Beta Alanine Supplementation

Think back to the first time you did a few rounds of intense pad work. If you’re like most people, you were probably gasping for within only minutes and hanging with your arms over the ropes between rounds.

It’s a frustrating feeling to be honest. You want to push forward and continue but you just can’t. I’ve felt like this after only the first round in a five-round pad work session.

Sure, you dig deep and drive through it so because you don’t want the trainer to think you’re a quitter but their comes a point where you strikes get so weak that upon hitting the pad, the trainer sort of chuckles and says “no power”.

Well, there’s a reason for that. With high intensity training comes the accumulation of lactic acid. Lactic acid is a bi-product of anaerobic metabolism that has a negative effect on muscular contraction.

If you’re new to training at high intensities, your ability to buffer this lactic acid accumulation will be poor. The more you train, the more you adapt. Eventually – with the proper training routine – you’ll be able to increase your lactate threshold and continue through all 5 rounds with ease.

Well, there’s now a supplement out there that will help you buffer this lactic acid accumulation. It’s called beta alanine and it’s being touted as the next “wonder supplement”.

Beta Alanine Supplements for Muay Thai Fighters

Before I even get into the science aspect of how it works, I’ll go on record to give beta alanine my personal testimonial and say that it does work.

Upon taking a couple pills about 30 minutes before my training session, there’s a noticeable difference in my stamina. If I take it for a few days straight and forget for a day, I notice myself getting fatigued a lot quicker.

The benefits of beta alanine are not from the beta alanine itself. Rather, the beneficial occurrences are from a dipeptide known as carnosine. Carnosine is formed through the combination of beta alanine and histidine (another amino acid).

Carnosine has been shown to effectively buffer lactic acid accumulation (discussed above), allowing you to train at a higher intensity for a longer period of time before fatigue sets in.

Muay Thai, as we all know, is a high intensity sport so prolonging the inevitable rise in pH levels through beta alanine supplementation are fairly obvious.

The elevated levels of carnosine – which are triggered through beta alanine supplementation – have also been shown to enhance the maximum contractile speed of your muscle fibers. Faster and more efficient muscle contractions – sounds beneficial for a Muay Thai fighter, doesn’t it?

If all this wasn’t enough, beta alanine supplementation may also lead to enhanced neural recovery between training sessions. It’s long been thought that the nervous system takes longer to fully recovery from intense workouts than your muscles do.

This delayed neural recovery can be quite a hindrance. While you’re muscles may be fully recovered, oftentimes the nervous system isn’t.

It is speculated that the elevated carnosine levels – which are triggered through beta alanine supplementation – protect the nerve cells against oxidative damage. In other words, supplementing with beta alanine may help your nervous system to recover at the same rate as your muscles – which in turn will allow you to train more often.