Beta alanine
Picture the scene, you’re deep in an event. You’re pushing hard. Your limbs are starting to ache. You can feel the lactate building and you can see the competition ready to power past you. In this scenario, middle- and long-distance events going above your lactate threshold and into the red will result in rapid fatigue and a decrease in performance. Short/sprint distance events, albeit brief, will be in the red for the vast majority of the event with fatigue setting in quickly as the two pools of fast-acting energy (phosphocreatine and anaerobic glycolysis) rapidly depleted. That will be the same regardless of the sport, don’t blame me, blame physiology and lactate accumulation. Whether you’re Joe Bloggs or Eluid Kipchoge, we all have to battle against fatigue. If only there were a way to blunt or delay the effects of accumulating lactate…Enter stage left Beta-Alanine.
Beta-Alanine is a non-essential amino acid, meaning it’s naturally occurring within the human body. Beta-Alanine’s main selling point is the ability to enhance your buffering capacity, therefore delaying the effects of lactate. It achieves this neat trick by binding to a particular protein, histidine, and creating carnosine. Now, we already produce carnosine which helps to buffer lactate but not to the extent that it can handle excessive amounts. Picture taking all your shopping into your house in one trip except you’ve bought for two weeks, you can do it but you won’t get very far before something gives in. Beta-Alanine can increase carnosine levels by up to 80%. More carnosine, more buffering. More buffering, less fatigue.
Like creatine, beta-alanine requires a loading phase to build up beneficial levels to have a significant impact. The ideal dose for beta-alanine is 3-6g/day. There’s one side effect that you want to watch out for, the tingles are real and can make you feel horrendous. To avoid the tingle sensation split the dose into 2-4 servings and consistently load over a 4-6 week period to steadily increase your carnosine levels.
