Updated to be more accurate

I just ordered some BCAAS online as I heard they help muscle growth and rest periods after a workout. Since they were cheap as hell I jumped on the bandwagon, and after digging for studies, well, I’ll just drop the suspense here:

5g of BCAAS boosts muscle protein synthesis by 22% over a placebo, but this is only half of what a whey protein dose does. Or in other words, your whey shakes boost MPS by 44% over a placebo.

However, BCAAs have also shown results in reducing the severity and length of Delayed Onset Soreness (DOMs).

If you don’t know what BCAAs are, they are 3 specific essential amino acids. Essential means that your body can’t synthesize them (all nutrients are otherwise “essential” for survival), and amino acids are molecules that combine together to make different proteins. There are 9 essential amino acids (eggs hit 8 of those btw), and BCAAS select three that are “branched chains”. I’m not entirely sure why these three are considered special but this is not required knowledge to understand the results. Whey protein hits all 9 of your essential amino acids.

Note that we’re talking about Muscle Protein Synthesis here, which means your body’s creation of protein that promote muscle growth. It doesn’t mean 22% extra muscle mass.

The results make sense. 9 essential AAs is better than just 3 – though one could also expect BCAAs to be 2/3rds less powerful at muscle protein synthesis than whey, which is not the case.

Still, I wouldn’t knock them out entirely. They are available in pill form, and can be consumed by vegans and lactose intolerant people. Whey is also very heavy on the stomach and kidneys. BCAAs don’t promote muscle growth as much as whey, but they still help out a lot compared to nothing. They also help with DOMs which whey doesn’t – up to you to decide if that’s a huge problem in your life or not!

Based on these studies, I would recommend to take your BCAAs after your workout and maybe the day after, if you have DOMs. 5g in pill form is quite a few pills, but you can crush them and add them to your shake and you don’t need to take it on days you don’t work out.

In my case, my other supplement is collagen which I’ve been taking for a few months with great results (in studies done on various populations, 15g of collagen a day boosts fat-free mass [muscle mass] significantly over a placebo). I’m excited to try out both at the same time and see what it does.

This is all taken from my favourite fitness website: https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/benefits-of-bcaa#TOC_TITLE_HDR_1, which always sources their articles with serious studies.