citrulline in both
aerobic and anaerobic performance increases. As a critical part of the
urea cycle, citrulline’s performance benefits are thought to be a result
of its role in ammonia clearance. Citrulline is implicated in reducing
the oxygen cost of muscle processes, along with increasing the rate of
post-exercise ATP and phosphocreatine replenishment. As ATP and
phosphocreatine are the body’s ‘exercise fuel,’ this may result in
citrulline delaying time to exhaustion in aerobic and anaerobic
exercise.
Glutamine
Prior to discussing the physiological effects of glutamine – and more
specifically, whether or not it poses any tangible benefits to the
proliferation of skeletal muscle tissue – we need to discuss its place
in supplementation, in general. Glutamine is perhaps the most lamented
of all the amino acids, regularly denigrated to the point that it’s a
joke to many athletes. This is largely a problem of perception:
glutamine is not, specifically speaking, an anabolic amino acid, and
therefore is of little use as it pertains to, “building tissue.” But,
“building tissue” is not the only purpose a supplement may have, and the
corollary, preserving tissue (or anti-catabolism) is arguably as
important. It is in this capacity that glutamine shines, and for this
reason it is included in Core ABC.
The literature in this context is encouraging. Various studies
demonstrate that glutamine supplementation may suppress or inhibit the
action of enzymes known as proteases, responsible for the hydrolytic
breakdown of protein and amino acids into smaller compounds. These
studies show both site-specific and whole-body reductions in this
process known as, “proteolysis” in the later stages of skeletal muscle
recovery. While encouraging, these data are perhaps not as promising as
glutamine’s more indirect effects on the catabolic process – namely its
effect on glucose metabolism. In both in vitro and in vivo trials,
glutamine has shown the ability to promote the synthesis and storage of
glycogen (glycogenesis), both in concert with an independent of
carbohydrate ingestion.
These effects are most pronounced in physiologic situations where
carbohydrate metabolism reliant on insulin signaling are compromised –
such as the chronic caloric deficits present in a dieting situation. In
this context, glutamine may function as a critical addition,
potentiating the body’s glycogen synthesis and storage response;
maximizing the limited amount of carbohydrates a dieter may be
ingesting.* |
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| *These statements have not been evaluated by the Food & Drug
Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or
prevent any disease. |
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