Supplement With Glutamine Or Do Not Weight Train
By Fred Fishburne

Glutamine is the most abundant amino acid found in muscle tissue. If you want to build muscles you MUST supplement with glutamine. Why? Each weight training session expends tremendous amounts, which must be replaced in order to repair and build muscle tissue. You cannot eat enough food in a day to replace the amounts of glutamiane that has been expended in one training session.

Even if you could eat enough food in a day to replace the stores, you body could not digest it and transport it to the muscles fast enough for proper recovery. When glutamine is taken in powder form it reaches the muscles in about 15 minutes because it does not have to be digested or converted by the liver. It hits the blood stream ready to be used by the body in that magical window of recovery that is present shortly after intense training.. Glutamine is the single most important amino acid in the body for creating anabolic conditions in the muscle and protecting from overtraining.

Muscle is the most abundant producer of glutamine in the body. The production in the muscle is so great that it accounts for more than 60% of the free amino acid pool in muscle cells. These large muscle stores also account for most of the glutamine reserves, and they can release it into the blood to maintain plasma levels to provide other tissues with it.

When physical activity is altered with weight training, the demands for extra glutamine can increase drastically. During training the use of glutamine by other organs of the body increases dramatically. As a result, plasma levels begin to plummet. To replenish these levels, the muscles start to release their glutamine stores into the blood. Think about this from a body builders point of view. Glutamine is not present in the muscles when needed during training and in recovery. Without enough glutamine, muscles look flat due to dehydration. No body builder wants to look in the mirror and see flat muscles. Glutamine also helps support the immune system to prevent illness.

Let’s talk about over training in regards to glutamine. If you are not supplementing with glutamine, day after day, the levels are being expended and not properly replenished. Levels are slowly dropping lower and lower to a point that the body burns muscle to supply glutamine for other bodily functions. The result is muscle loss and sickness because your glutamine levels are dangerously low. You may not be over training at all, just reaping the effects of not supplementing with glutamine.

So what is the answer? Men, supplement daily with 5 grams of glutamine before and after training and before bed. That’s 15 grams per day. Women can cut this amount by one third. Always take glutamine or any other amino acid on an empty stomach and drink plenty of pure water. Remember, glutamine helps get water into the muscle cells for hydration. When your muscles are hydrated they are stronger and have more endurance.