Intracellular buffers, such as carnosine, are the first line of defense against H+ and are therefore more important than extracellular buffers. Apart from the fact that carnosine is located in exactly the right place and buffers H+ in our cells, it has additional unique properties.
Other natural buffer systems in our body are used for many other cellular reactions in addition to buffering, which dilutes their buffering capabilities.
What makes carnosine really exciting is that by supplementing with additional beta alanine, we can specifically and significantly increase our carnosine levels.
Researchers have shown that by supplementing with beta alanine for 4 weeks, we can increase our carnosine concentration by 42-65%. Longer beta alanine studies, lasting between 10 and 12 weeks, showed that carnosine concentration increased by up to 80%. This is an incredible increase in the generally strong intracellular buffer.
This large increase in buffer capacity in our muscles is primarily responsible for the increases in strength, lean muscle mass, performance, and strength endurance that researchers observed in beta alanine studies.
By increasing carnosine concentration through beta alanine, our type 2 muscles can absorb more H+ and maintain an optimal pH value. If we ensure that our type 2 muscle fibers have an optimal pH value, they can maintain maximum
performance and endurance throughout the entire workout, thus stimulating new muscle growth.
Increasing carnosine levels with beta alanine is effective at any time, regardless of whether you are lifting heavy weights or doing endurance training. However, it has the greatest benefit in our energy system, which is called glycolysis.
Your body uses three energy systems to function:
- The ATP-P system (which is related to creatine), which is mainly used for heavy weight lifting and sets of 5-6 repetitions.
- The glycolytic system (which is related to beta alanine), which is mainly used for around 8-15 repetitions and more.
- The oxidative system/fat system, which is mainly activated during endurance training.
Our energy systems are used simultaneously, but it depends on the intensity or duration of the training and the fitness level of the individual whether certain energy systems are more dominant in the production of energy for this activity.
Anyone who trains with weights primarily uses the first two systems, and in both cases, the build-up of hydrogen ions in both systems, especially during glycolysis, contributes to fatigue.
The range of 8-15 repetitions is where creatine is less effective and where beta alanine is strongest.
Creatine is most effective in the ATP-PC system, which requires stored ATP and resynthesis with the help of phosphocreatine for intense, high-energy contractions.
Taking creatine increases your explosive power, but is less useful than beta alanine in the 8-15 rep range.
As anyone who wants to build muscle knows, you need to train in both the low (1-7) and medium to high (8-15) rep ranges to build maximum muscle mass. By increasing carnosine concentration, beta alanine can buffer/counteract the accumulation of H+ that occurs in both ranges.
However, it is most effective in the medium to high (8-15) repetition range. In contrast, creatine is more suitable than beta alanine in the low (5-6) repetition range.
Another strength of beta alanine is the reduction of cell
fatigue. A recent study shows that beta alanine actually produced better results than creatine in reducing cell fatigue, which is another advantage over the sports supplement that has been considered the most effective over the last decade.
To understand how beta alanine combats the drop in pH in our muscles, you first need to
understand how carnosine works. The reason for this is that the benefits of beta alanine for our performance are not direct, but rather result from its ability to accelerate the synthesis of carnosine.
Russian scientist Gulewitsch was the first person to identify carnosine in 1900. Eleven years later, he discovered its
amino acid components, beta alanine and histidine.
Seven years later, Barger and Tutin, and Baumann and Ingvaldsen confirmed Gulewitsch's findings. However, it was not until 1938 that the first studies on carnosine and its effects on muscle buffering were published.
Carnosine is a naturally occurring dipeptide found in both type 1 and type 2 muscle fibers. However, its concentration is significantly higher in type 2 fibers. Type 2 muscle fibers are primarily used in high-intensity strength training and are more responsive in terms of muscle growth.
When we exercise, especially during high-intensity training, large amounts of hydrogen ions (H+) accumulate in our bodies, causing the pH value of our muscles to drop (making the muscles more acidic). This process always occurs, regardless of whether you feel a burning sensation or not.
The breakdown of ATP and the subsequent increase in H+ concentration occurs in all of our energy systems. However, the most noticeable build-up of H+ occurs in an energy system called glycolysis, which also produces lactic acid.
At physiological pH, lactic acid secretes H+ and is therefore the main source of H+ ions released during exercise, which cause the pH value to drop. The H+ released by lactic acid leads to problems with muscle performance—the problem is therefore not the remaining lactic acid ions, as many mistakenly assume.
While lactic acid is the main source of released H+, it is not the only source. H+ ions are also released rapidly when the high-energy compound ATP is broken down during exercise. Since many sources of H+ are present during energy production, the pH value drops rapidly.
When the pH value in our muscles drops, our ability to perform forceful muscle contractions and perform at our best throughout the entire workout also decreases.
If you are unable to perform and maintain forceful muscle contractions and push your body to its limits during a workout, your ability to maximally stress your muscles and stimulate new muscle growth is significantly reduced.
In summary, H+ causes the pH level in your muscles to drop, which reduces your strength and causes you to tire more quickly. These limitations prevent you from adequately overloading your muscles and stimulating the growth of NEW muscle.
Performance studies on beta alanine currently focus specifically on its ability to increase carnosine levels and the positive effects of increased carnosine levels on buffering the increased H+ concentration and the subsequent drop in pH in the muscles.
While this mechanism of action is currently most supported by research, carnosine has several other functions that performance studies without training show may have potential benefits for training performance.
Some of these mechanisms are again related to the effects of carnosine on muscle pH, while others work independently of the pH-stabilizing effects of carnosine.
Other potential ways in which beta alanine can influence performance by increasing carnosine levels:
- Elimination of intracellular free radicals associated with cell fatigue, i.e., the potential influence on the calcium uptake necessary for the process of muscle contraction
- Regulating/activating Ca2+ from the sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR), which is crucial for the process of muscle contraction and also ties in with the potential synergy of carnosine and caffeine
- Enzyme regulator and activator within the various energy systems
- Reduction of pH, which affects ATP production and myosin-actin affinity (contractile components of muscle fibers)
- Connection between carnosine and NOS/vasodilation
The connection between beta alanine and carnosine. We can increase our carnosine levels by increasing our intake of beta alanine, which is one of the two amino acids that make up carnosine.
When you take carnosine in isolation, most of it is broken down in the digestive tract into its components, the amino acids beta alanine and histidine. Some intact carnosine escapes the digestive tract, but even this is quickly broken down in our blood by the enzyme carnosinase.
In a very short time, all of the carnosine you take in is either eliminated or converted into beta alanine and histidine. These two amino acids are then transported to the muscles, where they are converted back into carnosine.
This is the key point. Unfortunately, only about 40% of the carnosine you take in contains beta alanine, which makes it ineffective at best.
Both from an efficiency and financial standpoint, it is better to take beta alanine directly. You would have to consume significantly more carnosine to approach the levels of intramuscular carnosine that you would achieve by taking the recommended dose of beta alanine based on research findings.
That is why it is so important to take
beta alanine as a dietary supplement in order to concentrate carnosine in the muscles. When you take beta alanine, your body transports it to your muscles and combines it with histidine with the help of the enzyme carnosine synthetase to build carnosine in the muscles.
Beta alanine does not replace creatine. As shown above, the two substances work in very different ways, and creatine is still effective for increasing maximum strength and performance. Ideally, the two should be taken together as the ultimate combination.
A frequently asked question is whether there is a synergy between beta alanine and keratin. For a variety of reasons, it seems likely that beta alanine and creatine have a synergy.
This may be proven by future studies. At the moment, however, performance studies have shown that the two substances do NOT have synergistic effects. Regardless of the synergy, taking beta alanine and creatine appears to be a great combination from a strength/performance/lean muscle standpoint.
Performance studies using beta alanine and creatine (BA+K) have shown that taking beta alanine and creatine together produces better results than taking either substance alone. This leads people to believe that there is a synergy between the two substances. However, the situation is not quite so simple, and it is therefore wrong to assume this.
While it is true that taking these two substances together has proven to be more effective than taking a single substance in MOST performance studies, research does not support any synergistic effects from taking the two substances together.
For example, beta alanine increases performance by a certain amount, let's say 1%, and creatine alone also increases performance by 1%, again an arbitrary number. When taken together, their performance improves compared to taking them individually, resulting in a 2% increase.
If a combination were to lead to synergistic effects, the increase in overall performance would be greater than 2%. If they were synergistic, the effect of the two active ingredients would be greater than the sum of the individual values.
To date, no performance studies show that this is the case, and the results of all studies show that there are NO synergistic effects between the two substances.
Since creatine works within a limited pH range, it would be reasonable to assume that beta alanine, which helps maintain the optimal pH value, would enhance creatine. However, this has not yet been confirmed by research results.
Regardless of the synergy, beta alanine and creatine work differently and complement each other very well in their effects.
