Taurine is a conditionally essential amino acid that supports endurance, overall performance, and cellular hydration. It’s found throughout the body in the brain, heart, and skeletal muscles, especially the fast-twitch fibers. Named by the German scientists who isolated it from ox (taurus) bile in the 1800s, taurine is a conditionally essential amino acid that can be obtained in food sources like fish, poultry, and dairy.
In addition to food sources, taurine is a staple ingredient in many energy drinks and pre-workouts on the market.
Despite its presence in so many commercial products, the performance benefits of taurine are relatively unknown. Many people have used an energy drink or pre-workout that contains taurine, but might not know why it’s in there or how it may be benefiting them.
Today we'll explore the research available and explain why, at Kaged, we use taurine in all of our pre-workouts and our hydration products.
We'll shed more light and explore the research, mechanisms, and benefits of taurine. In particular, we’ll look at its benefits pre-workout and intra-workout (during your training).
Key Takeaways
- Taurine is a conditionally essential amino acid that plays various physiological roles in the body.
- Taurine supplementation can enhance athletic performance, particularly when used in pre-workout supplements.
- Scientific research supports taurine's role in improving endurance and work capacity.
- Taurine can aid in recovery by reducing muscle soreness.
- Taurine influences the body’s utilization of electrolytes. It can help draw more fluid into muscle cells.
- For performance, the recommended dose of taurine ranges from 1-6g per day.
- Beyond its athletic performance benefits, taurine may also aid in sleep, offering an unexpected benefit for overall health and recovery.
Taurine and Endurance: Supporting Sports Performance
The area where taurine has shown the most promise is in improving endurance and stamina, therefore supporting athletic performance.*
One meta-analysis looked at 10 studies that examined taurine’s effects on endurance performance. The researchers concluded that taurine improved overall endurance performance and time trial performance. This research revealed a couple of other important factors pertaining to taurine’s benefits.
First, across the studies they saw benefits from both acute and chronic supplementation. This means just taking it once (acute) provided benefits as did taking it consistently (chronic).
Second, they observed benefits at doses ranging from 1-6g per day. This means 1g is the low end of the taurine dose you should look for. Ideally, look for 2g, which is what we include in Kaged Pre-Workout based on this research.
Another meta-analysis which consisted of 34 studies, examined the effects of acute energy drink consumption on physical performance.
The researchers found that energy drinks improved muscle strength, endurance, and sport-specific actions. Of course, caffeine played the bigger role in these benefits, but that's not the full story.
When the researchers did a meta-regression on the data, they noted a significant association between taurine dosage and performance, but not with caffeine dosage and performance. When they isolated taurine, they saw that it supported endurance and stamina.*
Another study on healthy young men saw that those who supplemented with taurine prior to using a cycle ergometer to exhaustion had improved VO2 max, maximal workload, and time to exhaustion.
While there is relatively limited research, it's clear that at effective doses, taurine can support endurance.*
Taurine and Muscle Soreness: May Support Recovery
You may have heard claims that taurine can reduce muscle soreness and support recovery. There's some literature to support this, which we'll share below. However, with just two studies to support this claim, we believe we need more research. The benefits shown have been modest.
The idea for this comes from taurine’s ability to act as an antioxidant. By helping reduce oxidative stress, the theory goes, taurine can help protect muscle tissue from damage during intense exercise, potentially leading to less soreness and quicker recovery.
One study placed subjects into two groups. One group supplemented with taurine and one received a placebo. The researchers measured muscle performance and collected blood samples throughout the study, with both groups performing the same eccentric exercise.
The study found that the taurine supplementation group had increased strength levels and reduced muscle soreness without affecting the expected post-workout inflammatory process.
In another study on 36 men were tested to determine the effects of branched-chain amino acids (BCAA) and taurine supplementation on eccentric exercise. They split the men into four groups:
- Placebo group
- BCAA group
- Taurine group
- BCAA + Taurine group
The researchers observed improved markers for delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) and muscle damage in the BCAA plus taurine group compared to the other groups.
Taurine and Electrolyte Utilization
Taurine's role in the body extends beyond its direct benefits in athletic performance and recovery. One of the essential functions of taurine is its involvement in the regulation of fluid and electrolytes within the body.
Electrolytes, such as sodium, potassium, and magnesium, are vital for hundreds of bodily functions. They’re necessary for proper muscle contractions, nerve function, fluid balance, and more. Taurine helps regulate these electrolytes in the body.
Because of its role in supporting cellular hydration and electrolyte utilization, we include 1g of taurine in our best-selling hydration supplement, Kaged Hydration (Hydra-Charge.)
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The Optimal Dose of Taurine for Performance
The dosage range of 1- 6g per day has been shown to be effective, with the meta-analysis showing that doses greater than 6g per day didn’t improve performance beyond what the lower dosage range provided.
These studies also showed that taurine is effective with both acute and consistent (chronic) supplementation. That means you don’t need to take it daily to get its benefits, but it still is effective if you take it consistently.
How to Add Taurine to Your Supplement Routine
A great way to add this to your supplementation routine is to create your own stack of Kaged supplements.
All of our pre-workouts contain 2g of taurine. Hydration (Hydra-Charge) contains 1g of taurine. So if you take Hydration and a pre-workout, you’ll get a total of 3g of taurine around your workout window. This is right in the middle of the dosages shown to be effective in the research on taurine.
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