By Brian Maslach, founder of Enduro Bites and competitive endurance athlete. Brian has raced mountain bikes, gravel, and cyclocross for over two decades and built Beta Red from the ground up to solve his own performance nutrition needs.
I spent more than 18 months developing Beta Red Performance Formula. My goal, as always, was to develop nutrition to help you perform better and reach your goals. In this post, I'm exploring the three key amino acids that drive beta-alanine endurance performance benefits in Beta Red: Beta-Alanine, Citrulline Malate, and Betaine. In this first segment, I'll cover Beta-Alanine.
What Is Beta-Alanine?
Fair warning: I'm about to get a little scientific. Beta-alanine is a naturally-occurring, non-essential amino acid. In the body, it and another amino acid, histidine, are combined to form carnosine — a dipeptide found in muscle and brain cells. Carnosine has antioxidant-like effects on certain proteins and can help prevent toxic protein waste buildup in the body, increasing the performance of each cell. Because of its role in keeping cells healthy, carnosine has also been linked with longevity and aging.
A Beta-Alanine molecule
How Does It Work in Your Muscles?
One of carnosine's primary interests to researchers and athletes alike is as an intracellular buffer. It decreases acidity by removing hydrogen ions generated during intense physical activity. This pH regulation allows muscles to function better under intense workloads — which is exactly why beta-alanine endurance performance benefits are so well-documented in the research literature.
Why Beta-Alanine Instead of Carnosine Directly?
Since I'm talking about carnosine, why not include it directly in Beta Red instead of beta-alanine? Much of the carnosine you consume in foods is actually broken down into beta-alanine and histidine during digestion, which means these amino acids then need to be converted back into carnosine in muscle tissue. Because of this, it's more efficient to consume beta-alanine to increase muscle carnosine concentration.
Is beta-alanine found in normal food? Yes! Meats, poultry, and some beans are the main dietary sources, although the quantity is far less than in a serving of Beta Red. Fun fact: the more metabolic activity an animal had during its life, the higher the levels of both beta-alanine and carnosine you'll find (so free-range meat sources are more beneficial). That's great news for meat eaters — but carnosine levels tend to be lower in vegetarians, which makes Beta Red even more powerful if you're sticking to a plant-based diet.
What Does This Mean for Your Training?
Due to its previously mentioned effects, beta-alanine endurance performance improvements are most pronounced during repeated high-intensity efforts of 60–240 seconds — weight training, stand-alone sprints, or accelerations and short climbs during a longer endurance workout or race. Some research also shows it reduces the perception of fatigue during exercise near exhaustion, giving you that last little kick to cross the line first.
While you'll experience benefits from your first serving of Beta Red, regular use will lead to increased muscle carnosine concentration due to its beta-alanine content, and this can last in excess of 8 weeks after you've stopped drinking it.
The Tingling Effect — What It Means
Beta-alanine is responsible for the slight tingling you might notice when you sip Beta Red before your race or workout. This effect can be lessened by consuming a carbohydrate-rich food while drinking Beta Red. Research indicates this carbohydrate/beta-alanine combination may also yield better results than beta-alanine alone — so don't hesitate to blend Beta Red into your pre-workout smoothies or eat a carbohydrate-rich snack while drinking it.
The bottom line: if you're an endurance athlete looking to maximize beta-alanine endurance performance, Beta Red Performance Formula will allow you to get more out of your training and perform better on race day.