Adequate hydration is crucial for performance in active people. In the body, water acts as a solute and solvent; a carrier, coolant, shock absorber and more. During exercise, water protects working muscles from overheating by circulating heat and redistributing it throughout the body via the bloodstream. Sweat, which is mostly water, evaporates off the skin to help release that heat and cool your core temperature. The longer a workout lasts, the more water is lost through sweat and therefore must be replaced to allow the body to continue to do the important job of cooling.

When it comes to how you should hydrate during exercise to prevent large weight losses and dehydration there are two approaches: following a “schedule” to replace fluids or simply relying on thirst to guide fluid intake during and after exercise. Below, we explain these approaches in more detail — and offer tips to help you develop the best hydration plan for you.

Static fluid recommendations, somewhat independent of thirst, have been used to guide athletes on the proper amount to consume before, during and after workouts to prevent dehydration. The biggest reason for such recommendations is actually a small innate “problem” with thirst. Your thirst is triggered after we become slightly dehydrated (approximately 1.7–3.5%). This means that an athlete might already be on their way to a state of significant dehydration when their thirst mechanism kicks in. In addition,stopping to drink when thirsty may not be feasible for some athletes. Or even more likely, an athlete may not be in tune with their thirst drive due to focusing on their training or competition.

Climate is another factor that challenges your thirst mechanism. When exercising in very hot weather (high 90s and above), your thirst may not be a strong enough drive to replace the water lost from sweat. Surprisingly, cold weather (41°F degrees or lower) also poses a challenge because it can increase the level of dehydration required to initiate thirst. You should therefore be vigilant about fluid intake in either very hot or cold temperatures.

Approach #1: Following a Hydration “Schedule”
For all these reasons, the most widely used fluid recommendations encourage athletes to not rely solely on thirst to guide their intake. Rather you should implement a regular rhythm of fluid intake that has been practiced and mastered in training and leads to a desirable performance outcome. This might look like drinking 4–6 sips of fluid every 15–30 minutes, regardless of thirst. Strict rehydration rules should also be followed after a workout to compensate for water-related weight loss.

Approach #2: Listening to Your Thirst
While those recommendations are a great starting place, some research suggests that athletes, particularly endurance athletes, need more individualized guidance that is driven by the body’s natural signals of thirst. Even though thirst is initiated after mild dehydration, some studies show that fluid intake driven by thirst alone is adequate for maintaining performance and recovering properly after exercise. This is especially the case in distance runners, to whom overhydration and subsequent hyponatremia (dangerously low sodium levels in the blood) can easily happen due to a fear of not drinking enough.

In this thirst-driven approach, athletes should therefore consume both water and sports drinksthroughout their training and competition and follow their thirst to guide intake. While mild levels of dehydration may occur, some studies show that thirst-driven intake adequately replaced losses in the 24 hours following a workout.

Blending Them Together
So which of these schools of thought is right for you? There are lessons you can take from each of these perspectives to craft your own personal hydration strategy. As with all elements of sports nutrition, finding your perfect routine comes from practice.

Try out these suggestions to determine your ideal hydration plan:

1. Track your weight before and after exercise to get a general idea of how much you sweat. If you lose more than 2% of your body weight during a workout, you may need to drink more fluid. Conversely, if you gain weight during a workout, you probably drank more fluid than you needed. Try listening to your thirst cues to see if it better guides your intake.
2. If you have to urinate frequently during exercise, you may be drinking too much. If you have small amounts of dark urine during the day of your training, you probably did not drink enough or rehydrate with enough fluid.
3. Whenever you begin a new season of training or your climate changes to hotter or colder temperatures, a set hydration strategy may be beneficial. Start with a guideline of 4–6 sips of fluid every 15–30 minutes.
4. When stakes are low, practice listening to your thirst as your guide for drinking during training. Use the first three suggestions above to determine how successful you were.
5. If you are a slower-pace endurance runner (a marathon runner with a pace of 4 ½ hours or longer), be mindful of overhydrating during long runs and races. Use your thirst, weight change and urination rate to determine the best hydration strategy for you.
6. Ensure you start your workout adequately hydrated. Urine volume and color can be a good indicator. A small amount of dark-colored urine likely indicates low hydration levels.
7. Be aware of the symptoms of dehydration: dry mouth, headache, fatigue, dry skin, rapid heartbeat, rapid breathing and dizziness.

Written By My Fitness Pal

So you go to the gym twice a week, hit the weights a bit, do some cardio and crunches, and on your off days yoga does the trick. But you look the same as you did a year ago — what gives? Turns out, the key to unlocking strength and tone is finding exercises that recruit a large amount of muscle fiber. For stronger, more visibly defined arms, try throwing these moves into the weightlifting portion of your workout for the next eight weeks, and watch your arms go from good to amazing!

The Workout

1. Dead-Hang Chin-up Grasp a pull-up bar with an underhand, shoulder-width grip. Pull your shoulder blades down towards your tailbone and draw them in towards your spine (a). Pull yourself up so that your collarbone is in line with the pull-up bar (b). Take four seconds to lower yourself down to the starting position, keeping the shoulders down and back throughout. That’s one rep. NOTE: If you cannot pull yourself up, loop an exercise band around the pull-up bar and place your knee in it to decrease the level of difficulty.  Sets: 3, Reps: As many as possible, Rest: 120 seconds between sets

2. Zottman Curl Grasp a pair of dumbbells and hold them at your sides, palms facing inwards (a). Curl the weights up, turning your hands so that your palms face you (b). At the top of the motion, turn your hands so that the palms face away from you and take three seconds to lower the weights. That’s one rep.  Sets: 3, Reps: 8-12, Rest: 90 seconds between sets

3. EZ-Bar Drag Curl Grasp the two handles of a resistance band with palms facing in, standing on the midpoint of the band (a). Pull your elbows back as you perform a bicep curl, as if dragging a bar along the front of your body, shoulders down and back throughout, until your hands reach your breastbone (b). Hold the position for one second, then take three seconds to lower yourself back to the starting position. That’s one rep.  Sets: 3, Reps: 8-12, Rest: 120 seconds between sets

4. Neutral-Grip Tricep Extension
Attach a rope attachment to the high pulley of a cable cross machine. Grasp the rope with two hands (one on each end) and hold the knobs at the bottom together. Push your hips back slightly and pull your elbows down towards your sides so that your upper arms are parallel to the floor and there is a 90-degree bend in your elbows (a). Without moving your upper arms, extend your arms until completely straight, and slowly return to the 90-degree bend in your elbows (b).
Sets: 4. Reps: 12-15. Rest: 60 seconds between sets.

5. Tricep Kickback
Grasp one end of a resistance band in your right hand and place your left hand on your hip with feet staggered, right leg back, so that you can bring your torso nearly parallel to the floor. Row the band up until your upper arm is in line with your torso; this is the start position (a). Push the band back so that your arm is totally straight, then lift the entire arm up so it is at a 10-degree angle to your torso (b). Slowly return to the start position. Repeat on the opposite side.
Sets: 4, Reps: 12-15, Rest: 90 seconds between sets

6. EZ-Bar Lying Tricep Extension
Grasp an EZ bar on the outside grips and lie face up on a bench. Press the bar over your chest. With the arms still straight, allow them to come back a bit so that your upper arms are slightly past perpendicular to your torso (a). From this position, slowly allow your elbows to bend, keeping the upper arms completely still, until the bar touches the top of your head (b). Return to the start position.
Sets: 3, Reps: 10-12, Rest: 120 seconds between sets

Written By Daily Burn

With literally hundreds of different supplements available and so many that are based on bogus claims and ridiculous hype, it’s almost impossible to find even one that delivers results. If you’ve rummaged through the garbage of the supplement scrap heap, you know that finding any science or real-world proof is a waste of time. Beta-Alanine is the exception. Finally, a supplement that actually lives up to its claims. Beta-Alanine efficacy is backed by major university, peer-reviewed studies performed on humans, not a cell, rat or goat study upon which other products typically base claims. The science behind beta-alanine is simple, it makes sense and it works. The information on this site, was designed to be used as a beta-alanine guide and is organized in a hands-on, easy-to-follow approach manner- with no fancy biochemistry or confusing graphs.

What is Beta-Alanine and where do we get it?

Beta-Alanine is a non-essential amino acid and is the only naturally occurring beta-amino acid. Not to be confused with regular alanine, beta- alanine is classified as a non-proteinogenic amino acid, as it is not believed to be used in the building of proteins.

The greatest natural dietary sources of beta-alanine are believed to be obtained through ingesting the beta-alanine containing dipeptides: carnosine, anserine and balenine, rather than directly ingesting beta-alanine. These dipeptides are found in protein rich foods such as chicken, beef, pork and fish. It is predominantly through ingesting the dipeptide carnosine that we ingest most of our beta-alanine, as the two other dipeptides are not found nearly as plentiful in our typical coniferous diet. However, obtaining beta-alanine through these dipeptides is not the only way, as our bodies can synthesize it in the liver from the catabolism of pyrimidine nucleotides which are broken down into uracil and thymine and then metabolized into beta-alanine and B-aminoisobutyrate. Of course, it can also be ingested through direct supplementation which is the focus of this article.

Below is a list of the benefits from beta-alanine, supported by peer-reviewed university research, published in reputable science journals.

Benefits of Beta-Alanine as supported by scientific studies:

• Increase Muscular Strength & Power Output.
• Increases Muscle Mass
• Increase Anaerobic Endurance
• Increases Aerobic Endurance
• Delay Muscular Fatigue- Train Harder & Longer

Who can benefit from beta-alanine?

1. Weight lifters & Bodybuilders
2. High Intensity Cross Trained Athletes, Military Personal
3. MMA Fighters and sport specific training that require both strength and endurance.
4. Runners, Cyclists, soccer players, hockey players
5. Active individuals who have reached a training plateau and are looking for something to take them to the next level.
6. Men and women

What causes our muscles to lose strength,power and endurance during intense exercise?

When we exercise, especially when it’s high intensity exercise, our bodies accumulate a large amount of hydrogen ions (H+), causing our muscles pH to drop (become more acidic). This process is occurring whether you feel a burn or not.

The breakdown of ATP and the subsequent rise in H+ concentrations occur in all of our energy systems but H+ buildup is most prevalent in an energy system called glycolysis, which also produces lactic acid. At physiological pH, lactic acid dissociates H+ and is the primary source of released H+ ions during exercise, causing pH to drop. It is the released H+ from lactic acid that causes muscular performance problems, not the leftover lactate ions as many incorrectly believe. While lactic acid is the primary source of released H+, it is not the only source. H+ ions are also being released at a rapid rate when you break down the high energy compound ATP during exercise. With the presence of many sources during energy production releasing H+, pH drops quickly.

As our muscles pH quickly drops, so does theirability to contract forcibly and maintain a high level of performance throughout your workout session. Not being able to perform and maintain forceful muscular contractions and push your body to the limit during your workout session, seriously hampers your ability to maximally overload your muscles and force new muscle gains.

In a nutshell, H+ causes your muscles pH to drop, in tern decreasing your strength and causing you to fatigue faster. These limitations stop you from adequately overloading your muscles and forcing NEW muscle gains

So how can beta-alanine help us overcome this drop in pH that limits exercise performance?

To understand how beta-alanine works to fight the drop in pH within our muscle, you must first understand how carnosine works. The reason being is, beta-alanine’s performance benefits are not direct but realized through its ability to boost the synthesis of carnosine.

Background on carnosine:

The Russian scientist Gulewitsch was the first to identify carnosine in 1900. Eleven years later, he would discover and identify its constituent amino acids, beta-alanine and histidine. Seven years later, Barger and Tutin and Baumann and Ingvaldsen confirmed Gulewitsch’s findings. However, it wasn’t until 1938 that the first research on carnosine and its effects on muscle buffering were published.

Carnosine is a naturally occurring di-peptide that is found in both type 1 and type 2 muscle fibers, but is in significantly higher concentrations in type 2 fibers. Type 2 muscle fibers are primarily used in high intensity strength workouts and are most responsive to muscular growth.

How does carnosine work?

There are a handful of ways carnosine is thought to impact performance but its most studied function, and the focus of this article, is its role as an intracellular buffer. Carnosine helps stabilize muscular pH by soaking up hydrogen ions (H+) that are released at an accelerated rate during exercise.

Our bodies work to keep our pH in balance by utilizing various buffering systems. Buffers largely work by soaking up H+ to maintain optimal pH balance, which we need to function most effectively. As mentioned above, our muscles function best in a specific pH range. When pH drops below that range, so does muscular performance. By helping to keep us in a more optimal pH range, our muscles can continue to contract forcibly for a longer time.

There are a handful of buffering systems that work in our bodies. Some maintain pH in extra cellular fluids (ECF) outside of the cell, while others perform their duties in intracellular fluids (ICF) inside the cell and some perform in both. Our focus in this article is on exercise performance and, as mentioned above, the primary source of H+ released during exercise is from lactic acid and ATP breakdown. Take a guess where this breakdown and release of H+ is occurring? If you guessed inside our muscles or intracellular, you would be correct. As a result, the first line of defense in absorbing the H+ is going to be the cell from intracellular buffers such as carnosine, not from extra cellular buffers.

Aside from carnosine being just where we need it, buffering H+ inside our cells, it has additional, unique attributes that make it really shine. Carnosine is unique; in that, other natural buffering systems our bodies use are also used in many other cellular reactions aside from buffering, watering down much of their buffering abilities. However, what makes carnosine really exciting, is that by supplementing with extra beta-alanine, we can specifically and dramatically increase carnosine levels. How much, you ask?

Researchers have shown that when supplementing with beta-alanine for just 4 weeks, we can increase our carnosine concentration by 42-65%. Longer beta-alanine studies going up to 10-12 weeks, show carnosine concentrations increased up to 80%. This is a tremendous increase in an already powerful intracellular buffer. It is this large increase in buffering capacity within our muscles that is largely responsible for the strength, lean body mass, power and muscular endurance gains that researchers are seeing from beta-alanine studies.

Section summary:

By boosting carnosine concentrations, with beta-alanine, our type 2 muscle fibers can soak up more H+ and stay in an optimal pH range. By keeping our type 2 muscle fibers in an optimal pH range, they are better able to maintain maximal strength and endurance throughout your workout session and bring on new muscle gains

Frequently asked questions

Is beta-alanine safe?

While this is not a frequently asked question, it should be. We understand many people care most about gaining muscle, looking great and performing at their best. But safety should not be overlooked. We believe it should actually be the first question asked when considering a new supplement, even before you question efficacy.

The answer to the safety question is a resounding YES. Studies, going up to 12 weeks of continued beta-alanine use, have looked at a large array of blood biochemical, hematological and hormonal markers and no negative changes have occurred whatsoever. While it is impossible to say beta-alanine is one hundred percent safe until longer term studies are complete, we do know that up to 12 weeks of continued beta-alanine supplementation is indeed safe.

Why not just take carnosine instead of beta-alanine?

When you ingest carnosine intact, most of it is broken down in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract into its constituent amino acids, beta-alanine and histidine. Some intact carnosine does escape the GI tract freely but even that amount is quickly broken down in our blood by the enzyme carnosinase. In a very short time, all the carnosine you just ingested is either eliminated or broken down into beta-alanine and histidine. These two amino acids are then taken into the muscle, where they are converted back into carnosine with the help of the enzyme carnosine synthetase.

Unfortunately, only about 40% of the carnosine you take actually contains beta-alanine, making it an inefficient source at best. You are better off, from both efficiency and a financial standpoint, taking beta-alanine directly. You would have to take substantially more carnosine just to approach the increased concentrations of carnosine achieved by taking the scientifically recommended dose of beta-alanine. Clearly, taking beta-alanine is the superior solution to increasing carnosine levels.

Shouldn’t I take extra histidine along with beta-alanine since histidine is a component of carnosine?

No, as histidine is already present in high concentrations in muscle, while beta-alanine is only present only in small amounts. Researchers have determined that it is beta-alanine that drives carnosine synthesis, not histidine. Since this has been proven repeatedly in research, there is no need to supplement with extra histidine to increase carnosine levels. There are potentially some select populations like vegans, vegetarians or the elderly that may not get enough histidine in their diets and are thus deficient, which may compromise optimal carnosine levels. But, we still don’t recommend taking just extra histidine with beta-alanine. Instead, we recommend these groups and simply bump up their total protein intake which will in turn solve their possible histidine deficiency. For the majority of healthy people, only beta-alanine is needed as histidine deficiency is rare and no extra supplementation is needed to increase carnosine concentrations.

How much Beta-Alanine is needed to cause performance increases?

Research has shown that you can take an amount between 3.2 grams and 6.4 grams per day to significantly boost carnosine levels and improve performance. The most recent research, now using 4-5 grams a day, is showing comparable carnosine concentration and performance improvements to those using 6.4 g daily. Based off the current research, we suggest 4 grams of beta-alanine a day, with an optional 2 week loading phase of 6 grams a day during the first month of use.

How long will it take to start noticing benefits?

Performance benefits typically occur in as little as two weeks, although some individuals will notice benefits within one week. As carnosine levels increase, the benefits will follow. The most dramatic results are generally experienced within the 3-4 week range but they don’t stop there. Recent research is now showing carnosine levels continue to increase for a minimum of 12 weeks which is why we recommend staying on Beta-Alanine for at least three months to optimize your carnosine levels.

Immediate benefits: Many users experience intense vasodilatation/pumps from the very first dose of Beta-Alanine. Because Beta-Alanine increases carnosine and carnosine is a powerful precursor in generating nitric oxide synthase (a group of enzymes necessary for making the powerful vasodilator nitric oxide), this is an added, immediate benefit of Beta-Alanine.

Written by Beta Alanine.info

How many times have you heard,
“I was holding water [or I watered out the day of the show, or I spilled over]”? If you’ve been around as long as I have, you’d wish you had a dollar each time you heard that. Water is the most important nutrient
in your body, which is 45% to 75% water. It depends on your amount of body fat. (For this article, let’s assume you worked your butt off and your body fat is 3% to 5% onstage.) As you can see, your body is very dependent on water and needs it to function. For many competitors, trying to get that last-minute edge in pulling water often leads to disaster. They end up looking flat, depleted, soft, and watery onstage, no
matter how low their body fat is. Why does this happen?