Document Type

Peer-Reviewed Article

Publication Date

7-2011

Program

Exercise Science

Abstract

Dietary supplement companies claim that arginine supplements acutely enhance skeletal muscular endurance. The purpose of this study was to determine whether acute arginine a-ketoglutarate supplementation (AAKG) will affect local muscle endurance of the arm and shoulder girdle or the blood pressure (BP) response to anaerobic exercise. Twelve trained college-aged men (22.6 +/- 3.8 years) performed 2 trials of exercise separated by at least 1 week. At 4 hours before, and 30 minutes before exercise, a serving of an AAKG supplement (3,700 mg arginine alpha-ketoglutarate per serving) or placebo was administered. Resting BP was assessed pre-exercise after 16 minutes of seated rest, and 5 and 10 minutes postexercise. Three sets each of chin-ups, reverse chin-ups, and push-ups were performed to exhaustion with 3 minutes of rest between each set. Data were analyzed using repeated-measures analysis of variance and paired t-tests. The AAKG supplementation did not improve muscle endurance or significantly affect the BP response to anaerobic work. Subjects performed fewer total chin-ups (23.75 +/- 6.38 vs. 25.58 +/- 7.18) and total trial repetitions (137.92 +/- 28.18 vs. 141.08 +/- 28.57) in the supplement trial (p # 0.05). Subjects executed fewer reverse chin-ups (5.83 +/- 1.85 vs. 6.75 +/- 2.09) during set 2 after receiving the supplement as compared to the placebo (p >/= 0.05). Because AAKG supplementation may hinder muscular endurance, the use of these supplements before resistance training should be questioned.

Comments

Version posted is pre-publication.

Published in its final version as:

Greer, Beau K. and Brett T. Jones. "Acute Arginine Supplementation Fails to Improve Muscle Endurance or Affect Blood Pressure Responses to Resistance Training." Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 25.7 (2011): 1789–1794.

DOI

10.1519/JSC.0b013e3181e07569

PMID

21399536

Publication

Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research

Volume

25

Issue

7

Publisher

Wolters Kluwer

Pages

1789–1794

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