Anyone used Beta Alanine, especially as we get older? Science looks good but it’s not something I ever considered and looking for real world examples.
Yes, I tried a few years ago after a recommendation of an elite Tester. It’s also contained in a ‘pre workout igniter’ I use before threshold sessions or very early starts.
Biggest thing for me is the face tingles! As far as performance enhancement, I’m on the fence, although I have found I can do a hard Zwift session a coupe of days after a race, which is something that’s not happened in the past - so could be something in it (the pre-workout mix also has caffeine/taurine & creatine)
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The Zwift podcast covered this recently as it is on the IOC list of approved ‘performance enhancements’ along with caffeine. Looks like you have to preload before the benefits come through.
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yes it looks like it takes a couple of weeks to start to work. the face tinkling @Jorgan mentioned is a known side effect with no real impact though.
I ordered some of the tablets last week from My protein as they had a 30% discount offer.
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I bought some but never ended up opened the tub. I’m ok with caffeine but taking a pill for performance enhancement just feels a bit wrong even though I know it’s legal. Following with interest.
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Are you using the myprotein pre workout?
Thats the plan when it arrives , I am looking for a push to get near 300w for my FTP. For my 10 mile TT, I am riding an av 290w off a FTP of 280. At the moment I am racing against pure Testers and I am getting closer but with running and swimming to be factored in am looking at all legal ways of getting there.
The on-course nutrition for IM Lanza is “226ers” and I think it includes beta alanine. I don’t recall experiencing any face tingling when I did the race last year:smiley:
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I used to use this years ago and remember the face tingling!
Get it with codeine, proplus and salbutamol/ventolin and you can’t go far wrong.
What actually is it though? When do you use it?
It’s an amino-acid that is used by the body to make carnosine in the muscle, loading it (taking more than the normal amount you get from food over a few weeks) appears to lead to more, and that appears to have a beneficial effect in repeated effort exercise, it may also have a beneficial effect in longer steady state efforts although the evidence for that is even less clear.
It may also work in acute loading similar to bicarb as a pH buffer only with less symptoms.
It being an amino acid makes it essentially safe even if you don’t get much benefit from it, it’s cheap, can be worth trying.
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1st day taking the supplement so I can provide feed back if anyone is interested.
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Definitely. Keep us posted
Yeah, keep us updated. I’m always interested to explore legal supplements to make gains. I did a week of pre-loading Beet It Sport before VLM, but that was a write off given the illness. £15 wasn’t too much of an expense as a no-risk experiment. There’s a lot of elites advocating the benefits of nitrate.
A few weeks ago, Trainerroad podcast made reference to pomegranate supplements as the next big thing.
Beet root has some fairly decent evidence behind that it does work. It tastes foul though.
There was a thread on ST about this recently. One of Coggan’s students has tested the nitrate levels of the popular brands and some didn’t have enough nitrates to make a difference. Will dig the link out,
Who doesn’t love purple stools.
I read all about that, and didnt see any evidence of it.
You must be a highly developed Beetroot absorber!