What is Glutamine?
Glutamine is 1 of 11 nonessential amino acids. “Non-essential,” in this context, means that you need it, but you don’t need to eat it because your body can synthesize it. Glutamine is also the most abundant amino acid in the body, comprising more than 60% of the free amino acid pool in skeletal muscle and greater than 20% of total circulating amino acids. During times of physical stress, glutamine reserves are depleted so supplementing with L-Glutamine may help reduce muscle soreness and rebuild muscle tissue.
Benefits of using L-Glutamine
* Boosts immune system functions
* Maintain muscle mass (preservation)
* Prevents muscle breakdown (catabolism)
* Enhances glycogen storage
* Assists recovery from exercise
* Promotes healing
* Increases growth hormone levels
Glutamine can affect amino acid metabolism and nitrogen balance in your muscles. Glutamine is important in a number of metabolic processes related to muscle recovery and exercise, so it has been used as a nutritional supplement for bodybuilders and athletes looking to gain muscle size and strength.
Glutamine plays a major role in DNA synthesis and serves as a primary transporter of nitrogen into the muscle tissues. It serves to replenish nitrogen loss due to excessive muscle training and speeds up recovery, so it is vital to the building and maintenance of muscle tissue. The very fact that muscle is the most important tissue for Glutamine synthesis and storage is evidence of Glutamines vital role in maintaining positive nitrogen balance and building these important support structures.
Glutamine is utilized at a high rate by the cells of the immune system. It is also necessary for the production of hormone-like proteins secreted by immune cells that regulate the intensity and duration of an immune response to foreign organisms.
Glutamine is involved in the production and regulation of human-growth hormone, or HGH. In his book “Nutrition for Health, Fitness, and Sport,” nutritionist Melvin H. Williams writes that glutamine has been shown to increase HGH levels and stimulate protein synthesis, or the formation of new proteins, by increasing muscle-cell volume. Glutamine acts as a precursor to growth-hormone-releasing hormone, or GHRH, which is produced by your hypothalamus gland and stimulates your anterior pituitary gland in your brain to release growth hormone. This hormone, in turn, increases the rate of muscle growth.
What are the functional properties of Glutamine?
When on a cutting diet and trying to get very lean, some bodybuilders will further increase a calorie deficit AND increase exercise volume. This can lead to an increased state of exercise induced stress and catabolism beyond that of a normal bodybuilder on a fat loss regime. Competitive bodybuilders come to mind in this instance. Glutamine may help reduce the stress and exercise related catabolism because it’s beyond that of normal exercise induced stress.
In elite endurance athletes or people who train under extreme conditions several times a day. These are cases where extreme stress but much more intense then regular exercise comes into play and glutamine may be beneficial.
Glutamine and Energy Production
Glutamine is considered gluconeogenic and has the ability to create muscle glycogen from blood glucose, which influences energy production during exercise. Increasing the availability of glucose to your skeletal muscles during exercise may increase exercise performance, intensity, and recovery, particularly during repeated bouts of intense resistance training, such as the methods used by many bodybuilders. Glutamine also aids in the removal of amino acids, pyruvate, and other byproducts of energy metabolism in your muscles, thereby enhancing your recovery in between sets of resistance training exercises.
Over-training
Over-training syndrome is a condition that results from exercising more intensely and frequently than your body is capable of handling and is associated with symptoms of excessive training, such as fatigue, insomnia, decreased muscle strength, and increased heart rate. Bodybuilders, due to their intense weightlifting programs, may be more susceptible to over-training than other athletes. Glutamine supplementation may reduce the effects of over-training syndrome by increasing the rate of muscle recovery following exercise due to an increase in the rate of protein synthesis in your muscles.
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