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National Library of medicine:
The results indicate that HMB supplementation in athletes can reduce the concentration of cortisol in resistance exercises and increase the concentration of testosterone in aerobic and anaerobic combined exercises.
HMB, or beta-hydroxy beta-methylbutyrate, is a dietary supplement that is often used by athletes and bodybuilders to improve muscle growth and recovery. Benefits of taking HMB include increased muscle protein synthesis, reduced muscle breakdown, improved muscle recovery, enhanced strength and power output, increased endurance and promotes neural growth factors to help reduce symptoms of Alzheime
What are HMB's main benefits? HMB plays an anticatabolic role in muscle tissue. In other words, HMB prevents muscle protein breakdown and reduces the loss of fat-free mass. These effects seem to be most pronounced during catabolic states, including cancer cachexia, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), and aging.
HMB is one of the most exciting sports supplements in the world right now. It is still far from the most popular supplement on the market; the average guy at your gym is unlikely to be taking HMB on a daily basis. But given what we know about HMB’s power, we think this is likely to change in the very near future.
As we see it, HMB is one of the best fat burners in existence.
While it does not have any fat burning properties itself, HMB does have a completely unique effect that makes it incredibly effective for people looking to drop fat while staying strong, athletic, and muscular.
Yet today few people know how to use HMB to effectively ward off muscle catabolism during a cut.
Even serious bodybuilders, MMA fighters and strength athletes aren’t sure of the best way to use HMB to maximize fat loss and protect their gains while cutting.
One question we’ve seen asked several times of bodybuilding forums is “should I take HMB every day?”
In this article, we’ll try to answer that question in detail. We will explain why you should take HMB every day for maximum benefits. To do that, we first need to look at what HMB is and how it works.
What is HMB?
In simple terms, HMB is able to prevent muscle mass loss during periods of caloric restriction or intensive training. Or to put it another way, HMB allows you to train in a fasted or severely calorie restricted state without worrying about losing any of your gains.
What’s more, HMB manages to prevent significant losses in muscle mass without causing any side effects or long-term health risks. It is a naturally occurring substance already present in the human body.
It may sound too good to be true, but it isn’t; there is a growing body of hard clinical evidence showing that HMB supplementation leads to significantly decreased muscle mass loss in athletes undergoing intensive training programs while in a caloric deficit.
Perhaps most exciting of all, HMB appears to be effective for preventing muscles mass loss in people who train in a fasted state, when muscle catabolism is typically at its most aggressive.
Normally, training in a fasted state will force your body to break down muscle tissue; it needs to do this to carry out all of the biological processes behind intense physical activity.
HMB stops this from happening, meaning you can enjoy all of the fat-torching benefits of fasted training, skip entire meals to help you lose weight faster, and still not worry about losing any of the gains you made over the last year or so of bulking!
But how does HMB do this exactly?
How does HMB work?
The exact role of HMB in the body is not completely understood. We can, however, assume that it is intimately involved in the anabolic process in a similar way to L-Leucine. HMB is a metabolite of L-Leucine; the so-called “anabolic trigger” amino acid. We have long known that Leucine triggers muscle protein synthesis, and that the presence of Leucine acts as a signal for the body to enter an anabolic (muscle building) state.
About 5-10% of the Leucine you consume is converted into HMB in the body. It appears that while the other metabolites are responsible for spurring on muscle tissue repair (protein synthesis), HMB is responsible for preventing muscle tissue breakdown (proteolysis).
According to the best scientific evidence available, HMB likely does this by blocking the action of bodies called proteasomes. These are bundles of proteins responsible for finding and destroying old, damaged, or unnecessary proteins in the body.
Proteolysis is a vital process for ridding the body of degraded, damaged or old proteins, but if you’re a serious athlete undergoing an intense cutting program, protein breakdown is your worst enemy!
So by blocking specific proteasomes, HMB stops muscle tissue breakdown at the level of individual proteins. Importantly, it does this effectively during times when proteasomes are likely to be most active; when your muscle tissue is severely damaged and you are in a deep calorie deficit.
In other words, HMB is effective even during the depths of a savage cut, when you are training 3 hours a day and down 400 calories per day.
So how do you use HMB?
Do you need to take HMB every single day in order to see benefits? Or can you get away with using it only on training days?
Should you take HMB every day?
The answer is yes! We strongly recommend taking HMB every day. If you take HMB daily for the duration of your cut, you give your muscle tissue the most protection you possibly can from breakdown.
Over several weeks of a cutting phase, daily HMB use can save you several percentage points of lean muscle mass. Combined with substantial fat loss, this can make a tremendous difference to your physique, your strength levels, and your power.
All of the studies showing significant benefits from HMB supplementation used a once-daily protocol; study participants were asked to take 1-3g of HMB at the same time every single day for several weeks.
By contrast, using HMB occasionally, say, only on training days, will leave your muscle mass completely unprotected for the rest of the time. If you’re dieting, then you really need to be protecting your gains from wastage as much as possible, even on non-training days!
Taking HMB every day is a much more important thing to focus on, as consistency makes a far greater difference to results than HMB dose timing over the long-run.