Why is EAA Xtreme vastly superior to BCAAs and whey protein, especially at the critical times before, during and after training?
Lately, you hear more and more often that BCAAs are completely useless and that whey protein is all you need for an optimal protein supply during the critical time window around your training. Even if there might be a grain of truth in this statement, it is an oversimplified generalization that does not correspond to the facts. In order to better understand this, you need to know what processes take place in your body during and after a hard and intensive training session and the benefits of supplying your body with amino acids during this period.
Even though most people are probably aware that muscles do not grow during training, but only during the regeneration phase after training, many people are not aware that during hard and intensive training sessions, training-induced protein breakdown initially creates a catabolic environment in which certain amounts of muscle protein are broken down and metabolized. This catabolic state continues for a while after training before the right post-workout supplementation or nutrition stimulates protein synthesis to create an anabolic state that repairs damaged muscle fibers and builds muscle. In other words, you first lose some muscle mass and then, ideally, build more new muscle mass.
By providing your body with a targeted supply of amino acids before and during training, you can greatly mitigate this catabolic environment and ideally even prevent it completely. This is where the stimulation of protein synthesis induced by BCAAs and leucine in particular comes into play by activating the mTOR pathway.
This not only means that you will not lose muscle mass even during very hard and intensive training sessions, but also that the anabolic environment, which normally only comes about some time after training, comes about more quickly and ideally during your training session. As a result, your recovery will be greatly accelerated and you will build up more new muscle mass.
And this is precisely where EAA Xtreme is vastly superior to both BCAAs and whey protein. Although the BCAAs traditionally used for this purpose stimulate protein synthesis, they do not provide your body with the building blocks it needs to ultimately be able to produce proteins. It's a bit like hiring a team of workmen who don't bring any tools or building materials - in the end, not much will happen. However, in addition to the BCAAs that are so important for stimulating protein synthesis, EAA Xtreme also provides you with all the essential amino acids your body needs to make new protein, which will have a dramatic effect on preventing a catabolic, muscle-degrading environment compared to BCAAs.
At this point, some critics will argue that instead of EAAs, you could use fast-digesting whey protein, which provides BCAAs as well as all essential and non-essential amino acids. However, these people overlook the fact that EAAs have decisive advantages over whey protein, especially in the critical period around training. This is primarily due to the fact that your body must first digest even supposedly quickly digestible protein in order to benefit from the amino acids it contains. And it is precisely this digestion that brings with it a whole range of disadvantages.
First of all, whey protein places a much greater burden on your digestive tract than free EAAs, which can be absorbed by your body directly and without a prior digestion process. For sensitive people, consuming whey protein directly before and during a hard and intensive training session can lead to a feeling of discomfort and, in the worst case, even to nausea during training. In addition to this, your body has to channel more blood from other areas into the digestive tract for the digestion process and this blood is therefore not available to supply your hungry muscles with much needed oxygen and nutrients during training, which can affect your training performance.
The next disadvantage is that the amino acids present in whey protein only enter the bloodstream slowly over a longer period of time during the digestion process. Even if this happens faster than with slowly digestible casein, it takes longer than with EAAs for the first amino acids to reach the bloodstream and you will never achieve such a high concentration of amino acids in the blood with whey protein as is possible with free EAAs.
However, such a rapid and above all strong increase in amino acid levels in the blood is not only important to supply your muscles with urgently needed amino acids as quickly as possible during training, but also to maximize the stimulation of protein synthesis and thus the anabolic response. This is primarily due to the fact that the degree of stimulation of protein synthesis does not depend on the total amount of amino acids present in the blood, but on the strength of the increase in the amino acid concentration in the blood. In other words, a rapid, strong increase in blood amino acid levels results in a much stronger stimulation of protein synthesis than is the case with a slow increase. And it is precisely this rapid and strong increase in blood amino acid concentration that you will achieve with EAA Xtreme!
Why is EAA Xtreme ideal for supporting diet and competition preparation?
The benefits of EAA Xtreme are not limited to use before, during and after training. You can also use EAA Xtreme at any other time of day when you need an anabolic and anti-catabolic boost. This can be particularly invaluable during diet and competition preparation. Because EAA Xtreme provides you with the essential amino acids in a concentrated form, it offers you anabolic and anti-catabolic support between meals with minimal calories. In addition, its focus and concentration boosting ingredients can help you overcome the dreaded diet-induced lethargy and listlessness that are otherwise almost inevitable during a strict calorie-restricted diet.
But that's not all. A whole range of ingredients in EAA Xtreme Matrix promote the preferential use of body fat to fuel your body, which in other words means that you burn more fat around the clock. And it's not for nothing that both the green tea extract contained in EAA Xtreme and the green coffee bean extract with its very high chlorogenic acid content are among the most popular and effective natural, non-stimulant ingredients to support fat loss.
Why is EAA Xtreme superior to most other EAA products?
Other companies would probably have stopped after putting together an ideally combined EAA blend, but we wouldn't be GN Laboratories if we hadn't done everything we could to further optimize and expand such an EAA blend for intensively training strength athletes.
As the name EAA-Xtreme suggests, our unique matrix contains far more than "just" the EAAs and BCAAs that are so important for muscle building and regeneration. The EAA-Xtreme ingredient matrix also includes a variety of other ingredients, in the optimal amounts and ratios, that work together synergistically and enhance each other's effects to give you more intense and harder workouts, while maximizing your recovery between sets and after training and creating an anabolic environment in your body to allow you to maximize lean, defined muscle mass.
This unique matrix also includes ingredients that intensify and maximize your focus and concentration during training without an unwanted stimulant effect, as well as other ingredients that promote the use of body fat for energy during training, not only to give you extra training energy, but also to help burn off the last bit of unsightly body fat that could be hiding your rock-hard muscles.
EAA complex
The so-called EAAs, which stands for essential amino acids, are the 8 essential amino acids that your body cannot produce itself and which must therefore be supplied through food or in the form of supplements. Your body can produce all the other amino acids it needs from these 8 EAAs. These 8 EAAs also include the 3 branched-chain amino acids known as BCAAs - leucine, isoleucine and valine - whose almost countless benefits are briefly described in the following section.
Compared to BCAA supplementation alone, supplementation with EAAs has the great advantage that EAAs not only provide all the benefits of the BCAAs they contain, but also provide your body with ALL the amino acids it needs to regenerate and build muscle mass. In fact, scientific studies have shown that EAAs, especially when used during the critical phases before, during and after your workout, can significantly increase body-wide nitrogen retention, which means nothing other than an increased build-up of muscle mass.
When used before and during training, EAAs can effectively prevent the development of an otherwise almost inevitable catabolic environment during hard and intense training sessions, which not only means that your valuable muscle mass is effectively protected from breakdown during brutal training sessions, but also that a strong anabolic environment can be re-established more quickly after training, which can dramatically accelerate your recovery and muscle building.
In contrast to BCAAs, EAAs provide you with everything you need for maximum lean, hard and defined muscle mass, including all the building blocks required for actual muscle building
BCAA complex (2:1:1) ratio
The three branched-chain amino acids known as BCAAs have a multitude of positive properties for every athlete and dieter, which are so diverse that we can only mention the most important ones here.
BCAAs can significantly increase training performance in strength and endurance sports of all disciplines, greatly accelerate and optimize regeneration during and after training, lower training- and diet-induced elevated catabolic cortisol levels and thus protect you from muscle breakdown, reduce muscle soreness after intensive training sessions and even increase your levels of muscle-building hormones after training.
One of the most important properties of BCAAs, however, is the stimulation of the mTOR pathway, which results in a strong increase in the rate of protein synthesis, which ultimately leads to faster and more extensive muscle growth.
Naturally, at EAA-Xtreme we use the proven and scientifically supported 2:1:1 ratio of leucine:isoleucine:valine.
EAA Support:
Tyrosine
L-tyrosine is a naturally occurring amino acid that your body needs as a starting material for the production of important hormones and neurotransmitters, including thyroid hormones and the body's two strongest stimulating neurotransmitters adrenaline (aka epinephrine) and noradrenaline (aka norepinephrine). As these two neurotransmitters also stimulate fat burning, tyrosine will not only help you to gain more training energy through its stimulating effect, but will also have a glycogen-saving effect, as more fat is used for energy during your training sessions and you therefore have more glycogen available as an energy source for more intensive and longer training sessions.
Histidine
L-histidine is an amino acid that occurs naturally in food, which is urgently needed for tissue repair after training and plays a decisive role in protein synthesis and therefore also in muscle building. In addition, histidine increases the natural activity of nitric oxide and can therefore promote better blood flow to your hard-working muscles and a better pump during training.
Cysteine
Cysteine belongs to the group of sulphur-containing amino acids and is an important component of the body's two strongest and most effective antioxidants, glutathione and glutathione peroxidase. Without sufficient amounts of cysteine, optimal levels of these important antioxidants are not possible, which will have a negative effect on your regeneration after training.
Cell Voluminizing Complex
Taurine
Taurine is a naturally occurring amino acid that can increase the workload of your muscles, boost your training performance and significantly delay the onset of fatigue. This is not least due to the fact that taurine is able to increase the hydration of your muscle cells so that they can perform better. As taurine stimulates fat burning, this amino acid can not only accelerate your fat loss, but also have a glycogen-saving effect, which can allow you to do longer training sessions without a drop in your energy levels.
In addition, taurine can significantly speed up your recovery as it is an effective antioxidant that can protect your muscles from damage caused by free radicals that inevitably occur during training. Interestingly, it has been shown that a combination of taurine and the BCAAs contained in EAA-Xtreme can support your recovery more strongly and better than BCAAs or taurine alone.
L-alanine
L-alanine is a naturally occurring amino acid found in food which, according to scientific studies, is able to keep blood sugar levels stable or even increase them during training, resulting in consistent training energy without a dip. In addition, alanine can stimulate and promote protein synthesis.
Electrolyte complex
During intensive training sessions, you lose both fluid and important minerals through sweat, and even a slight deficiency of these important electrolytes, as well as minimal dehydration in the region of just 2%, is enough to severely impair your training performance. For this reason, EAA-Xtreme contains a comprehensive electrolyte blend combined with natural coconut water extract, rich in minerals and trace elements, to replenish any loss of minerals as quickly as possible and maintain optimal hydration of your muscles.
Natural Energizers Complex
Green Coffee Bean Extract (standardized to 50% chlorogenic acid) Our green coffee bean extract is not only a well-tolerated source of caffeine that can boost your mental focus and training energy, but is also rich in natural chlorogenic acid. Chlorogenic acid has a whole range of properties that can support the breakdown of body fat and inhibit fat build-up. Of particular interest here is its ability to significantly increase the amount of fat that your body uses for energy. Among other things, this results in a glycogen-saving effect, which can enable you to train harder and more intensively, and not just during a diet.
Choline bitartrate
Choline bitartrate serves your body as a natural source of choline, which is required for the production of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. Acetylcholine helps your nerve cells to communicate with each other and can significantly increase your focus and ability to concentrate during training.
Niacin
Niacin is an essential B vitamin that your body urgently needs for energy production and that can help you to increase the working capacity of your muscles. In addition to this, niacin has a pronounced circulation-enhancing effect, and better blood flow to your hard-training muscles is synonymous with a better supply of important nutrients, oxygen and the body's own anabolic hormones.
Vitamin B6
Vitamin B6 is required by your body for practically all functions of protein metabolism, which in other words means that without vitamin B6, neither regeneration and reconstruction of damaged muscle fibers after training, nor building new muscle mass is possible.
