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Beta Alanine for Endurance Athletes

Maximize Your Performance with Beta Alanine

Beta Alanine is one of the most studied performance supplements for strength training in the gym, running athletes and cyclists. Beta Alanine first came to attention for endurance athletes in 2006, as it has been shown to have a significant benefit on anaerobic and aerobic power production by increasing the ability of the body to create muscle carnosine. Although excessive amounts may cause tingling in the skin, beta-alanine is considered to be a safe and effective supplement. Beta Alanine enhances your performance by increasing exercise capacity and decreasing muscle fatigue. It also has antioxidant, immune-enhancing and anti-aging properties.

If you are looking for a pre workout endurance supplement for running or cycling to help you, power through hard consistent training loads, then this endurance supplement is going to have a huge positive impact on your performance! Beta alanine is a key ingredient in Stratos’ Pre-Workout targeted specifically for building endurance for runners and cyclists. There have been a significant number of studies for beta alanine and long-term use has shown no negative side effects. It is a completely legal supplement approved by USADA and WADA. If you take your training seriously, then you should consider beta alanine for endurance sports.

 

What is Beta Alanine?

Beta-alanine is a non-essential amino acid that is produced naturally in the body. Beta-alanine aids in the production of carnosine. That's a compound that plays a role in muscle endurance in high-intensity exercise. Unlike most amino acids, it is not used by your body to synthesize proteins. Instead, together with histidine, it produces carnosine. Carnosine is then stored in your skeletal muscles.(1). Carnosine reduces lactic acid accumulation after muscle contraction during exercise, which leads to improved athletic performance and efficiencies.(2).

Supplementing with beta-alanine has been shown to elevate carnosine levels in muscles by 80%.(3). Which would mean the more beta alanine supplied, the more carnosine levels in the muscles, better muscular performance and improved depth in workouts and races.(4) (5) Since beta-alanine supplements increase carnosine levels, they help your muscles reduce their acid levels during exercise. This lessens overall fatigue.

 

Is Beta Alanine Running and Cycling Specific?

Definitely! Having the ability to train harder and provide yourself an extra boost at crucial moments of an event is absolutely worth having in your toolbox. Rather than burning out in your training sessions, allow yourself to maintain the intensity to train your legs to dig deeper and build better efficiency. This is why we added this key ingredient into our premium quality pre workout formula.

 

Does clinical research show Beta-alanine to improve performance?

Yes, after many hours of research into this ingredient for our Pre-Workout formula, our research team found over 25 significant study’s that proved using Beta-alanine aids in improving overall performance. Here are a few key studies completed:

Cyclists see improvements using Beta-Alanine supplementation increased time to exhaustion concomitant with an augmented anaerobic capacity during supramaximal intensity cycling, which was also mirrored by a meaningful increase in the anaerobic contribution to power output during a 4000-m cycling TT, resulting in an enhanced overall performance. If you are looking for endurance supplements for cyclists, then definitely start utilizing this one into your nutritional.(6).

Athletes in the gym are able to get more than a few more reps when sets last more than 30 seconds. For this reason, beta-alanine specifically helps performance during high-intensity and short-duration exercise lasting one to several minutes. One study revealed that six weeks of taking beta-alanine increased TTE by 19% during high-intensity interval training (HIIT).(7).

Trained cyclists showed beta-alanine can improve sprint performance at the end of an exhaustive endurance exercise by 11.4%. Beta-alanine improves sprint performance in endurance cycling:

Beta Alanine for Endurance Athletes - info graphic

Fatigue Slower and increase time-to-exhaustion. Athletes supplemented beta-alanine for 28 days to test their capacity at fatigue threshold, ventilatory threshold (VT), maximal oxygen consumption and time-to-exhaustion (TTE). Before (pre) and after (post) the supplementation period, participants performed a cycle ergometry test to exhaustion and 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.(8).

 

When Do I Take Beta Alanine / Stratos Pre-Workout?

You can take before or after workout, but we really recommend our Pre-Workout before the workout with the added 4 grams of creatine and 200 milligrams of caffeine. Although the Beta alanine will give you a tingling sensation, known as paresthesia, you don't get a performance benefit directly after taking it. Beta alanine needs to be converted to carnosine and build up in concentration in your muscles over the loading supplementation period just like the added benefits of creatine. If the sensation of paresthesia bothers you, consider reducing the amount for workouts and load the remaining dosage throughout the day. Like anything consistency is the key to success.

Beta Alanine for Endurance Athletes - bag of stratos pre-workout

The ability to sustain efforts above lactate threshold is the primary benefit associated with Beta-Alanine supplementation. Beta alanine will not magically make you win races. There isn’t a magic pill that replaces good old fashion hard work and determination. Although, with that being said consider it a key tool help you dig even deeper in those hard sets and final pushes within your hardest workouts and races.

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