When we exercise, especially when it's high intensity exercise, our bodies accumulate a large amount of hydrogen ions, causing our muscles' pH to drop (become more acidic). As our muscles pH quickly drops, their ability to contract forcibly and maintain a high level of performance throughout your workout session. Not being able to perform and maintain forceful muscular contractions and push your body to the limit during your workout session, seriously hampers your ability to maximally overload your muscles and force new muscle gains.

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When we exercise, especially when it's high intensity exercise, our bodies accumulate a large amount of hydrogen ions, causing our muscles' pH to drop (become more acidic). As our muscles pH quickly drops, their ability to contract forcibly and maintain a high level of performance throughout your workout session. Not being able to perform and maintain forceful muscular contractions and push your body to the limit during your workout session, seriously hampers your ability to maximally overload your muscles and force new muscle gains.

Anti-acidic supplements help stabilize muscular pH and help maintain a high level of performance. These supplements usually contains carnosine and beta-alanine.

Carnosine is a naturally occurring di-peptide that is found in both type 1 and type 2 muscle fibers, but is in significantly higher concentrations in type 2 fibers. Type 2 muscle fibers are primarily used in high intensity strength workouts and are most responsive to muscular growth. There are a handful of ways carnosine is thought to impact performance but its most studied function, and the focus of this article, is its role as an intracellular buffer. Carnosine helps stabilize muscular pH by soaking up hydrogen ions (H+) that are released at an accelerated rate during exercise.

Beta-alanine's performance benefits are not direct but realized through its ability to boost the synthesis of carnosine. When you ingest carnosine intact, most of it is broken down in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract into its constituent amino acids, beta-alanine and histidine. Histidine is already present in high concentrations in muscle, while beta-alanine is only present only in small amounts. You are better off, from both efficiency and a financial standpoint, taking beta-alanine directly.

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