ergo-log.com

Definition: "An ergogenic aid is any substance or phenomenon that enhances performance "

23.08.2011

Handful of ornithine caps before strength training boosts growth hormone level

Give a guy who weighs 80 kg a dose of 8 g L-ornithine HCl before a weight training session, and his growth hormone level will increase by a factor of three. Japanese researchers working for ornithine manufacturer Kyowa Hakko Bio have studied the effects of this amino acid on athletes.

Ornithine
It's not the first time we've written about publications by these researchers. According to their research, endurance athletes can improve their final sprint by taking ornithine, and ornithine also removes ammonia from the bloodstream during physical exertion.

The idea that ornithine supplements can boost the production of growth hormone after heavy training is not new, but it is controversial.

Finnish researchers who gave weight lifters 2 g L-ornithine and 2 g L-arginine each day for a couple of days recorded no effect whatsoever on growth hormone levels. [Int J Sport Nutr. 1993 Sep; 3(3): 290-7.] Researchers from Syracuse University gave bodybuilders 7 g L-arginine and observed that the post-training growth hormone production actually declined slightly. Polish researchers gave power lifters 10 g of an L-arginine and L-ornithine mixture daily and recorded a rise in growth hormone production.

We call this conflicting evidence.

Study
The Japanese gave ten young men, average age 22, 100 mg L-ornithine per kg bodyweight and then got them to do 8 sets of biceps exercises. The protocol is shown above.

On another occasion the men trained after being given a placebo.

Results
Of course, ornithine intake increased ornithine levels. [Figure]

A workout without ornithine led to a growth hormone level rise of factor 2 half an hour after the training session ended while a workout with ornithine led to a growth hormone level rise of factor 6.

The men were not used to strength training. The researchers suspect that experienced strength athletes would react less well to the supplementation. They base this on a study done by American researchers in 1990 [Int J Sport Nutr. 1992 Sep;2(3):287-91.] in which bodybuilders were given 40, 100 or 170 mg L-ornithine per kg bodyweight.

Only the highest dose led to a rise in the growth hormone level.

Conclusion
If you want to boost growth-hormone levels with arginine or ornithine, then you apparently need hefty doses. The effective dose is even higher for experienced strength athletes, the Japanese suspect. Strength athletes' hormone balance is already so stimulated by their training, that only a very strong stimulus will boost growth hormone levels further.

If this reasoning holds, a bodybuilder weighing 80 kg would therefore need not 8 g ornithine but almost 14 grams.

Strength sports experts are skeptical of the supplement industry's GH boosters. They do not deny that supplements can increase growth hormone levels, but do not believe that this increase has any effect. They point to the effect on growth hormone levels of pharmacological growth hormone preparations used in doping. These are of a different order than the little extra growth hormone in the body of supplement users.

Source:
Advances in Bioscience and Biotechnology, 2010, 1, 7-11.

More:
Fenugreek boosts growth hormone emission too 11.08.2011
GABA quadruples post-training growth hormone production 09.06.2010
Only pure protein causes growth hormone peak 26.05.2010

Archives:
Nutrition & Strength Training
Growth Hormone & IGF-1
Amino Acids
Ornithine

600 mg alpha-GPC = more post-training growth hormone A choline sort that you can buy off the shelf in the better supplements stores boosts the growth-hormone peak after a weights workout.	Meditate for less cortisol, more testosterone and growth hormone after training If you are looking for a way to get your body to boost its anabolic hormone production after training, why not try meditation?	Squat produces more growth hormone and testosterone than leg press Squats create a stronger anabolic stimulus in the body than equally heavy sets on a leg press machine.