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What essential amino acids are, how muscle protein synthesis is actually switched on, what changes from around forty — and a straight list of the things aminos do not do. Written to be useful whether or not you ever buy anything from us.
Proteins in the body are built from twenty amino acids. Your body can assemble eleven of them from other things you eat. It cannot assemble the other nine at all — there is no pathway for it. Those nine have to arrive in your food, every day, or the building simply stops. That is the whole meaning of the word essential here: not "important", but "you have to eat it".
Both a building block and a signal — the amino acid the muscle reads as "food has arrived, start building". More on that below.
One of the three branched-chain aminos, which are broken down largely in muscle tissue itself rather than the liver.
The third branched-chain amino. Sits in the same muscle-facing group as leucine and isoleucine.
Used in muscle protein, and heavily in collagen — the protein that makes up tendon, ligament and skin.
Turns up in connective tissue and in the protein layer that lines the gut, as well as in muscle.
The amino acid your body converts into tyrosine, which it then uses to make several signalling compounds.
Sulphur-containing, and the amino acid protein synthesis physically begins from — every new protein chain starts here.
Used to make carnosine, which sits in working muscle and helps buffer the acidity that builds during hard efforts.
The scarcest of the nine in most foods. Present in Bare Aminos as a 5mg trace, so we make no functional claim for it.
They matter — you are made of them too. But your body can build them itself out of carbon, nitrogen and the amino acids already in circulation. The ISSN's 2023 position stand puts it flatly: stimulating muscle protein synthesis does not require the non-essential amino acids. They are not useless. They are just not the bottleneck.
Meat, fish, eggs, dairy, soy and a well-combined plant plate all supply all nine. Nothing on this page is an argument against eating. It is an argument about the specific moments when eating enough protein is not going to happen — early, mid-session, on a low appetite, in a deficit — and what covers that gap without a meal's worth of calories.
Your muscle protein is constantly being taken apart and put back together. Building is called muscle protein synthesis; the opposite is breakdown. Whether you gain, hold or lose muscle over a year is just the running total of the two. Training raises both. Amino acids arriving in the blood are what tips the balance towards building.
A hard session degrades muscle proteins. That is not a problem to avoid — it is the signal that makes the muscle rebuild in the first place.
Protein you eat is broken down into amino acids and absorbed. What matters to the muscle is not what was on the plate, but the concentration of essential aminos that reaches it.
Leucine is the amino acid muscle tissue is most sensitive to. It is both a raw material and a switch: enough of it in the blood is what tells the machinery to start assembling.
A signal with nothing behind it builds nothing. All nine essential aminos have to be present, or synthesis runs until it hits the one that ran out first.
“At rest, stimulation of MPS occurs at relatively small dosages (1.5–3.0 g) and seems to plateau at around 15–18 g.”
ISSN position stand, 2023 · conclusion 4
Figures in quotation marks are reproduced from the International Society of Sports Nutrition's 2023 position stand on essential amino acid supplementation (Ferrando, Wolfe et al., JISSN 20(1), doi:10.1080/15502783.2023.2263409). They describe essential amino acids as a category. The ISSN has not tested, certified or endorsed Bare Aminos, and Bare Aminos has not itself been the subject of a clinical trial.
Researchers call it anabolic resistance: with age, muscle becomes less sensitive to a given amount of amino acid. Nothing is broken and nothing is gone — the amount it takes to switch the building response on has simply moved up.
"Although direct comparisons of various formulas have yet to be investigated, aging requires a greater proportion of leucine to overcome the reduced muscle sensitivity." — ISSN position stand, 2023, conclusion 8.
Bare, not the ISSN: 2g of the 5,000mg serving is leucine — 40% of it. Weighting the ratio rather than the volume is why the scoop is small and why it is about 20 calories. Meeting a higher threshold does not have to mean eating more.
Both work. They are not the same tool. The difference is speed, the share of what you swallow that is actually essential, and what it costs you in calories — not one being better protein than the other.
Bare Aminos is an essential amino acid supplement, not a protein powder. The ISSN's 2023 position stand concluded that "free-form EAA ingestion stimulates MPS more than an equivalent amount of intact protein", and that "the MPS stimulation by EAAs does not require non-essential amino acids". That is a statement about grams of amino acid — not a reason to stop eating protein.
Nine free-form essential aminos, 5,000mg in total — 2,000mg of that is leucine, which is 40% of the serving. No proprietary blends. Tryptophan is present at 5mg, a trace amount, so we make no functional claim for it.
One scoop in 300–500ml of cold water. During training, straight after, or first thing on training days. On rest days, whenever suits — the point is that you don't skip it.
In 2023 the International Society of Sports Nutrition reviewed the literature on essential amino acid supplementation and published ten conclusions as its official position. Below they are, word for word, with a plain-English title on each. We didn't run the study and we didn't choose the numbers.
Read the position standFerrando AA, Wolfe RR, Hirsch KR, et al. International society of sports nutrition position stand: essential amino acid supplementation on skeletal muscle and Performance. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, 20(1), 2023. doi:10.1080/15502783.2023.2263409. Quotations are reproduced from the open-access position stand. These findings describe essential amino acids as a category — Bare Aminos has not itself been the subject of a clinical trial, and the ISSN has not tested, certified or endorsed it.
Most supplement pages stop once the science flatters the product. This is the rest of it. If you read one section on this page, read this one — it will tell you faster than anything else whether Bare Aminos is worth your money.
Five grams of essential aminos is not a meal and was never meant to be one. Your daily protein intake is still the thing that matters most. This covers the gaps in it — it does not stand in for it.
Amino acids supply the material and the signal. Training supplies the reason. Without a progressive load on the muscle, no amount of anything in a tub will make you stronger.
Bare Aminos is not a fat burner, an appetite suppressant or a metabolism product, and we don't sell it as one. Fat loss comes from an energy deficit. What aminos are for in that deficit is protecting the muscle you're trying to keep.
The ISSN's position stand describes the response plateauing at around 15–18g. Doubling your serving does not double anything. If you already hit protein at every meal, the return on a top-up is genuinely small — and we'd rather say so than sell you a second tub.
There is no stimulant here, no rush, nothing to notice in the first ten minutes. What people write to us about is the next day or two of training, and that is a slow, unremarkable read. Anyone promising you a sensation is selling the sensation.
Recovery is mostly sleep, food and a sensible training load. Aminos sit on top of those three. They cannot compensate for the absence of any of them, and it isn't close.
We're not going to print a badge on the tub that we haven't earned. What we do publish is the full amino breakdown, milligram by milligram, with no proprietary blends — so you can check the label against this page yourself.
Every study referenced on this page examined essential amino acids as a category. None of it tested Bare Aminos. We think our formula is a fair application of that research, and we've printed the numbers so you can argue with them — but it is an application, not a trial result.
Bare Aminos is a health supplement, not a medicine. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease, and nothing on this page should be read as medical advice. If you are pregnant, breastfeeding, managing a medical condition or taking prescribed medication, speak to your doctor or pharmacist before adding any supplement. Everything we sell is priced in ZAR and made in Durban.
No. BCAAs are three of the nine — leucine, isoleucine and valine. They carry the signal but not the full set of building blocks, so synthesis runs until it hits whichever essential amino ran out first. Bare Aminos contains all nine, which is the whole point of the format.
Yes, and we'd rather you got that from food. A serving is about 20 calories and 5,000mg of amino acid — it does not move your daily protein total in any meaningful way. It is a top-up for the moments a proper protein feed isn't going to happen, not a replacement for one.
Two grams, out of 5,000mg of total essential aminos — 40% of the serving. That ratio is the reason the scoop is small. Weighting a formula towards leucine is a different design decision to simply making the serving bigger.
Less than people think. The ISSN position stand concluded that repeated stimulation through the day does not diminish the anabolic effect of meal intake, so spreading doses does not work against your food. In practice: during training, straight after, or first thing on a training day. Consistency beats timing.
Honestly, yes — if you're fasting strictly. A serving is about 20 calories and the aminos are absorbed straight away, which is the whole point of them. If you're doing time-restricted eating, most people take it at the end of the window, with the first meal, or after training. If you're fasting on medical advice, check with your healthcare professional first.
On the category, the ISSN position stand states that "the safe upper limit of EAA intake (amount), without inborn metabolic disease, can easily accommodate additional supplementation". That is a statement about essential amino acids, not about you specifically — so if you're pregnant, breastfeeding, on prescribed medication or managing a medical condition, speak to your doctor or pharmacist first.
No. We do not hold a third-party testing or banned-substance certification, and we won't print a badge we haven't earned. What we publish instead is the full milligram-by-milligram amino breakdown with no proprietary blends, so the label and this page can be checked against each other.
Yes — it's the same 5,000mg essential amino base, with sodium, potassium, magnesium and calcium added for sessions where you're also sweating a lot. Everything on this page about amino acids applies to both. It does not apply to Pure Creatine, Pure Carb Fuel or Pure Electrolytes, which do different jobs entirely.
Orders ship from Durban in 2–4 working days, anywhere in South Africa. Delivery is free over R1250 and tracked on everything else. All prices are in ZAR.
Quotations on this page are reproduced from Ferrando AA, Wolfe RR, Hirsch KR, et al., "International society of sports nutrition position stand: essential amino acid supplementation on skeletal muscle and Performance", Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition 20(1), 2023, doi:10.1080/15502783.2023.2263409. Bare is independent of, and not affiliated with, the ISSN.
9 essential aminos · 5,000mg · 2g leucine · ~20 calories · made in Durban.
Mix & match Bare Aminos and Hydrating Aminos — every third one is free.
Health supplement. Not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. All prices in ZAR.