Why is EAA Xtreme vastly superior to BCAAs and Wheyprotein, especially at the critical times before, during and after training?
Lately, you hear more and more often the statement 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. While there may be some truth in this statement, it is an overly simplistic generalization that does not reflect the facts. To better understand this, you need to know what happens in your body during and after a hard and intense training session and the benefits of supplying your body with amino acids during this period.
Although most should be aware that muscles do not grow during training, but only during the recovery phase after training, many are not aware that during hard and intense training sessions a 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 the workout, before proper post-workout supplementation or nutrition brings about an anabolic state by stimulating protein synthesis, resulting in the repair of damaged muscle fibers and muscle growth. In other words, you first lose some muscle mass and then optimally 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, among other things, the stimulation of protein synthesis induced by BCAAs and especially leucine via an activation of the mTOR pathway comes into play.
This not only means that you will not lose muscle mass even during very hard and intense workouts, but also that the anabolic environment, which normally occurs some time after the workout, will occur faster and ideally already during your training session. As a result, your recovery will be greatly accelerated and you will build more new muscle mass.
And this is exactly where EAA Xtreme is vastly superior to both BCAAs and whey protein. The BCAAs classically used for this purpose stimulate protein synthesis, but they do not provide your body with the building blocks it needs to ultimately produce proteins. This is kind of like ordering a crew of workmen, but they don't bring any tools or building materials - in the end, not much will happen. However, EAA Xtreme provides you with all the essential amino acids your body needs to make new protein, in addition to the BCAAs that are so important for stimulating protein synthesis, which will have dramatic effects on preventing a catabolic, muscle-degrading environment compared to BCAAs.
At this point, some critics will say that instead of EAAs, you could just use quickly digestible 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 during 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 contained. And exactly this digestion brings a whole series of disadvantages with it.
First of all, whey protein puts much more strain on your digestive tract than free EAAs, which can be absorbed directly by your body without a prior digestive process. For sensitive people, consuming whey protein directly before and during a hard and intense training session can lead to a feeling of discomfort and, in the worst case, even nausea during training. In addition to this, your body will need to divert more blood from other areas into the digestive tract for the digestion process and this blood will not be 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 Wheyprotein 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 until the first amino acids arrive in the blood and you will never reach such a high amino acid concentration in the blood with Wheyprotein as it 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 amino acid concentration in the blood. In other words, this means that a rapid, sharp rise in blood amino acid levels results in a much greater stimulation of protein synthesis than is the case with a slow rise. And it is exactly this fast and strong increase in blood amino acid levels 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 especially invaluable during dieting 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 to this, the included ingredients that support your focus and concentration 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 a preferential use of body fat for the purpose of supplying your body with energy, which in other words means that you burn more fat around the clock. And it is not for nothing that both the green tea extract contained in EAA Xtreme and the green coffee bean extract with its very high content of chlorogenic acid 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 intensely training strength athletes.
As the name EAA-Xtreme already suggests, our unique matrix includes far more than simply "only" the EAAs and BCAAs 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 synergistically together and reinforce each other's effects to give you more intense and harder workouts, while maximally accelerating your recovery between sets and after workouts, and creating an anabolic environment in your body to allow you to maximally build lean, defined muscle mass.
This unique matrix also includes ingredients that intensify and maximize your focus and concentration during workouts without creating an unwanted stimulant effect, as well as other ingredients that promote the use of body fat for energy during workouts to not only give you extra energy for training, but also to help burn off that last bit of unsightly body fat that might 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. From these 8 EAAs, your body can produce all other amino acids that are needed. These 8 EAAs also include the 3 branched-chain amino acids known as BCAAs, leucine, isoleucine and valine, whose almost innumerable benefits are briefly described in the following section.
Supplementation with EAAs has the great advantage over pure BCAAs supplementation that the EAAs not only bring all the benefits of the BCAAs contained, but also provide your body with ALL the amino acids it needs for recovery and building muscle mass. In fact, scientific research has 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 increased muscle mass building.
When used before and during training, EAAs can effectively prevent the occurrence of an otherwise almost inevitable catabolic environment during hard and intense workouts, which not only means that your valuable muscle mass is effectively protected from degradation during brutal workouts, but also that a strong anabolic environment can be re-established more quickly after training, which can dramatically accelerate your recovery and muscle growth.
In contrast to BCAAs, EAAs provide you with everything you need for a maximum build-up of fat-free, hard and defined muscle mass, including all the building blocks required for the actual muscle build-up.
BCAA complex (2:1:1) ratio
The three branched-chain amino acids known as BCAAs have a variety of positive properties for every athlete and dieter, which are so diverse that we can only mention the most important ones here.
Thus, BCAAs can significantly increase training performance in strength and endurance sports of all disciplines, greatly accelerate and optimize recovery during and after training, lower training- and diet-induced elevated catabolic cortisol levels and thereby protect you from muscle breakdown, reduce muscle soreness after intense training sessions, and even increase your levels of muscle-building hormones after training.
However, among the most important properties of BCAAs is a stimulation of the mTOR pathway, which results in a sharp increase in the rate of protein synthesis, ultimately leading to faster and more extensive muscle growth.
Of course, with 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, which include thyroid hormones and the body's two strongest stimulating neurotransmitters adrenaline (aka epinephrine) and noradrenaline (aka norepinephrine). Since these two neurotransmitters also stimulate fat burning, Tyrosine will not only help you gain more training energy through its stimulating effect, but will also have a glycogen-saving effect at the same time, since more fat will be used for energy during your training sessions and you will therefore have more glycogen available as an energy source for more intense and longer training sessions.
Histidine
L-Histidine is a naturally occurring amino acid in the diet, which is urgently needed for tissue repair after training and is crucially involved in protein synthesis and thus also the muscle building. In addition, histidine increases the natural activity of nitric oxide and can thereby promote better blood flow to your hard-working muscles, as well as a better pump during training.
Cysteine
Cysteine belongs to the group of sulfur-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 negatively affect your post-workout recovery.
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 due in no small part to the fact that taurine is able to increase the hydration of your muscle cells so that they can perform at a higher level. Since taurine stimulates fat burning, this amino acid can not only accelerate your fat loss, but also have a glycogen-saving effect that can allow you to train longer without a drop in energy.
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 are inevitably produced during exercise. Interestingly, it has been shown that a combination of taurine and the BCAAs contained in EAA-Xtreme can support your recovery stronger and better than BCAAs or taurine alone.
L-Alanine
L-alanine is a naturally occurring amino acid found in food that, according to scientific research, is able to maintain stable or even increase blood sugar levels during exercise, resulting in consistent exercise energy without a slump. In addition to this, alanine can stimulate and promote protein synthesis.
Electrolyte complex
During intense workouts, you lose both fluids and essential minerals through sweat, and both a slight deficiency of these important electrolytes and minimal dehydration in the range of just 2% are enough to severely impact 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 make up for 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 increase your mental focus and workout energy, but is also rich in natural chlorogenic acid. Chlorogenic acid has a number of properties that can help break down body fat and inhibit fat gain. Of particular interest is its ability to significantly increase the amount of fat your body uses for energy. This results, among other things, in a glycogen-saving effect that can enable you to train harder and more intensively, not only during a diet.
Choline bitartrate
Choline Bitartrate serves as your body's natural source of choline, which is needed for the production of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. Acetylcholine helps your nerve cells communicate with each other and can significantly increase your focus and concentration during exercise.
Niacin
Niacin is an essential B vitamin that your body urgently needs for energy production and that can help you increase the working capacity of your muscles. In addition to this, niacin has a pronounced blood flow enhancing effect, and better blood flow to your hard training muscles equals a better supply of important nutrients, oxygen and endogenous anabolic hormones.
Vitamin B6
Vitamin B6 is needed by your body for virtually 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.
