To build muscle, your body’s rate of protein synthesis must be greater than the rate of protein breakdown. When it is the other way round, muscle loss occurs, and when they are equal your muscle mass remains the same✓ BCAAs increase the rate of protein synthesis BCAAs (such as leucine) stimulate protein synthesis more than regular dietary protein because they have already been broken down into the necessary amino acids that your body requires to carry out the reaction. Therefore the rate of protein synthesis increases, in addition to the amount of protein synthesis any one particular cell can carry out. This is a prominent explanation for how BCAAs can help maximise muscle recovery. Muscle repair = more muscle growth! ✓ BCAAs reduce the amount of protein breakdown This occurs by reducing the number of bases that are released which signal to break down protein. If you consider this in addition to our previous point, and the general formula for building muscle, it is easier to understand how BC