The intra-workout drink may add nothing over the carbs alone
Ten trained men took 5.6 g of branched-chain amino acids with 30.6 g of carbohydrate and built muscle protein faster than on carbohydrate alone, on a difference that still touches zero.
What the study found
Adding BCAAs to a carbohydrate drink: a gain, or possibly nothing
This is the version sold as an intra-workout drink. Ten trained men took 5.6 g of branched-chain amino acids with 30.6 g of carbohydrate and built muscle protein faster than on carbohydrate alone, on a difference whose interval still touches zero. Insulin rose the same either way.
The caveat · Same lab repeating its own design
Ten men, one four-hour window, no size or strength endpoint. A p value of .039 and an interval running from -0.002 to 0.028 do not agree, and the interval is the more cautious reading. Same laboratory and near-identical design to the same group's 2017 trial, so the two are not independent.
What we don't know
Ten men, one four-hour window, no size or strength endpoint. A p value of .039 and an interval running from -0.002 to 0.028 do not agree, and the interval is the more cautious reading. Same laboratory and near-identical design to the same group's 2017 trial, so the two are not independent.