The Impossible Made Possible: Increasing Muscle Mass and Losing Fat Simultaneously
Often considered an impossible feat in bodybuilding and fitness circles; how can you both gain muscle and lose fat at the same time? For most people this is the main goals of their exercise routine, we always want more of the good stuff and less of the bad. Traditionally, this is were cutting and bulking protocols comes in, but what often ends up happening is that you gain to much fat during bulking, and lose to much muscle during your cut.
With age, we also lose much of our ability to keep on muscle, as well as burn excess fat. This is a side effect of the ageing process resulting in declining levels of testosterone and growth hormones.
So considering this, you might feel like there is a whole lot of barriers keeping you from your ideal physique. However, what if there was a tool that could help you pull off the impossible?
Today we will look into an nonessential amino acid called Citrulline Malate, a lesser know but much more powerful, big brother of L-Arginine. Most people have heard of Arginine for it’s effects on pumps as well as erections, something citrulline can do as well but even better! However, that’s not all. After you understand everything that citrulline can do, this nonessential amino acid will quickly become an essential part of your regimen.
Ageing and Body Composition
Few people manage to keep a muscular physique up until an old age, it requires plenty of hard work (or being the one and only, The Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger). Declining hormone levels from ageing creates a difficult environment for muscles to grow. What will grow easy however is that body fat.
Researchers at the Sorbonne in France suspected the amino acid citrulline would have a powerful effect on body composition, and a animal study confirmed it and showed that citrulline blocks many ageing processes.
The animals given citrulline had 13% less fat and gained 14-48% more muscle then the ones that was not fed it.
Because of these amazing results, there was another study made by Molecular researchers at the Universite Paris Descartes. It also proved positive results on body composition and was able to reduce the amounts of abdominal fat. Citrulline reduced the speed of absorption of visceral fat cells as well as increased their release so the body could burn them as energy. Citrulline’s ability to help reduce fat deposits in the body like this, is not only beneficial for body composition but can also help reduce many risks associated with ageing such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
Citrulline : A Natural Anabolic and Big Brother of L-Arginine
Few guys know that one of nature’s most potent anabolic compounds is found in the simple watermelon you can buy at your local supermarket. No, this is not bro science, let us show you the REAL science of the amino acid citrulline.
Citrulline is a precursor to L-arginine, it increases plasma L-arginine levels better than L-arginine itself because the liver does not break it down as quickly. That means that not only do we get the benefits of citrulline, it also shares the benefits of L-arginine, widening blood vessels and increasing nitric oxide.
Arginine is a proven anabolic compound that increases growth hormone after heavy resistance exercise, enabling you to build more muscle. Not only that, citrulline have in a study also been shown to be more potent as a muscle growth enhancer than the common BCAA amino acid L-leucine.
The growth enhancement can be explained by the discovery made at Maastricht University Medical Centre in the Netherlands, which showed that citrulline enhances the body’s nutrient uptake during exercise. In other words citrulline pushes more nutrients into your muscles when they need it to enhance anabolic growth.
The mechanism behind this has to do with your gut. During intense exercise such as resistance training with weights, the body prioritize supplying muscles with oxygen. This causes narrower capillaries in the intestines reducing your gut function. Similar to what happens under intense periods of stress that often gives people stomach problems.
Since citrulline converts into L-arginine primarily in the gut, the blood vessels in the gut can use the L-arginine to create nitric oxide causing them to widen. This increases the amount of nutrients that can reach the gut and be absorbed, bringing the body more nutrients for muscle growth.
In other words, combine citrulline with a protein shake before your workout and you will acclimate more muscle mass and recover faster.
What we know more is that citrulline also has a whole host of other proven benefits. The major ones being increased muscle endurance and improving muscle protein synthesis.
Introducing Total War: An All-in-One Pre Workout Supplement Featuring Citrulline Malate
One of our premiere workout supplements is Total War, which contains the most effective stimulants, nootropics as well as nitric oxide enhancers on the market today. Total War’s main ingredient is Citrulline Malate, which we have discussed in great depth in this article.
Pre workout supplements often aim at maximizing pumps and energy, and even though citrulline does definitely help with that, it also has the unique ability to minimize muscle soreness after workouts. Similar to what popular BCAA supplements aim to do. This makes Total War (containing citrulline), an all in one workout supplement ideal to take before your lifting session, maybe you can even save some money on not having to buy those BCAAs as well.
Total War also features even more nitric oxide increasing power in the form of Agmatine Sulfate. In comparison, citrulline actually gets converted into nitric oxide in the body, but Agmatine works in a different way. Agmatine inhibits the enzyme that is responsible for the breakdown of nitric oxide, making it the perfect complement to keep all of that extra nitric oxide from citrulline circulating longer.
For all the reasons we have previous outlined in this article, the citrulline malate in Total War is indeed one of the most perfect ingredients for a pre workout supplement that not only will give you crazy pumps, but help you make those gains too.
