nothing sitting in your stomach
Clear, light, around twenty calories. Take it at 5am on an empty stomach, or mid-ride, without regretting it an hour later.
Masters athletes · 45–62 · Buy 2, Get 1 Free
you didn't get slower.
you stopped recovering.
The sessions still go in. It's the day after that changed — and the reason is a well-documented shift in how muscle reads protein, not a verdict on what you've got left.
- 4.6 ★from 471 verified reviews
- Made in Durban
- 60-day money-back
The sessions aren't the problem. The hours between them are where this shows up.
01What actually changed
the engine is fine.
the signal got quieter.
From somewhere in your mid-forties, the same protein meal produces a smaller muscle-building response than it did at thirty. Researchers call it anabolic resistance. The muscle is still willing and still adapts — it simply needs a louder signal before it starts the rebuild.
Which is why the obvious fix quietly stops working. You add another chicken breast, another scoop, an extra meal, and the eating gets bigger while the returns stay flat. Most masters athletes read that as an effort problem and train harder into it. The requirement changed, not the athlete.
It never shows up in the session itself. It shows up on Thursday — still paying for Sunday, going in flat, taking a plate off the bar and calling it a deload when it is really a debt.
What raises the signal isn't more volume of food. It's leucine, the specific amino acid muscle watches for. Bare Aminos carries 2g of leucine inside 5,000mg of all nine essential aminos, free-form and already broken down, so the message arrives intact and arrives fast. Not more protein. Protein that lands.
Cited
Katsanos et al., Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab 2006 · Moore et al., J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci 2015 · Wall et al., PLoS One 2015
02The numbers
5,000mg of the part that does the work.
A serving of Bare Aminos is nine essential amino acids in free form — the ones your body cannot manufacture and has to be handed. There is nothing else in there taking up room.
That matters most in the hour either side of a hard session, when a shake is too heavy, a meal is too slow, and most athletes end up taking nothing at all. The window closes whether or not you filled it.
Miss it often enough and the sessions stop stacking. You get four hard weeks a month on paper and two in practice, because the other two go on catching up.
One serving in cold water, about twenty calories, mixed clear. Light enough to take at 5am before a long ride, and light enough to take straight off the bike when food is the last thing you want.
What one serving carries
- Essential aminos per serving
- 5,000mg
- Of that, leucine
- 2g
- Essential aminos included
- 9
- Calories
- ~20
Figures per serving. Bare Aminos is an essential amino acid supplement, not a protein powder — it sits alongside the food you already eat.
Independent evidence · not our study
the conclusions aren't our opinion.
they're the ISSN's.
In 2023 the International Society of Sports Nutrition reviewed the literature on essential amino acid supplementation and published ten conclusions as its official position. If you are training past forty, read number 08 twice. Here they all are — and where Bare Aminos sits against them. We didn't run the study and we didn't choose the numbers.
Read the position standRecover between sessions
1.5–3g
The dose at which muscle protein synthesis switches on. Every Bare serving delivers 5,000mg.
Skip the digestion
0
Free-form aminos need no breaking down — they raise blood amino levels fast, and that rise is the trigger.
Keep training past forty
2g
Ageing muscle needs a greater proportion of leucine to overcome anabolic resistance. That is our leucine dose.
Hold muscle while cutting
~20 cal
EAA requirements rise in a deficit. Bare covers the full amino load for about twenty calories.
The full position
all ten conclusions, in plain language
01
ISSN position
Repair is the point
Protein turnover replaces the muscle proteins training degrades. That turnover is the metabolic foundation everything else sits on.
02
ISSN position
Free-form works fast
Free-form EAAs raise blood amino levels quickly, and that rise is what switches muscle protein synthesis on.
03
ISSN position
Safe to add
The safe upper limit of EAA intake comfortably accommodates supplementation on top of the food you already eat.
04
ISSN position
1.5–3g starts it
At rest, muscle protein synthesis is stimulated from as little as 1.5–3g, and plateaus around 15–18g.
Bare, not the ISSN
Every Bare Aminos serving delivers 5,000mg of essential aminos, including 2g of leucine.
05
ISSN position
Only the essentials
The non-essential aminos are not required for the response. Nine is the list that matters.
06
ISSN position
Better than protein
Gram for gram, free-form EAAs stimulate muscle protein synthesis more than an equivalent amount of intact protein.
07
ISSN position
Take it daily
Repeated EAA doses through the day do not blunt the anabolic response to your actual meals.
08
ISSN position
Age needs leucine
Ageing muscle is less sensitive — “anabolic resistance” — and needs a greater proportion of leucine to respond.
09
ISSN position
Even without training
In anabolic-resistant populations, EAA supplementation can improve functional outcomes without exercise attached.
10
ISSN position
More when cutting
EAA requirements rise in a caloric deficit. Meeting them is what preserves anabolic sensitivity while you lose weight.
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. These findings describe essential amino acids as a category — Bare Aminos has not itself been the subject of a clinical trial.
03The window
the hour around training is where most of it goes missing.
Food does the job at dinner. Around training it often can't — not because you don't know better, but because a 5am start, a three-hour ride and a post-session stomach are three different problems and a plate of chicken solves none of them.
So the one dose that would have been worth the most is the one that reliably gets skipped. Not through carelessness. Through logistics.
Over a season that compounds into the thing masters athletes complain about most: the training is there, the consistency is there, and the adaptation isn't keeping pace with either.
Free-form aminos need no digesting. They raise blood amino levels within minutes rather than hours, which is what the ISSN identifies as the trigger — so the signal arrives while the window is still open, not after it has shut.
Cited
Ferrando et al., J Int Soc Sports Nutr 20(1), 2023 — ISSN position stand on essential amino acid supplementation. doi:10.1080/15502783.2023.2263409
so why not just eat more protein?
You still should — food first, always. This is for the moments a steak or a shake is too heavy, too slow, or simply isn't going to happen: 5am, mid-ride, or straight off the back of a session.
Bare Aminos
Whey shake / BCAAs
Essential aminos included
All nine
BCAAs: three
Leucine per serving
2g
Varies by scoop
Needs digesting first
No — free-form
Yes
Sits in your stomach mid-session
No — mixes clear
Often
Calories per serving
~20
120–200
Workable at 5am, fasted
Yes
Rarely
Bare Aminos is an essential amino acid supplement, not a protein powder — it supplies the essential aminos your body can't make, without the calorie load.
The science
what changed,
and why leucine.
Anabolic resistance in plain language: the threshold moved, the machinery didn't. What the ISSN's 2023 position stand concluded about leucine, where our 2g sits against it — and what aminos don't do.
Read the science →About an 8 minute read
- 9essential aminos, all of them
- 5,000mgper serving, 2g of it leucine
- ISSN 2023position stand, quoted in full
The product
Bare Aminos
the day after
is the one that counts.
A glass of water, under a minute, before the damage settles in. Nine free-form essential aminos for the people who fully intend to still be doing this at seventy.
01
Go again sooner after a hard session
02
Support and hold the lean muscle you've built
03
Take it at 5am, mid-ride or post-session
Why
5,000mg of essential aminos per serving, 2,000mg of it leucine — the amino that signals repair. No digestion required, ~20 calories, mixes clear.
Read the full label →
04The long game
keeping the muscle is a maintenance job now, not a project.
Lean muscle isn't only what makes you strong on the day. It is metabolically expensive tissue that supports how you use energy, how you carry load, and how easily you do the ordinary things between sessions.
The athletes still racing well into their sixties are almost never the ones training hardest. They are the ones who kept what they had already built — because rebuilding it later is the difficult version of the same job.
Which makes consistency the whole game. Not intensity, not novelty, not another programme. The unglamorous daily thing you'll still be doing in March.
That is exactly what Bare Aminos is built to be: one serving, cold water, about twenty calories, every day — training or not. Small enough that you actually keep doing it, which is the only property that matters in a maintenance habit.
What changesAnd roughly when
you'll notice it
in the mornings.
the morning after reads differently
The thing buyers write to us about most: less next-day heaviness, and the second session of the weekend stops being the one you dread.
sessions stack instead of costing you
Four hard weeks instead of two hard weeks and two spent catching up. Consistency is what builds masters athletes — this is there to protect it.
05How to read it
notice the first one.
judge it at three weeks.
Most supplements ask for faith. This one is easier to audit, because recovery is a sensation you already know intimately — you have twenty years of baseline to compare it against.
The mistake is judging it on day three. People take two servings, feel something small, decide they imagined it, and stop — right before the part where it compounds.
Recovery debt took months to accumulate. It does not clear over a weekend, and anything that promises otherwise is selling you something else.
So use it honestly. Notice the first session — most people report the next morning feels different — then judge it properly at two to three weeks, on the only question that matters: are you going again sooner? If it hasn't earned its place by then, the 60-day money-back guarantee is exactly what it's for.
4.3
★★★★★
from 471 verified reviews.
★★★★★
“I am 56 years old and doing Crossfit 5 days a week… I recover very fast after each workout and my muscles are not so sore as they were in the past. I also do not feel fatigued after my strength training days. I will never use a different product again.”
★★★★★
“I'm an older runner and after my long weekly run I usually feel quite tired in the afternoon. However, since using this product straight after my long run I seem to feel strong and full of energy for the rest of the day. I also seem to have less stiffness and muscle soreness.”
★★★★★
“I am extremely impressed by the product. I can see a definite improvement in my stamina and endurance on the bike. My recovery has improved which give me more efficient workouts. I train 6 days a week.”
Not sure it's for you?
60-day money-back. Use the whole thing — if nothing changes, we refund it.
the honest answers.
I already eat a lot of protein. Do I need this?
Food first, always — this doesn't replace any of it. What it covers is the moments food can't: 5am before a long session, the middle of a three-hour ride, and the hour after training when a meal isn't happening. That is where most masters athletes are short, and it's the dose that's worth the most.
When will I actually notice something?
Most people report the next morning feels different inside the first week or two of consistent use. Judge it properly at two to three weeks, on whether you're going again sooner. If it hasn't earned its place by then, that's what the 60-day money-back guarantee is for.
How is this different to a whey shake?
A shake is whole protein your body still has to break down. This is nine essential aminos already in free form — 5,000mg in total, 2,000mg of it leucine — so there's no digestion step, it's about twenty calories, and it mixes clear. It's a top-up alongside your food, not a meal replacement, and it doesn't sit heavy before or during a session.
When do I take it — before, during or after?
Whichever you'll actually keep doing. Endurance athletes tend to take it during and straight after long sessions; strength athletes tend to take it before or immediately after. On rest days most people take it in the morning. Consistency matters more than timing.
Can I take it with creatine?
Yes — they do different jobs. Creatine is a daily 5g habit and the time of day barely matters. Bare Aminos is the amino load on top of the food you already eat. Plenty of people take both, and you can mix them in the same box.
When does it ship, and what does delivery cost?
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.
Complementary medicine / health supplement; not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Individual experiences vary. All prices in ZAR.
Every 3rd free
still in the game?
still in the game?
build the box for it.
Mix Bare Aminos and Hydrating Aminos — every third one is free, pooled across both. Add Creatine, Carb Fuel or Electrolytes at 15% off, applied automatically.
Your box
3 of 3
Aminos · Mixed Berry
R549
Hydrating · Mango Orange
R549
Aminos · Peach Ice Tea
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R1,098
R366 each · R12.20 a serving
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