More Conflicting Evidence on Leucine Metabolite: HMB Makes Volleyballers Stronger.

The leucine metabolite HMB, i.e. β-Hydroxy-β-Methylbutyric acid, is unquestionable the comeback kid of the supplement industry. "It works!", "It's useless!", ... every now and then a new study supports one side of the debate. A group of international scientists does now present a study, which would support the use of the expensive, yet readily available amino acid.

Portal et al. (Portal. 2011) investigated the effect of 3g HMB/day "on body composition, muscle strength, anaerobic and aerobic capacity, anabolic/catabolic hormones and inflammatory mediators in elite, national team level adolescent volleyball players (13.5–18 years, 14 males, 14 females, Tanner stage 4–5) during the first 7 weeks of the training season". The results were unequivocal, yet not overtly impressive:

HMB led to a significant greater increase in FFM by skinfold thickness (56.4 ± 10.2 to 56.3 ± 8.6 vs. 59.3 ±  11.3 to 61.6 ± 11.3 kg in the control and HMB group, respectively, p < 0.001). HMB led to a significant greater increase in both dominant and non-dominant knee flexion isokinetic force/FFM, measured at fast (180°/sec) and slow (60°/sec) angle speeds, but had no significant effect on knee extension and elbow flexion and extension. HMB led to a significant greater increase in peak and mean anaerobic power determined by the Wingate anaerobic test (peak power: 15.5 ± 1.6 to 16.2 ± 1.2 vs. 15.4 ± 1.6 to 17.2 ± 1.2 watts/FFM, mean power: 10.6 ± 0.9 to 10.8 ± 1.1 vs. 10.7 ± 0.8 to 11.8 ± 1.0 watts/FFM in control and HMB group, respectively, p < 0.01), with no effect on fatigue index.

With no measurable effect on aerobic fitness, anabolic hormone levels or inflammatory mediators, the use of HMB appears to be advisable only in power and strength athletes.

If you are a bodybuilder on a high protein diet, I would however doubt that you would see any benefits from additional HMB. A diet rich in quality protein (high BCAA and particularly leucine content) should provide you with adequate amounts of leucine to keep endogenous HMB levels elevated.

2g Spirulina à Day Enhance Quadriceps Strength in Trained and Untrained Individuals

Hitherto, most of you may have considered algae such as spirulina mostly as a source of anti-oxidants or a pretty useless weight-loss supplement. What you probably did not know is that taking 2g of spirulina each day might noticeably increase your strength gains in the gym.

Scientists from the Department of Sports Medicine and Physiotherapy at the Guru Nanak Dev University, in Punjab, India supplemented the diet of a group of 40 healthy volunteers (20 trained, 20 untrained) with 2g of spirulina per day and measured peak force, average force and fatigue index of dominant quadriceps muscle before and after 8 week of supplementation.

Table 1: Comparisons of effect of spirulina supplementation on peak force, average force, and fatigue index of dominant quadriceps muscle in supplemented and placebo trained and untrained groups.
Values are shown as mean values with standard deviation

The data in table 1 shows the astonishing results: While supplementation did not improve time to exhaustion spirulina supplementation did in fact produce a 30% increases in peak force production even in the untrained group.

Unfortunately, the scientists refrain from speculations about the underlying mechanism of action, but maybe you are satisfied to know that it works and do not care about the how's and why's? No? Well, as soon as there is further information available, you'll find it here at the SuppVersity.