Body-Baring Essentials

How a newly supplementised set of molecules — essential amino acids — promises to power up your progress.

- Gina Valentine

Early on in the workout game, you learn that protein powder is critical to getting the lean, muscular look you crave. You hit the next level with branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs): leucine, isoleucine, and valine. But new research has uncovered that these so-called building blocks of protein don’t really work on their own — and that to get what your body really requires, in just the right amounts, you need something else: essential amino acids (EAAs). So drop the dumbbells for a moment, here’s the scoop.

Anytime you lift weights, you’re breaking down muscle tissue by making micro tears in muscle fibres. Then comes the crucial recovery and growth phase, and that’s where EAAs really shine.