Effects of a commercially available branched-chain amino acid-alanine-carbohydrate-based sports supplement on perceived exertion and performance in high intensity endurance cycling tests.

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Copper (Supplement), published as a randomized controlled trial.

The aim of the present study was to determine whether the intake of a commercially available BCAA-based supplement, taken according to the manufacturer's recommendations, could affect the rating of perceived exertion (RPE) and performance indexes at the beginning (1d) and end of a 9-week (9w) scheduled high intensity interval training program, with an experimental approach integrating the determination of psychometric, performance, metabolic and blood biochemical parameters.

Who Took Part

PubMed indexes the participants as young adults, both men and women.

Thirty-two untrained, healthy young adults (20 males and 12 female) were enrolled.

A high-intensity endurance cycling (HIEC) test was used to induce fatigue in the participants: HIEC consisted in ten 90 s sprints interspersed by ten 3 min recovery phases and followed by a final step time to exhaustion was used.

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled and parallel-group.

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Copper (Supplement) and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

Neither the participants nor the staff measuring them knew who was on Copper (Supplement), so expectations could not easily colour the readings.

Some participants received a placebo instead of Copper (Supplement), giving a reference point.

The Copper (Supplement) group and the comparison group ran side by side rather than switching.

This was a randomized double-blind placebo-controlled study.

Dietary habits and training load were monitored during the entire training period.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Alanine, Amino Acids, Branched-Chain, Athletic Performance, Carbohydrates, Dietary Supplements, Exercise Test and High-Intensity Interval Training.

The authors tagged it with the keywords Branched-chain amino acids (BCAA), Central fatigue, Creatine kinase (CK), Endurance exercise, Rating of perceived exertion (RPE) and Training impulse (TRIMP).

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 5 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2020 (Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition), a journal based in United States.

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