L-Leucine

What is L-Leucine?

L-Leucine is one of the essential amino acid  and one of three Branched Chain Amino Acids. They cannot be made by the body, thus must be derived from the diet. L-Leucine is found in nuts, brown rice and whole wheat bread, or supplements.

What Does L-Leucine Do?

The body's protein structures are made up of about eight percent L-Leucine, which is the fourth most concentrated amino acid in muscle. L-Leucine is not only essential to your health, but is beneficial for bodybuilders. L-Leucine helps maintain muscle tissue through sustaining nitrogen balance, supplies energy to the body even when under the stress of training and preserves muscle glycogen used for muscle contraction. Leucine is essential for a muscle building environment and assists mental ability even when exercise becomes more intense. L-Leucine is the strongest of the BCAA's and if you do not have enough of it in proportion to other amino acids, your body cannot utilise what you ingest. An L-Leucine deficiency will mean that you cannot use protein that you consume, regardless of how much you have. So basically, without L-Leucine, your protein consumption is wasted! Without protein, muscle building cannot be sustained or occur.