Term of Award

Fall 2018

Degree Name

Master of Science, Kinesiology - Nutrition Concentration

Document Type and Release Option

Thesis (restricted to Georgia Southern)

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Department

Department of Health Sciences and Kinesiology

Committee Chair

Amy Jo Riggs

Committee Member 1

Jody Langdon

Committee Member 2

John Dobson

Abstract

Beta-alanine (BA) is a non-essential amino acid and has been used as a nutritional ergogenic aid that previous research has claimed to increase muscle carnosine. In addition, research studies have shown that BA decreases feelings of fatigue through its buffering capacity and may possibly enhance training capacity. The aim of this study was to determine whether 4 weeks of BA supplementation combined with a running HIIT workout would improve VO2peak and time during a graded exercise test, as well as peak power (PP) and mean power (AP) during a critical power test for college-aged recreationally active females. A second aim of this study was to determine if the supplementation of BA combined with the running HIIT would improve anthropometric data, lean mass, fat mass, and body fat percentage. Seven recreationally active females completed the study and were randomly assigned to one of three groups, BA (n=3), placebo (PLA; n=2), or a control group (CON; n=2). Body composition was measured for all participants before and after the 4-week intervention along with a graded exercise test to determine VO2peak on a treadmill and an all out cycling test to determine power output on a cycle ergometer. The PLA and BA group completed HIIT 2 days per week on a treadmill while additionally consuming 16.5g of dextrose or 1.5g of BA + 15g of dextrose 4 times daily for the 28 days. The treadmill remained at a constant 5.3% grade while participants performed 4 x 4 minutes of work at 90-95% HRmax with 3 minutes of rest at 75% HRmax. There were no significant differences between groups or significant improvements found as a result of this study. Regardless of group participation here was a decrease in time to exhaustion from pre to post testing however these results were not significant. The results of this study suggest that BA does not have any additional effect on body composition or exercise performance within this sample.

OCLC Number

1085541975

Research Data and Supplementary Material

No

Download

Share

COinS