Effect of BCAA supplement timing on exercise-induced muscle soreness and damage: a pilot placebo-controlled double-blind study.

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Copper (Supplement) in this randomized controlled trial publication.

The aim of the present study was to compare the effects of branched-chain amino acid (BCAA) supplementation taken before or after exercise on delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) and exercise-induced muscle damage (EIMD).

Who Took Part

The age groups tagged for this paper are young adults, men only.

Participants performed 30 repetitions of eccentric exercise with the non-dominant arm.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled and pilot study.

Because people in this Copper (Supplement) study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

Blinding on both sides kept the participants and researchers unaware of who received Copper (Supplement).

The comparison arm used a placebo, so changes seen with Copper (Supplement) could be set against what happens without it.

It is described as a pilot, a small early test of whether a larger Copper (Supplement) study would be practical.

DOMS, upper arm circumference (CIR), elbow range of motion (ROM), serum creatine kinase (CK), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), and aldolase, BCAA, and β-hydroxy-β-methylbutyrate (3HMB) were measured immediately before and after the exercise and on the following 4 days.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Amino Acids, Branched-Chain, Arm, Creatine Kinase, Dietary Supplements, Elbow Joint, Exercise and Fructose-Bisphosphate Aldolase.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Copper (Supplement).

Its findings take up roughly 4 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2018 (The Journal of sports medicine and physical fitness), a journal based in Italy.

More context: the Copper (Supplement) compound page, all human trials.