Are Glutamine and BCAAs helping her build muscle?

MissMotivated

Her initial weight was 81.3kg, of which 56.4kg was muscle and the remaining 24.9kg was fat. This gave her a body-fat percentage of 30.4pc, or 55lbs of fat.
Yvonne is now 72.6kg, of which 57.6kg is muscle and the remaining 15kg is fat, and her body-fat percentage is now 20.6pc.............
One supplement that she is currently using is glutamine. Research shows that glutamine helps prevent overtraining, boosts the immune system and accelerates muscle glycogen or sugar absorption, which helps her to build fat-burning muscle.
Another supplement Yvonne has been taking during training is BCAAs, also known as Branch Chain Amino Acids.
BCAAs have a host of research-supported benefits, including preventing catabolism, known as muscle wasting. It also stimulates the building of fat-burning muscle.

This is from the story of Yvonne (after 12 weeks) from the bfit4life site and it's in the health section of the Independant.
I thought it was extremely hard for women to build muscle and I would have thought that an increase of 1.2 kg in that time would be a siginifcant muscle gain.
Would the Glutamine and BCAAs be the reason for this increase or is this the kind of muscle gain a woman would expect after 12 weeks of a decent weights programme?

Hanley

If it was her first time ever lifting weights it's not that unbelievable at all!

carl456

Realistically BCAA's and glutamine will help with recovery somewhat but would certainly not the main cause of muscle gain. I think that getting your sources of amino acids from whole foods is better although some people will argue about bonded peptides etc. Diet is most probably the main cause for her muscle gain. I'm not sure on an average womans muscular gains but men tend to be in the ten ti fifteen pound range a year naturally, so i imagine a womans would be significantly lower, maybe 5 pounds or so

As Hanley said newbie gains probably played a large role as well

Red Cortina

The transformation that that woman has undergone is absolutely incredible!:eek:

GSOIRL

carl456 wrote: »

Realistically BCAA's and glutamine will help with recovery somewhat but would certainly not the main cause of muscle gain. I think that getting your sources of amino acids from whole foods is better although some people will argue about bonded peptides etc. Diet is most probably the main cause for her muscle gain. I'm not sure on an average womans muscular gains but men tend to be in the ten ti fifteen pound range a year naturally, so i imagine a womans would be significantly lower, maybe 5 pounds or so

As Hanley said newbie gains probably played a large role as well

I'm not having a go but I'd say the main cause of the muscle gain is the fact that she's going to the gym 4 times a week. Also she is working with a personal trainer who I know pushes his clients very hard (in a good and controled way). The reason for the fat loss will be a combination of her diet (including the supplements she's taking) and exercise. There is no one simple think that will help you change your body for the better. It's a combination of diet and exercise.

carl456

GSOIRL wrote: »

I'm not having a go but I'd say the main cause of the muscle gain is the fact that she's going to the gym 4 times a week. Also she is working with a personal trainer who I know pushes his clients very hard (in a good and controled way). The reason for the fat loss will be a combination of her diet (including the supplements she's taking) and exercise. There is no one simple think that will help you change your body for the better. It's a combination of diet and exercise.

Agreed, should have been clearer in my answer, of course the exercise also played a large role.

Transform

Hanley wrote: »

If it was her first time ever lifting weights it's not that unbelievable at all!

agreed.

MissMotivated

Of course I know her exercise and diet played a big role, I was just referring to her muscle gain I thought that was alot for a woman to gain as I was under the impression that is was extremely difficult for women to build muscle like that even with a serious weights programme 4 times a week.
Thanks for the replies

Red Cortina

Since I have taken up resistance training a year ago I have gained 3kgs of muscle but I guess that would come under newbie gains:)

MissMotivated

Red Cortina wrote: »

Since I have taken up resistance training a year ago I have gained 3kgs of muscle but I guess that would come under newbie gains:)

Wow that's brilliant!!! It's just from advice I've seen here in threads and a few places I was even with hard work, that's really good to know, I'm starting back in the gym next week and my cousin is a PT there so I'll get a good weights programme off him and I'm sure he'll work the socks off me!!

Red Cortina

Fair play to you! The one thing that I noticed was that it was only when I started paying attention to the amount of protein that I was eating every day that I actually started to see any sort of muscle gains. In fact I reckon that there is pretty much a direct correlation between me starting to have post-workout protein shakes and gaining muscle.

MissMotivated

I don't eat protein with every meal but I do try to eat is as much as I can throughout the day and eat less carbs apart from fruit and veg and oats. My primary goal will be to lower bodyfat and if I build muscle while I'm at it I won't complain!!!:D