By Jose Antonie, Ph.D., CSCS

This amino acid is classified as ‘non-essential,’ but once you are aware of the science, you’ll realize that it is pretty important if your goal is to improve performance. So how does beta-alanine work? By buffering the build-up of what us science types call ‘hydrogen ions’ or H+. For instance, have you ever felt that nasty burn as you eek out the last few reps on the leg extension machine? Or have you ever tried a quarter-mile sprint? Or tried paddling in the open ocean for 2 hours? (Okay, yours truly did that and the beta-alanine I took really helped!). That pain is partly the result of the build up of H+ (i.e. hydrogen ions). Because acidic buildup occurs in all types of activity, in all muscle fiber types, and beta-alanine can buffer it, it makes sense that by supplementing with beta-alanine, your workouts become better, more intense, with the end result that you become bigger, faster, and stronger.


Science Says
Beta-alanine is used to make something called carnosine. It is actually carnosine, in your muscles, that acts as a buffer. Carnosine is a dipeptide (i.e. two amino acids bound together) found primarily in fast-twitch muscle. With higher carnosine levels in muscle, however, you prevent the drop in pH. With H+ buffered, you continue to squeeze out reps, continue to run at a high intensity, or you simply lift heavier weights for more reps. In fact, according to the world’s expert on beta-alanine, “dietary supplementation with 3.2 grams and 6.4 grams per day of beta-alanine (as multiple doses of 400 or 800 mg) for 4 weeks resulted in significant increases in muscle carnosine of 42% and 64%.”(1) So taking the stuff does elevate muscle carnosine. Interestingly, athletes who do a lot of anaerobic exercise have high levels of carnosine in muscle. But taking beta-alanine makes the concentration of carnosine go up even further in the elite athlete.

It Does What?
First off, one of the interesting ‘other’ effects of carnosine and beta-alanine is that it exerts an immunoregulatory effect by activating cells of the immune system. Scientific research has indicated that carnosine and beta-alanine not only promote tissue repair but also help maintain homeostasis and accelerate spontaneous healing.(2) Another study found that the enhancement by carnosine of wound healing may be ascribed to “stimulation of early effusion by histamine and of collagen biosynthesis by beta-alanine.”(3) So beta-alanine helps your immune system and wound healing. Very interesting. Recently, a study in mice looked at supplementation with beta-alanine (3%) in drinking water for one week. Beta-alanine intake reduced hepatic taurine levels, but elevated cysteine levels significantly. Hepatotoxicity in mice fed with beta-alanine was decreased as determined by changes in serum enzyme activities. Therefore, the enhanced availability of cysteine for synthesis of glutathione and/or taurine appears to account for the hepatoprotective effects of beta-alanine against liver injury.(4) Here’s the best part though. Performance!

Unless you’ve been stuck in a cave or have your eyes glued on ‘The View’ waiting for Rosie to say something even dumber than a monkey born without a cortex, then you’ve certainly heard that beta-alanine is one remarkable performance aid. For instance, a recent study looked at the effect of beta-alanine (beta-Ala) alone or in combination with creatine monohydrate (Cr) on aerobic exercise performance. The study examined the effects of 4 weeks of beta-Ala and Cr supplementation on indices of endurance performance. Fifty-five men (average age 24.5 yrs) participated in a double-blind, placebo-controlled study and randomly assigned to one of 4 groups; placebo (5), creatine (Cr), beta-alanine (beta-Ala), or beta-alanine plus creatine (CrBA). Prior to and following supplementation, participants performed a graded exercise test on a cycle ergometer to determine VO2 peak, time to exhaustion (TTE), and power output, VO2, and percent VO2 peak associated with ventilatory threshold and lactate threshold. According to the authors, “CrBA may potentially enhance endurance performance.”(6)
Another study had 13 male subjects who consumed beta-alanine for 4 weeks, 8 of these for 10 weeks. Muscle carnosine was significantly increased by 59% and 80% after 4 and 10 weeks of beta-alanine supplementation. Carnosine, initially 1.71 times higher in type IIa fibers (i.e. your fast twitch muscle fibers), increased equally in both type I and IIa fibers. No increase was seen in control subjects. Also, 4 weeks of beta-alanine supplementation resulted in a significant increase in total work done (+13.0%); with a further +3.2% increase at 10 weeks. TWD was unchanged at 4 and 10 wks in the control subjects. The increase in total work done with supplementation followed the increase in muscle carnosine.(7) But wait. There’s more.
Recently, scientists examined the effects of 28 days of beta-alanine supplementation on the physical working capacity at fatigue threshold (PWC(FT)), ventilatory threshold (VT), maximal oxygen consumption and time-to-exhaustion (TTE) in women. Twenty-two women (age 27 years) participated and were randomly assigned to either the beta-alanine or Placebo (PL) group. Before (pre) and after (post) the supplementation period, participants performed a cycle ergometry test to exhaustion. Ouch! That’s a painful test. They found that beta-alanine supplementation delays the onset of neuromuscular fatigue and the ventilatory threshold (VT) at submaximal workloads, and increases the time to exhaustion during maximal cycle ergometry performance. Therefore, beta-alanine supplementation improves submaximal cycle ergometry performance and time to exhaustion in young women.(8)

How to Use it
The most effective way to consume beta-alanine is with food at a dose of three to six grams daily, divided into 4 to 8 doses, for at least two weeks to see its first effect. The minimal dose seems to be in the 3 gram range. But why take it in divided dose throughout the day? One, there is a slight flushing / tingling effect with high doses (at or greater than 1.6 grams) called paraesthesia. This is resolved by taking smaller doses 8 times per day instead of 4 or by mixing it with food. Most people, however, are not bothered by paraesthesia. The second reason for taking multiple doses is to ensure a constant presence of beta-alanine which helps drive it into the muscle cell where it synthesizes into carnosine.

Weight Watchers
If you are in a sport in which gaining body weight is a detriment (e.g. wrestling, boxing, paddling, running, etc), beta-alanine is superior to creatine in this regard. It is just one of a handful of ergogenic aids that will improve performance relatively quickly (i.e. after a couple weeks of loading) without any concomitant weight gain.

Case Study
I have been supplementing with 2-3 grams daily of beta-alanine for 3 months now. As a ‘pseudo-competitive’ paddler (www.kanaluimiami.com), I’ve noticed that doing interval type exercise (i.e. high intensity paddling interspersed with lower intensity paddling for recovery) is somewhat easier. Also, my drop in body weight (subsequent to stopping creatine use and maintaining beta-alanine use) has helped my performance. In an outrigger canoe, carrying too much body weight (even if it’s muscle) can be detrimental to performance.

Around the world there are small vibrating earthquakes surrounding millions of fitness facilities that have enough cardio equipment to cure the international obesity crisis … at least one would assume. Minutes turn into hours, hours turn into days, and days eventually turn into years that have been accumulated pounding on treadmills or any other piece of machinery we adopt as our fat-burning buddy. But the majority of the time dieters are left scratching their heads or stressing that the time invested in exercise is taking its toll on the rest of their busy and hectic lifestyle. People fail to realize that the body can act as your best friend against breaking the barriers of fat accumulation only if they had a little faith in the body that they house and head that they control.

Through trial and error, most of us have experienced the one or two hours per day customary procedure of conducting cardiovascular exercise to lose the extra pounds that are hugging our physique like a long lost friend, but if we only had a little more faith in our own bodies’ thermogenic properties, then we could slash the above time on the treadmill in half.

Food can sometimes rear its ugly head as being our worst enemy if we allow it, but it can also work as our ally against destroying fat cells. Every time we consume food the body temperature raises to help digest nutrients much like a kettle element heats up to warm its surrounding water. In order for a kettle element to heat up, it requires energy from an energy source, in this case electricity. The same can be said for the human body, in order for the body to heat in order to digest food it must locate stored energy, in this case calorie dense fat cells. Every time we eat a portion of food we burn fat as an energy source to digest it. Now if you provide your body with foods that are lower in calories than your daily expenditure, you will lose fat, simple! Option 1 (the hard way) is to increase cardiovascular activity to momentarily burn fat stores as a requirement of energy. Option 2 (the easier way) is to allow your nutrition to increase the rate that calories are burnt throughout the entire day.

If you have made the simple decision to go with option two, here is how I outline your schedule for the day:

First of all almost everyone advocates conducting cardio in the morning before breakfast. From personal experience and from practical knowledge of working with 1000’s of clients in the past, conducting cardiovascular exercise before breakfast only seems to increase the likelihood of calories being stored as fat. When a person sleeps the metabolism is at its all time lowest, if you continue to do cardiovascular exercise fasting on an empty stomach when the body is screaming for food it will gorge itself on the available calories at its first meal. The body will hold onto many of the calories in its energy stores (fat deposits) fearing it will need to call on them if you should go another nine or so hours without food (it has no idea that food is readily available).

Following the average eight hour sleep my recommendation is to eat as soon as humanly possible. The metabolism has slowed right down at this time due to the eight hour fast so your priority is to speed it up immediately in order for it to work at a faster pace when you conduct your following cardio. If you give an adequate time frame of around 30mins for your food to digest, your metabolism should be increasing at such a rate that you will only need to conduct a minimal amount of cardiovascular exercise, I normally recommend only 20 minutes.

I’m going to throw another spanner in the works by telling you that if you take a thermogenic fat burner (I recommend that you do) then this should be used to further enhance the metabolism by taking it after your cardio. The key here is to keep the metabolism burning at optimal level throughout the day. It has been kick started with breakfast and has increased momentum via cardio; now let’s continue that peak by taking a fat metabolizer after your cardio to decrease the likelihood of the calories in the next meals being stored as fat. I strongly recommend Tetrazene ES-50 to take your metabolism to the next level.

Now to keep stoking our fat burning fire we must keep eating small meals at frequent intervals. A minimum of 6 meals per day is a perfect environment for a metabolism to fire on all cylinders. These meals should be made up of lean animal proteins such as chicken, steak, fish or egg whites combined with slow digesting carbohydrates such as brown rice, oatmeal and multigrain pasta. Fibrous carbohydrates such as broccoli, cabbage and asparagus are the perfect sources of carbs to be taken within the last 5 hours before sleep. The calories within these sources are so minimal that the chances of these being stored as fat whilst sleeping is next to nothing. For most of us, taking in 6 meals per day can be a very arduous task, so I recommend that a protein shake or protein bar should be taken advantage of. ProSource has the best tasting protein bar on the market, it is called the Supreme Protein bar, and for good reason. One taste of it and all of a sudden 6 meals doesn’t look too bad. A protein bar or shake can replace up to three meals per day. A good healthy source of fat like CLA or flaxseed is a great supplement to use to help minimize cravings and also slow the digestion of carbohydrates into the blood stream giving more chance of these calories to be used as available energy instead of stored energy.

A second bout of cardio should be conducted in the evening prior to your last one or two meals to kick start the fat burning process once again when the metabolism is normally at its slowest. Again I normally only recommend 20 minutes, this will be plenty of time to stoke that fat burning furnace that we all have inside

My last recommendation is intended for those of you who are really serious about your fitness goals. It is one that can make a huge difference in maintaining a fast metabolism. Set your alarm to wake you half way through your night’s sleep and drink a protein shake. This will split up your eight hour fast and have your metabolism to work for you during the night as you continue your sleep. A protein blend such as NytroPlex-GF is a first grade choice because it has not only fast digesting properties to place the body into an anabolic state but it also has slow digesting proteins to keep the body in an anti-catabolic state. This may seem like a chore at first but I guarantee that within a week or two of following this procedure you will no longer be setting your alarm as your metabolism speeds up. Your body will be waking you up to feed its hunger and soon you will see the results you craved when more attention is paid to nutrition than your normal never-ending daily cardio.