Glutamine Testing

[david123]

Hey everyone, haven't posted in a while but I feel like what I'm about to post might provide some interest for some people asking similar questions to me. For this post I'm going to focus on Glutamine for bulking or power lifting. A lot of people say that Glutamine is a waste of money and does nothing and others swear by it, I myself have never taken it long enough or taken a high enough dosage that people suggest daily to really say my own opinion on it so I will do a 3 month experiment on it to see if it really does affect anything. For some background, I am 18 years old currently, 191.2 lbs at the moment I'm typing this, and have never taken a pro hormone, test booster, or anything along that sort. I'm currently focusing on becoming stronger and maybe gaining a few more pounds. The only supplement's I'm taking is Creatine, 10 grams a day, and I'll be taking Glutamine at 30 grams a day. My lifts are also at a point where squat and deadlift are stalled out so I'm at the de-loading phase and bench is about to stall out, so it's not like my body has had any time to recover and I'm starting fresh off. I've also had two de-loading phases already for both squat and bench so once again, I'm not at a fresh start where my lifts will progress for a while. It takes a ton of work to make a decent improvement. My body's been beat down from lifting and my CNS has also been taking some beating because of all the heavy squatting, deadlifting, etc... and I haven't taken a break in lifting in over a year and three or four months I believe. So the whole point of this is to see whether taking glutamine at a high dosage and regular basis will help recovery and aid in increasing lifts. I will try to post at least once a week on how everything is going for the next three months, but if there is nothing important to say than I probably won't post until the testing is over. I hope some people might get some answers from this or might find this at least some what interesting to look at! I'll check up on the thread a lot so if anyone has any questions about how it's going or any questions about anything really I'd be more than happy to try and answer any of it!

 

[ThreeGigs]

You're re-inventing the wheel. Google around a bit and you'll find a few tests just like what you're doing.

In a nutshell, something like 75% of the participants in the studies are non-responders, 15% have a mild response, and 10% have a fairly strong response. In general, if glutamine works for you, it's because your diet isn't providing something. Glutamine is used by cells in the intestine for energy. Yeah, it doesn't build protein, it gets burned for fuel. Oddly enough though, the energy is mostly used for nutrient transport, so if you are deficient in your diet, this may give you a nutrient boost in a roundabout way.

On a side note.... 30 grams? Amino acids compete for absorption, and at 30 grams you might very well be causing other amino acids to be absorbed at a lower rate, thus hurting your growth instead of benefiting it. Perhaps you might want to try a lower daily dosing first.

Definitely keep updating the thread though. For your next test you may want to try BCAAs instead of glutamine.

[edit] Here's a link to a study which mirrors what you're doing: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11822473

 

[FitnessFreek]

Even if it is effective, I think the content of my whey protein has enough glutamine anyways so it does become a waste of money...

 

[ThreeGigs]

He doesn't list whey as part of his diet supplementation so he might benefit from the additional glutamine, while whey users probably wouldn't.