When I should take glutamine pills?

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before or after workout?

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  • Brolympus
    Brolympus Posts: 360 Member
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    Honestly, if you aren't buying Walmart brand protein powders, a lot of whey powders contain L-glutamine in them already as part of an amino acid blend. Might help save on cost vs buying gluatmine pills in addition to your other supps.

    Timing is irrelevant, to answer your original question. Just make sure you are getting it in your diet if you are strength training, especially on a cutting phase, since it helps your body remain in an anabolic state and prevents muscle breadown.
  • fraseria
    fraseria Posts: 16
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    Like Brolympus said, you might be wasting your money on buying L-glutamine. You find it in pretty much everything, so depending on your daily nutrition you probably don't have to supplement with it. I sort of fell for the hype and got a load of the stuff in bulk at 30% discount, so at the moment I am working it away in my post-workout shake, but when its done I'm not buying L-glutamine again. If you're taking it for recovery, no real evidence to support extra supplementation, and from personal experience I haven't felt it speed up recovery. If you're taking it for muscle growth, even less evidence... unless you're an anorexic vegetarian or have AIDS... (not trying to rip on anyone here, its just pretty useless if you're generally healthy and eat enough protein) So if you want more muscle, rather save some coin and supplement with 5g/day creatine monohydrate and train hard and make sure you're reps are in the hypertrophy range...
  • Brolympus
    Brolympus Posts: 360 Member
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    Glutamine does not promote growth. It acts as a muscle sparing agent and helps prevent the body from entering catabolic states where it might be inclined to harvest muscle tissue for energy instead of using fat or glycogen stores. So, technically it doesn't help you build any new muscle, but it certain helps you retain what you have.

    I agree though that taking more than 10-15g of it per day is not going to have any additional benefit. And you can get that amount from two to three scoops of most higher quality whey protein powders.
  • kfno
    kfno Posts: 15 Member
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    Thanks for the tips, the pills was a gift. :)
    My protein have 1.6 glutamine
  • dieselbyte
    dieselbyte Posts: 733 Member
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    Timing of supplements is the last thing you need to worry about. Save your money. If you are getting sufficient protien, there is no need to supplement with glutamine.