There is no difference between BCAA supplements for women and BCAA supplements for men. The only difference is the amount you should take. Generally, women only have to take about half of what men take, but that will ultimately depend on how big you are.
What Are BCAA’s?
Branched-chain amino acids or BCAA’s, consist of three proteinogenic amino acids; leucine, isoleucine, and valine, which is considered to be highly effective in helping gain and maintain muscle mass during weightlifting and bodybuilding. As with any supplement, it is important that you only purchase products from reputable manufacturers.
The 5 Best BCAA Powder Supplements For Women:
To help you choose the best BCAA supplement, we’ve ranked and reviewed the 5 most popular BCAA supplements for women below.
1. Optimum Nutrition BCAA supplement
If you want a product that can be used anytime anywhere, go with Optimum Nutrition BCAA Capsules. This splendid supplement can be taken before or after training and is designed to give you a shot of energy pre-workout and kick-start your body into a condition of protein synthesis, leading to increased muscle growth. With Optimum nutrition, it is assumed that you will feel stronger and more focused, yielding a better performance in the gym.
The most popular product from the Optimum Nutrition BCAA supplement range is the 1000mg | 400g capsule option as it’s affordable, easy to take and comes in a pre-measured amount, making it easy to control your daily intake.
The product is well-known for increasing muscle size and improving the muscle recovery rate, decreasing soreness after a workout to such a degree that you can train hard every day. The same product also comes in a powder format for those who prefer to measure and control their own quantities.
2. BulkSupplements BCAA Supplement
One of the best BCAA supplements on the market has got to be BulkSupplements. This particular product is all about quick absorption, energy, and promotion of muscle growth. The BCAAs are quickly taken in by the organism, and they immediately get to work. The amino acids stimulate your metabolism and increase muscle growth greatly, allowing you to accomplish your goal sooner.
But the amino acids have other benefits. BulkSupplements’ amino acids better your energy, allowing you to work out for longer and to work out with more ardor. The supplement also allows for recovery, as bodybuilding takes a toll on your body, and tissue damage occurs. BulkSupplements make sure the damage is minimalized, yielding faster recovery and better results.
3. BSN Sports Amino X BCAA Supplement
If you’re looking for a pure BCAA supplement without the added caffeine, then BSN Sports Amino X powder is just the thing you need. Many products add caffeine, but this is sometimes a slight inconvenience, as the caffeine can make you jumpy, especially if you work out late. Instead, BSN Sports wanted to create a supplement that will provide energy to your body completely via the amino acids.
As we explained BCAAs are absorbed very quickly, and their effect is very swift. The supplement will make you feel energetic, and your body will be able to work more efficiently for a longer period of time. It will also promote increased muscle growth, with the addition of a proper training regimen and diet. Remember, these supplements aren’t tiny miracles in bottles – they’re more of a support for your body to be stronger and more efficient.
Note this is a general Amino Acid supplement, which means it contains BCAA’s as well as other beneficial amino acids, but in different quantities than BCAA specific supplements.
4. BPI Sports Best BCAA Supplement
Next up, it’s the BPI Sports’ Best BCAA Powder. This powder has been carefully made to incorporate the best BCAAs (hence the name) that will promote the fastest muscle growth and give you the greatest surge of energy. The supplement contains leucine, isoleucine, and valine, all of which are vital for the production of proteins, which, in turn, betters muscle growth.
However, no supplement is effective if it’s not absorbed in time. That’s why BPI Sports’ powder is super easy to absorb and assimilate. This ensures that your body gets the energy and building material quickly, ensuring that, by the time you do your first rep, the supplement has already taken effect. In this manner, the supplement will keep you going for longer, and ensure that your muscles recover more quickly.
5. Scivation Xtend BCAA Supplement
Last but not least is the Scivation Xtend BCAAs. Another in the line of stellar supplements, the Scivation makes sure your body gets the best of the best, and the cleanest of the cleanest. Scivation features leucine, valine, and isoleucine, all of which are essential for fast and proper muscle growth. Not only that but the amino acids featured in the product increase your metabolism, making themselves more easily processed and more easily absorbed.
Of course, muscle growth is just one job the supplement does. The other two are energy and recovery. Scivation grants better energy input, allowing you to work our longer and harder, and ensuring that your muscles don’t feel too sore afterward through mitigation of tissue damage.
An Amino Acid Primer
Amino acids can be separated into two types:
- Essential
- Non-essential
Essential Amino Acids
Those that your body can make are the non-essential amino acids. The rest, the essential amino, must come through the food and supplements that we consume. The protein in the foods that you eat will provide you with most of the amino acids that you need to function, getting an extra dose will improve how you look and feel and will help you to more effectively reshape your body.
The branch chain amino acids – leucine, isoleucine, and valine – account for about one-third of the protein in your muscles. They are also the most important when it comes to repairing and maintaining your muscles. Research also shows that the BCAAs have other important functions, including enhancing muscle protein synthesis, decreasing the breakdown of muscle tissue, spare muscle glycogen, encourage fat loss, delay the onset of fatigue during the exercise and boost the functioning of the immune system.
When it comes to the ideal dosage, of the three BCAAs, leucine is the most important. It is recommended that you take twice as much leucine as valine and isoleucine. Look for a product that provides you with 5 grams of leucine, with 2.5 grams of valine and another 2.5 grams of iso-leucine per dose. It should be taken in an empty stomach first thing in the morning. Have another dose before your workout.
If you feel stomach discomfort. Reduce your dosage by 50% and then build back up as you grow accustomed to it.
Another Essential Amino Acid
Another key essential amino acid is Lysine. As well as helping you to add muscle tissue and get stronger, lysine will increase the absorption of calcium to improve calcium absorption and retention, which is great for bone health and will to regulate body weight. Lysine is also important in the recovery from injury, as well as helping the body to produce hormones, enzymes, and antibodies.
You should take between 500 mg and 1 g of lysine per day, divided into two doses.
Non-Essential Amino Acids
The body is able to produce non-essential amino -acids. However, when you take extra doses of some of them, you get more benefits. Let’s consider the most important non-essential amino acids.
Glutamine
Glutamine is one of the most important amino acid supplements that you can take because it helps to enhance your physical recovery, stimulates muscle growth, improves digestion, increases growth hormone (GH) levels, boosts concentration, increases your memory and decreases cravings for sweet foods. Your immune system makes use of glutamine as its main source of fuel. When you take extra glutamine you will be preventing your muscles from using up all of its energy stores.
Glycogen will also help your muscle cells to store more energy from glycogen. This is the storage form of energy from carbohydrates. It also acts as a cell; volumizer. In this capacity, it adds size and growth to muscle fibers. A final benefit of glutamine is that it helps to assist the production of bicarbonate, which is a biochemical buffer that helps to prevent muscle fatigue.
The ideal dosage if glutamine is 5-10 grams of glutamine in an empty stomach when you first get up in the morning. Take a similar amount after your workout. Start with 5 grams and slowly increase as your tolerance grows.
Arginine
Arginine helps your body to produce more nitric oxide (NO). More nitric oxide in the body increases the blood flow to the muscles and, therefore, allows for an increased blood flow to the muscles. More nutrients, oxygen and hormones are then able to be delivered. This effect will also increase the muscle pump effect that you will get when you are working out.
The nitric oxide that arginine helps to produce has a number of other benefits in the body. These include increasing the secretion of both insulin and human growth hormone (HGH). These are two very important anabolic hormones that drive muscle growth and repair. Studies have shown that taking arginine can increase strength significantly on such lifts as the bench press and the squat.
You should take between 3-5 grams of arginine twice per day in an empty stomach.
Citrulline
The body converts citrulline to arginine in then body. As a result, it produces the same NO enhancing benefits in the body as does arginine. In addition, it can help to prevent fatigue when you are exercising. It does this by assisting in the removal of ammonia from the body. If you take it as citrulline malate (which is citrulline with malic acid attached) it can also increase levels of ATP and creatine phosphate in the mu7scle.
The ideal dosage of citrulline malate is 3 grams. Take it about a half hour before your workout. Immediately after training, take another 3 grams.
Tyrosine
Tyrosine forms several important neurotransmitters in the body. These include dopamine, norepinephrine, and epinephrine, in addition to thyroid hormones. As such, it is a great energy booster than can impact your central nervous system without having to take stimulants. Tyrosine also enhances the body’s ability to burn off body fat, increase mental focus, and sex drive. Tyrosine is a popular ingredient in weight loss products.
You should take 1-2 grams of tyrosine on an empty stomach twice a day. Take it about an hour before going to the gym.
Taurine
Taurine is the main ingredient in Red Bull energy drink. It improves strength, endurance, and muscle growth. It is also believed to be involved in both muscle and brain function. When you engage in intense exercise, your muscle levels of taurine become depleted. When you supplement with it, taurine may help prevent fatigue during exercise. It also seems that taurine enhances muscle cell volume by drawing water into the muscle cell.
Take 2-6 grams of taurine per day 30-60 minutes before and immediately after workouts.
Conclusion
And that’s it for our BCAA supplements for women. We made sure to pick the absolute best ones on the market, the ones that will provide you with the most benefits. These products all come from relatively well-known brands, and have been tried and tested by countless users before we made this list and wrote the reviews, so, if you don’t trust our judgment, you can trust fellow fitness junkies like yourself.
This article was last updated on December 13, 2022 .
