I’m notoriously skeptical, as probably 85% of things I’ve tried have no discernible effect. This also makes sense since 85% of supplements are complete hog-wash with no actual science to back them up. I had researched leucine, but was trying some other supplements as well, and didn’t want to confound any results I saw. I’m finally trying it, having been taking it for just under 3 weeks now, and the results: wow.
One of the criteria I use for evaluating supplements is how large the effect of it is, since I’m just a single person, and a slight effect could just be random chance. The results here were not small. Let’s say you usually squat on Mondays, and you’re sore Tuesday and somewhat Wednesday. Every now and then for whatever reason you end up still ever so slightly sore on Thursday. For whatever reason, you didn’t recover as fast that week. You know those weeks. Here’s the thing. Since I started taking leucine, the sorest I’ve been the day after a workout is the equivalent of those random extra days of recovery where you can barely even tell. Barely noticeable.
I haven’t taken more than one day to recover from anything. There have been days where after a particularly brutal workout I am not even sore, and I’ll try and remember if I actually got my workout in the previous day. It’s that big of a difference. I’m sitting here right now, and if you whacked me on the head and erased my memory I couldn’t even tell you that I deadlifted yesterday. I could alternate squatting and deadlifting every single day for a week at this point, and I doubt I’d even be that sore by the end. It’s that good.
About a month ago I played in a football game, and could barely move the next few days (I typically play CB and then O-line on offense). I played again about 10 days ago, and actually played more this time. I was dreading the next morning, especially since I had to get up early and wouldn’t be able to get a full 8 hours sleep. The next morning I could barely tell I had basically done 40 sprints the night before. I played dodgeball the next day and didn’t notice a thing. I’ve been hammering myself for the last week to really try and test it, and I haven’t accumulated any muscle soreness or fatigue at all. I’m not even taking a ton. 5G post workout with my usual carb influx (I also take 5 before sprinting as well, since it’s so brutal, so 10G that day). That’s it.
For the people here that have suggested it to others, thank you; you inspired me to do some research on it, and to ultimately give it a shot, so people like Mertdawg, I owe you big time.