Intra-Workout Supplements Explained
You’ve heard of pre-workout supplements and recovery supplements, but what are intra-workout supplements? They are supplements that you consume during your workout to maximize the session, replenish necessary nutrients for building muscle and strength, and decrease levels of muscle-limiting hormones. Continue reading to learn more about what intra-workout supplements are and how they work.
Increases Gym Performance
Intra-workout supplements help you reach peak gym performance, so you can build muscle faster. In order to understand how intra-workout supplements trigger peak performance in the gym, you must know muscle energy reserves influence your performance. Intense exercise depletes your body of amino acids, electrolytes, and glycogen, which are necessary substances for reaching peak gym performance. When you don’t have enough amino acids, electrolytes, and glycogen in your body, you won’t get the most out of your workout. Intra-workout supplements solve this problem by replenishing these crucial substances.
Fosters Gains in Size and Strength
Two ways that intra-workout supplements foster gains in size and strength are by creating an optimal anabolic environment and by activating peak gym performance. Muscle growth is inhibited when your body becomes low on glycogen during intense workouts. Many catabolic factors that interfere with maximum muscular development and strength production are naturally released during training.
The best intra-workout supplements are designed to minimize catabolic interference with muscular development and strength production, so you can enjoy impressive gains in size and strength. If catabolic hormones are high enough in your body, your muscles will decrease in size and strength, the last thing you want!
Researchers found through a clinical study conducted at Charles Sturt University in Australia that participants who were given intra-workout supplementation increased their maximum leg strength 39% more than subjects who weren’t given intra-workout supplementation. The intra-workout supplementation that test subjects took consisted of six grams of essential amino acids and 6% liquid carbohydrates. After their workouts, scientists checked their hormone adaptations, muscular adaptations, and biochemical responses. Another benefit of intra-workout supplementation for the test subjects was an increase in muscle fibers across Type I, Type IIa, and Type IIb muscle fibers.
Reduces Levels of a Muscle-Limiting Hormone
If you use resistance training, then you should consider intra-workout supplementation because resistance training increases levels of a muscle-limiting hormone in your body. One way to reduce these muscle-limiting hormones is to take intra-workout supplements. Another downside of resistance training is it boosts the rate of muscle protein turnover, which results in an increase in protein synthesis and degradation. Supplementation during workout will help fight this barrier to muscle growth by ensuring proper nutrition for your body.
Improves Net Muscle Protein Balance in the Early Stage of Recovery
Research has found that net muscle protein balance is negative during the early stages of recovery. You can achieve a positive net muscle protein balance for the early recovery period through intra-workout supplementation. Net muscle protein balance is protein synthesis minus breakdown. If this number is negative, you’re losing potential muscle. Insulin indirectly influences net muscle protein balance. A rise in insulin concentration causes a decrease in plasma amino acid concentrations. This reduction in amino acid availability slows down muscle protein breakdown. Because the breakdown is slowed, you have potential for greater muscle gain.
Why Can’t You Take a Recovery Supplement During Workout?
You might have the idea to take a recovery supplement during your workout to avoid having to buy intra-workout supplements. However, recovery supplements won’t deliver the benefits outlined in this article, and your body will still show a negative net muscle protein balance, higher levels of muscle-limiting hormones, and depletion of amino acids, electrolytes, and glycogen.
Mechanical digestion, the digestive process of gleaning nutrients from food, is the reason why recovery supplements won’t cut it. 25% of your blood flows to the gut when mechanical digestion is signaled. As a result, your oxygenation and pump would suffer. Intra-workout supplements DON’T trigger the mechanical digestive process. Thus, you can reap the amazing muscle gaining and strength building benefits of these supplements during the most intense of training.
Intra-workout supplements help you gain more muscle, improve strength, and reach peak performance during your workout. They speed up the process of building muscle and strength by slowing down muscle degradation during recovery and supplying necessary nutrients to the body during exercise without causing mechanical digestion.
They also reduce the amount of muscle-limiting hormones that naturally release in your body from strength training. Intra-workout supplementation helps you pack on the lean sexy muscle you’re after without harming your body.
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