This may not be the right place to post this, but I wasn't sure. I decided to post it here since I am doing Atkins.

I was wondering, since I am working out 5 days a week (weights w/15 mins of aerobics), what is the appropriate amount of L-Glutamine I should be taking and when.

I presently am taking 500 ml right after working out.

It does seem to ease the muscle soreness.

Thanks for any info.

Hi TerrieP

Congrats on working out regularly. 1st, what does the label on your bottle say? Following directions never hurt

My bottle suggests 5 grams of powder (1 tsp) mixed in water. The fellow in the shop where I purchased it advised taking it after workouts & again before bed for best protein-sparing effect (sparing muscles) so that's 1 tsp x twice daily.

Marlaine (my BFL buddy) searched the net & came up with all sorts of interesting info, I'd suggest that you could search too. I believe that one can take up to 10 grams x 3 times daily maximum, although I would think that unless you have extremely long hard workouts you wouldn't need that much. Marlaine found lots of medical references - it is used to treat all sorts of illnesses and syndromes. When I get the time I'm going to search the net too, it sounded fascinating.

HTH

Hey Terri!
I moved this post here so all exercisers with the same question can see it. Dan takes L-Glutamine all the time (I need to start!) so I am sure as soon as his Internet is back up he'll reply!!

Linda

I followed the instructions on the bottle. One pill preferrably before a meal. So 500 ml it is!

Thanks for the quick responses!

Glutamine is one of the most intensely studied nutrients in sports nutrition over the last 5 years.

It is one of the most versitile and useful nutients for sports performance. Research has shown that glutamine is very useful against the catabolic stress that is imposed on the body by resistance training.

500mg per day is not enough ... you need at least 2 grams for it to get through the small intestines (they are a glutamine hungry group of scavengers) ... anything under 2g will be absorbed by the small intestines and will not give you the protein sparing/cell volumizing effect that you are looking for.

Best bet is to go with a powdered form of L-glu and choose your goal from the following and increase you doseage as you see fit:

(1) Boosting GH levels - To do this, athletes take 10g of glutamine on an empty stomach upon waking.

(2) Accelerating muscle gylcogen synthesis - This is done by taking glutamine (5g to 10g) within 1 hour after severe exercise.

(3) Sparing glucose levels. (5g to 10g, 3x per day)

(4) Off-setting overtraining syndrome - Glutamine plays a crucial role in the stimulation of intracellular protein synthesis if you are training hard. To get the full effect of this, you should be taking in at least 20g of glutamine per day.

(5) It has also been noted that by super-supplementing glutamine, some athletes have reported breaking through training and hypertrophy plateaus by boosting glutamine intake to 60g - 80g per day. This requires a dosing pattern of 10g upon waking, 5g every 3 hours, and 10g before bed.

During flu season, be sure to take even more glutamine to insure a well-functioning immune system.

It has been my experience that the cheaper brands of glutamine have an "off-taste" to them, while EAS and Twinlabs are taste-free.

Reach Your Peak With Glutamine

You know about the importance of eating enough protein every day. It provides vital amino acids for your body, helping you build a defined, muscular physique while enjoying good health. But did you know that the usually recommended amount of protein is still not enough to reach your peak in muscle mass or optimize your immune system? It's true: Even protein intakes exceeding the RDA can provide less of the amino acid glutamine than you need. Studies have shown that you must supplement with this important nutrient if you want to get the most from your diet and exercise program.

Glutamine is the most abundant amino acid in the human body. The majority of which is stored within the skeletal muscles, although significant amounts are also found in the blood, lungs, liver, and brain. Glutamine is involved in more metabolic processes than any other amino acid in the body. And while it shares many characteristics with the other amino acids, it does have one major difference: Because it has a nitrogen atom to spare, glutamine is able to transport nitrogen around the body. This allows it to perform some of its unique functions.

Gets Rid of Lactic Acid

When you engage in intensive exercise, it often leads to a "burning" sensation that eventually becomes so strong you have to stop for a few minutes. This "burn" is produced by lactic acid, which is a byproduct of anaerobic glucose and glycogen metabolism during muscle contraction. Glutamine plays a vital role in regulating the body's acid-based balance. It gives rise to the production of bicarbonate ions by the kidneys, which neutralizes some of the lactic acid. The kidneys also break down glutamine to produce ammonia in a multi-step process. This neutralizes even more of the lactic acid. During periods of high-acidic concentrations, these two mechanisms can increase glutamine consumption in the kidneys six to ten times over the normal rate. The greater the availability of glutamine, the greater the potential for rapid restoration of the body's acid-based balance. This can allow you to resume exercise sooner and may even permit higher levels of force production during your workout.

Boosts Growth Hormone

Growth hormone is one of the most important hormones in the body. Secreted by the pituitary gland, it plays a major role in muscle growth and retention due to its ability to promote cell division and proliferation. It does this by increasing the amount of amino acids transported across the cell membrane. Growth hormone also promotes the growth of bones and connective tissue. It also increases the level of free fatty acids in the blood, resulting in a greater use of fat as an energy source and the sparing of available protein and carbohydrates. By raising the body's energy expenditure at rest, it helps to reduce your body-fat level, too.

A study by researcher Thomas Welbourne found that oral glutamine supplementation has a dramatic impact on growth hormone secretion. A dose of only 2 gm following a light breakfast increased growth hormone levels by 430% over baseline levels after 90 minutes! There was an increase in plasma bicarbonate concentration as well, which confirms that oral glutamine supplementation is an effective way to reduce lactic acid levels. Since growth hormone concentrations decline with age, such dramatic increases are especially good news for people entering middle age and beyond.

Fights Catabolic Reactions

Glutamine plays an important role in fighting catabolic reactions in the body, thereby promoting the greatest anabolic response to exercise. During intensive training sessions, microcellular damage to the muscle tissue usually occurs, along with increased secretion of the catabolic hormone, cortisol. These two factors result in an initial breakdown of muscle. Eventually, the body overcomes these negative forces and begins to build new muscle tissue (protein synthesis). The time it takes for this to occur, however, depends on your level of nutrition and supplementation.

While branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) have sometimes been recommended to fight catabolism, several research studies have shown that glutamine is superior to the BCAAs in promoting protein synthesis. Glutamine peptides have also been shown to prevent the muscle atrophy induced by high cortisol levels. Glutamine also increases water levels inside the muscle cell, although the increase is not as pronounced as with creatine. This higher intracellular water supply enhances protein synthesis, providing more raw materials for building new muscle tissue. Glutamine even promotes the storage of muscle glycogen, a vital energy source during high-intensity training. Despite its importance in muscular development, glutamine is virtually the last nutrient to be restored to pre-exercise levels. This makes supplementation essential if you want to maximize the gains from your training program. Glutamine supplementation will also allow the other amino acids in your food to be used for their intended anabolic purposes, enhancing the biological value of your entire protein intake.

Improves the Immune System

There is no doubt that strenuous exercise can tax the immune system. Numerous studies have shown a higher incidence of infections and cold symptoms following a bout of intense exercise. Glutamine depletion appears to be partly responsible. A study by L.M. Castell and colleagues found a significant drop in the plasma level of glutamine in endurance athletes after a marathon. However, when these researchers gave 5 gm of glutamine to more than 100 athletes, they discovered that only 19% of them reported infections during the next seven days, compared to 51% of the athletes in the placebo group. Glutamine's anti-catabolic benefits are also used to promote recovery in hospital patients. A wide range of studies reported improvements in immune parameters when glutamine is added to the meals of bone-marrow transplant and chemotherapy patients as well as burn and trauma victims. Clearly, glutamine is powerfully beneficial!

Glutamine supplementation helps to keep you healthy and strong in many ways. In fact, when you consider how inexpensive this amino acid is, it could be one of the most cost-effective supplements on the market today.

Glutamine and the Over-Training Syndrome

Most weight trainers and other athletes are familiar with the Over-training Syndrome. Excessive training with insufficient rest intervals can result in an over-trained state, which in turn, leaves the athlete at risk of muscle or connective tissue injury, infection, chronic fatigue, and under performance.

Strangely enough, one of the "nonessential" amino acids - glutamine - appears to play a key role in preventing Over-training Syndrome. Although classified as nonessential because it can be synthesized from other amino acids, glutamine is in face, the most abundant amino acid in human muscle and blood. It is critically important for growing and regenerating cells, including those found in exercised muscle tissues, and white blood cells.

During catabolic states such as surgery, injury, infection and the recovery period following high intensity exercise, glutamine supplies are taxed, and the body cannot manufacture it from other amino acids nearly fast enough to meet the demand. To sustain tissue growth and healing, and to turn catabolism into anabolism, glutamine must be supplied from somewhere else, namely, dietary protein, or supplementation.

Several recent scientific articles on the Over-training Syndrome discuss the relationship of glutamine nutrition to the symptoms of over-training. Athletes with these symptoms have lower levels of plasma glutamine at rest than active healthy controls. These reduced levels of glutamine impact white blood cells, reducing the ability of the immune system to ward off infection.

In catabolic stress states, including the recovery period after exercise, tissue requirements for glutamine are increased, while plasma glutamine is depleted. This is, of course, the period during which it is MOST CRITICAL to maintain proper nutrition in order to GAIN strength from the precious workout, rather than lose it!

In fact, it takes several hours for normal (pre-exercise) levels of glutamine to be restored. The problem is compounded if the athlete does not allow for adequate recovery periods between workouts, creating a serious shortage of glutamine. Eventually, the Over-training Syndrome sets in, accompanied by low plasma glutamine levels that can persist for months or years.

Clearly, this data makes a strong argument for high-protein supplementation immediately before and after workouts, and for glutamine supplementation for several hours or days after workouts. Without adequate glutamine, not only are the benefits of the previous workout lost, but the entire body is put at risk of eventual Over-training Syndrome - with its staleness, tiredness, injuries, infections, and all the rest.

If you currently suffer from over-training, crank up the glutamine and total protein intake, and give you body a chance to re-accumulate its reserves

That was great info.

Powder form!??! I saw that in the Vitamin Shoppe and thought I would probably gag trying to mix that with water.

How bad is the taste? Can you mix it in anything else?


Thanks again.

I mix mine in with my protein drink. Don't even know it's there.

Marlaine

I was talking to Nat about how much. She thought maybe about .3 g per LBM pound. According to the CKD calculator, my LBM is 166.8#. That would add up to about 50 grams of glutamine. That seems high from what I have read here.

I would be putting it in an after workout morning breakfast protein shake and a late night snack shake. I wanted it mostly to releive soreness and help in promoting the growth of musles as well as lessening the lactic acid burn.

Hi there......

Yeah.....that dose seems high to me. What I've read said 10 - 40g a day and I've been taking 5-7g twice a day for the (almost) seven weeks that I've been doing BFL.

Here is one of the resources I found and it recommends 10-40g with the high end being for the severely ill.

http://www.thorne.com/altmedrev/glut6-4.html

Marlaine

.3g per kg of LBM is the dose - sorry bout that (person at leanandstrong.com providing the advice is from the UK).

Try using a few different calculations to get your % of BF and LBM. One that uses other measurements will be more accurate - specially if you tend to store your fat everywhere and not just around your stomach.

Here are a few you can use:

http://www.biofitness.com/bodyfat.html
http://www.healthcentral.com/coolto...ss/bodyfat1.cfm
http://www.freeweightloss.com/calculator2.html (the circumferance test here is the one that most closely resembles the one that the BFL people use)

Nat

So how much would that be? (Friggin' Americans.......) I cannot compute grams/kilograms

There was a huge difference at those sites you listed. 36% 41.6% or 52.8% body fat. Sheesh! Do you think the ones that take actual body measurements are more accurate than those that don't?

It's funny because the one that said 52.8% BF said my lean body mass is 115 pounds. I haven't weighed anywhere near 115 pounds since sixth grade! And I wasn't a fat kid. I went from like 100# soaking wet to 133# as a freshman in high school to 166# my senior year. I was never 115# and I don't aspire to be after 2 kids.

Kathryn, lean body mass is not the same as your goal weight. LBM refers to your body weight minus all fat. You have to have a certain % of fat in order to live. For women it is generally accepted that 18% is the lowest level of body fat for optimal health - below that certain biological functions cease. Guidelines change based on age - the older you get the higher the range that is considered optimal.

With a LBM of 115 lbs and 20% BF you would weigh 138 lbs.

To get your LBM in Kgs divide it by 2.2.

Nat