Staying Power

It’s been a while since we have seen any research on arginine, but a recent placebo controlled study published in Biology of Sport highlights new ergogenic benefits for this amino acid. In the study elite level male strength athletes (wrestlers) were given an incremental cycling test that went to max effort and were given either arginine (1.5g /10g body mass) or placebo preworkout. They found that when the athletes were given arginine, their time to exhaustion increased by 74 seconds compared to placebo— a remarkable difference considering it was during exhaustive exercise. 

These data provide one more reason why arginine should be taken prior to heavy training. We recommend taking 3-10g of arginine three times per day with one (large) dose being 30-40 prior to training.