There are many ingredients you can use to get a better body. You’ll find many of these ingredients in both food and supplements. The ingredient you’ll learn about today is beta-alanine.
As many people are focusing on their health and staying active, it’s no surprise that beta-alanine supplement usage is on the rise. One study found that the beta-alanine market will increase by a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.5% from 2022 to 2030.
Beta-alanine can play a crucial role in enhancing your energy while reducing muscle fatigue. So, what does beta-alanine do? That’s what I’m here to help answer!
First, you’ll quickly learn what beta-alanine is and what it does. Next, you’ll find out about the benefits and side effects of beta-alanine. Lastly, we’ll wrap things up with a look at a few great beta-alanine supplements.
What does beta-alanine do?
Beta-alanine is something called a naturally-occurring, non-essential amino acid. Naturally occurring means that your body already produces it.
Do you know that burning feeling stopping you from doing even more rep? When you feel a burn so intense and muscles so weak that you have to set down your weights? Yeah, those feelings are the fault of lactic acid.
As the body processes beta-alanine, it creates something called carnosine. Once carnosine hits the body, it reduces lactic acid from building up. You won’t be able to lift weights forever or anything like that. But you should notice more endurance as you perform high-intensity exercises.
What foods contain beta-alanine?
Besides asking yourself: “what does beta-alanine do? You may also want to know how to get more of it into your diet.
You don’t have to spend time taking beta-alanine supplements, depending on what foods you eat. Protein-rich foods such as eggs, red meat, chicken, and fish all contain beta-alanine.
But how can vegans or vegetarians get protein? It would seem impossible since beta-alanine comes from what’s found in the muscles of animals. However, a recent innovation called CarnoSyn is a plant-based form of beta-alanine.
Beta-alanine benefits
You’ve learned about the basics of beta-alanine. Now, let’s find out why this non-essential amino acid is so beneficial. Here’s a closer look at beta-alanine benefits.
Increasing muscle size
If you use dietary supplements, you’ll probably see beta-alanine on the ingredient labels of more than a few products. That’s because beta-alanine plays an important role in improving your overall exercise performance.
When you have less lactic acid building up, muscle fatigue kicks in slower. After continuing this type of high-intensity exercise, muscle growth soon follows.
Boosting your endurance
Another important factor for a great workout is endurance. Understandably, due to the lives we lead, having a lot of endurance isn’t always possible. Fortunately, beta-alanine supplementation might help you out.
When you take beta-alanine, it lowers what’s known as your time to exhaustion or TTE. This time to exhaustion is how long your muscles take before wearing out. You’ll also know this time arrives when you can’t go another mile or perform another rep.
Since beta-alanine improves your muscle carnosine levels, you can produce more muscle during and after working out.
Getting better results with high-intensity training
You can gain lean muscle mass in many ways. A simple Google search can turn up page after page of workout programs. Considering that, some people want to improve exercise performance through high-intensity training.
If you enjoy intense training, beta-alanine may bring you even better results. According to the American Physiological Society, beta-alanine can specifically improve your performance during this type of training.
Can beta-alanine cause any side effects?
In natural amounts, beta-alanine isn’t known to cause side effects. However, not being careful with beta-alanine supplementation or being sensitive to this ingredient can cause unwanted outcomes. Here’s more information about potential beta-alanine side effects.
A tingling sensation
As many who are supplementing with beta-alanine can tell you, this supplement can produce a tingling sensation. And around the internet, you’ll see people who love the tingling and others who hate it.
Personally, especially since I know it will always go away in time, tingles from supplementing with beta-alanine don’t bother me. But I can understand if you don’t want this sensation to happen.
The best thing to remember from experiencing tingles from this ingredient is that they’re temporary. In most cases, these tingles shouldn’t last for more than 30 minutes to an hour.
If this feeling is really bugging you out, I’d recommend drinking some water. Typically, water can flush this ingredient out of your system a little faster than normal. Just don’t chug a lot of ice-cold water after a workout. That could make you puke.
Don’t want any part of beta-alanine? We get it. Here’s a list of beta-alanine-free pre-workouts.
Red, patchy skin in certain spots
This sensation involves your response to beta-alanine. Besides making the skin tingle, beta-alanine might also cause you to experience an itchy sensation. As is the case with the tingles, this itching will go away within 30 minutes to an hour.
During this time, it’s not uncommon to feel slight itching sensations throughout your body. Don’t worry – you’re not going to be anyone around you suspicious. The itching from beta-alanine isn’t that bad. But it can cause temporary redness where you’ve been scratching.
Top-rated beta-alanine supplements
Typically, people who want to get in better shape won’t get enough beta-alanine from food. Fortunately, you can increase your beta-alanine consumption in a safe way with a supplement. The following supplements can help you enhance athletic performance, especially during high-intensity interval training.
1. ALLMAX Nutrition Beta-Alanine: Top-rated beta-alanine supplement
If you want to find out what beta-alanine does, you’ll definitely want to check out a supplement from ALLMAX Nutrition. This supplement can help improve your muscle carnosine concentrations and deliver excellent workout results.
Each serving of this supplement has 3.2 grams of beta-alanine per serving to give your muscle cells the fuel they need. Plus, you don’t have to worry about lactic acid accumulation wreaking havoc on your workouts.
What I like about this supplement is that it’s truly flavorless. I mix this supplement with water or juice and can never detect the powder. After all, no one wants beta-alanine supplements that taste like garbage.
This supplement starts going into effect about 20 to 30 minutes after taking it. Once that time arrives, you should notice improved muscular endurance and enhanced overall performance during your next workout.
2. BulkSupplements.com Beta-Alanine: Lowest-priced option
Another supplement that pairs well with high-intensity exercise is from a company called BulkSupplements.com. This company manufactures high-quality supplements at insanely low prices.
BulkSupplements.com sells only ingredients. So, you won’t find name-brand supplements on this website. However, the advantage of that is this company’s rock-bottom pricing.
Each serving of this company’s beta-alanine supplement contains 3 grams of this ingredient per serving. With prices starting at only $11.96 (as of this writing), this supplement is one of the cheapest ways to improve your body composition.
3. Nutricost Beta-Alanine: Another popular pick
Another pick that had to be included was a beta-alanine supplement from Nutricost. As with the other picks, this supplement can help boost your carnosine levels and improve your athletic performance.
This supplement is available in either a 10.6-ounce or 1.1-pound bulk option. Nutricost Beta-Alanine mixes easily, which is great when you hate dealing with clumpy mixed supplement drinks. You can find this supplement in many online stores, including Amazon.
I hope this post helped answer the question: what does beta-alanine do? If you need more beta-alanine than what your body supplies, it’s always possible to get this important amino acid from food and supplements. While this amino acid isn’t for everyone, other people love beta-alanine’s help with packing on muscle mass.