Building muscle and increasing strength requires hard work, dedication, and just as importantly, the ability to recover from intense workouts to build muscle as quickly as possible is huge. Doing the essential things like getting enough sleep, having a great nutrition plan, and periodizing your workouts are great things to do. But utilizing the best bcaa supplement of 2017 (branch chain amino acids), can boost your ability to build more muscle and boost the process of recovery tremendously.
Furthermore though, finding the top bcaa supplement of 2016 can be a challenge, that’s why we have done all the heavy lifting for you. We’ve put together a comprehensive chart of the best amino acid supplements on the market today. We’ve also included the top bcaa reviews with more in depth information. Check it out below.
Your Guide To Finding The Best BCAA Supplement
| Picture | Name | Flavor | Price | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scivation Xtend Workout Catalyst | 5 | $$ | 5 | |
| USP Labs Modern BCAA | 4.2 | $$ | 4.8 | |
| Muscletech Amino Build | 4.5 | $$ | 4.7 | |
| Muscle Pharm Amino 1 | 4.8 | $$ | 4.5 | |
| Bulk Supplements Pure BCAA | 4 | $ | 4.5 |
What Are BCAA’s?
Before we get into the bcaa reviews to find the top bcaa supplement for you, we first need to understand what they are, what they do and just what sort of bcaa benefits you can expect. Branched chain amino acids are the building blocks of protein, and therefore help immensely to build muscle. The 3 amino acids that make them up are L-leucine, L-isolucine and L-valine. The most important one is leucine, as this is the amino acid that has the largest effect on muscle growth.
Basically, Iif your body is a house, then amino acids are the foundation you wish to build your house upon. They aid in muscle recovery after intense exercise by helping jump start the muscle building process quicker than it would without them otherwise. You’ll want to see at least a 2:1:1 ratio in amino acid supplements but a 3:1:1 ratio is one of the best bcaa ratios you can find. What this ratio means is that if it’s a 2:1:1 ratio that it has 2 servings of leucine for every 1 serving of isolucine and valine.
For a more in depth take on BCAA’s check out the video below.
BCAA Benefits
There are in fact many bcaa benefits that include the following:
- Speed muscle repair – Among the many bcaa benefits the main one is recovery. Consuming amino acid supplements speeds up the rate at which your muscles repair after a workout. The quicker your muscles repair means the quicker you get results.
- Promotes muscle growth – If taken before and after workouts amino acid supplements will help promote muscle growth by flooding the muscles with BCAAs which as we explained before are the building blocks of protein (i.e. muscle growth).
- Limit muscle breakdown – At times you’re in a caloric deficit or you have gone long periods between meals, BCAA’s help to keep your muscle tissue from being broken down for energy. Saving your hard earned muscle!
- Increased mood, concentration & sleep – Studies have shown that supplementing with branched chain amino acids can help elevate mood, increase your ability to concentrate and even help get a better nights sleep.
- Increased immune system function – One of the lesser known bcaa benefits is that they can also boost your immune system, this is believed to be true because exercise puts a strain on the entire body and BCAA’s help to boost not just muscle growth but your immune system as well. Making amino acids a great overall supplement for better quality of life as well as building more muscle.
How Do I Find The Right BCAA Supplement For Me?
Now that you know all the bcaa benefits these supplements offer let’s go over what you should be looking for when shopping for amino acid supplements.
- Product Form – You can get amino acid supplements in either powder form or capsule form, either one is effective. We rate the powder forms a bit higher because the powder form gets into the bloodstream a little quicker and they tend to give you more bang for your buck. Not to mention for some swallowing pills is a pain, and to get the correct servings of BCAAs you may have to swallow 4-8 pills at a time. That could get a little annoying.
- Servings Per Container – Don’t be fooled by fancy labeling or direct price comparisons. Just because a product is costs less doesn’t neccesarily mean it’s actually cheaper. Look at how many servings are in each container. One product may cost more up front but turns out to be cheaper when you look at the amount of servings you get.
- 3:1:1 BCAA Ratio – This one is the most important things when it comes to getting all the bcaa benefits from taking a quality amino acid product. You want at least a 3:1:1 ratio of Leucine to Isoleucine and Valine. This means for every serving of Isolucine and Valine there is 3 servings of Leucine, you want this because Leucine is the amino acid that aids the most in muscle growth and recovery. If a product doesn’t have this ratio then don’t waste your time.
- Taste – You have to make the personal choice as to how important taste is to you. One of the bcaa benefits unfortunately is not great taste, as naturally they are quite bitter and sour when they are not flavored. This is why most supplement offerings are going to have some flavoring in there. Of course some better than others, you may have to sacrifice taste for effectiveness but that’s ultimately your call.
- Extras – Some products have extras like Glutamine, Citrulline Malate, Creatine and others to make them more attractive to customers. There is nothing wrong with these extras in the supplement but if you are already taking a creatine or glutamine product then you don’t have much of a need for a branched chain amino acid product that also includes these. Just read the labels to see what they contain and if you want all that they are offering.
Best BCAA Supplement of 2015 Review
Bulk Supplements Pure BCAA
First up on our bcaa reviews quest to find the best bcaa product is one that you probably haven’t heard about before. Bulk Supplements provides pharmaceutical grade supplements so you’ll get all the bcaa benefits at a solid price, no advertising, no fancy containers and also no flavoring. As you can see in the picture above the supplements arrive in a resealable envelope and is some of the most pure branched chain amino acids you can get today.
If you plan to use this you may want to get some flavor packets from the grocery store as amino acid supplements when not flavored are pretty sour and bitter tasting. As far as effectiveness goes there isn’t much out there better than this offering but we rated it a little lower due to lack of flavoring.
Muscle Pharm Amino 1
Like most offerings from MusclePharm, Amino 1 is a solid product. It has one of the best bcaa ratios out there today and it comes with extras like vitamins, minerals and electrolytes to help recover from those intense workouts that you put in as well. Not only will you get all the great bcaa benefits but you’ll also notice about this product’s great taste and it’s not gritty to drink. It almost tastes like drinking Kool Aid, it’s really that good.
Muscletech Amino Build
Going into this bcaa reviews article, we honestly didn’t expect much from MuscleTech’s offering. Over the years, we’ve never been too impressed with their overall selection of products. They’ve tended to rely on bodybuilder spokesmen and heavy ad campaigns more than creating truly great products. So we were pleasantly surprised when we tried their Amino Build as it is a very good recovery supplement with lots of extras to boot.
It has a good ratio of aminos, including 2g of leucine. It also contains glutamine, which is a great bonus as it is shown to help improve muscle recovery and protect muscles from being broken down in times when the body is depleted. The taste is pretty good and overall the product is a solid offering. This definitely is in the running as one of the top amino acid supplements out on the market today.
USP Labs Modern BCAA
Now we are getting to the cream of the crop in our review. USP Labs has created a great product that offers a whopping 15 grams of amino acids in each serving, not to mention it has an incredible ratio as well. It also contains glycine, alanine, taurine and lysine, which aid in muscle strength and preservation when used together. They have also included an electrolyte blend to top it off. Flavor wise, we rated the watermelon flavor the best. It’s definitely not terrible, but it’s not the greatest taste you’ll ever have. It’s a quality product from a solid company and will provide some great results.
Scivation Xtend Workout Catalyst
Coming in at #1 on our review and what we consider the best amino acid supplement out there today is Scivation’s well known product Xtend. Scivation is a company with a great reputation, offering the highest quality products that truly work. Xtend has been around for some time now and it’s been the clear cut best branched chain amino acid supplement on the market.
It has one of the top bcaa ratios around at 2:1:1, ample amounts of glutamine, an effective electrolyte blend, Citrulline Malate for increased energy, has a great taste, contains zero calories and provides users with all the bcaa benefits along with all the extras. There simply isn’t a better recovery supplement on the market today. So if you’re wanting to get the best results from your workouts, then look no further than this fantastic product from Scivation.
Get The Most Out Of Your Supplements
Branched Chain Amino Acids will go a long ways in helping you build more muscle, burn more fat and improve your overall performance. To build even more muscle and improve overall performance even more you should look into a top creatine monohydrate product as well. We have a great review of them that will help you reach your fitness goals.
