- Fact Checked
Last Updated: January 10, 2023
Over the last few years, essential amino acids (EAAs) went from mostly ignored to the focus of many different health supplements. What we’re finding is that while branched-chain amino acids (BCAA) help to stimulate muscle growth, all amino acids are essential for improving your muscle’s strength and recovery rate after a workout.
So, with all the EAA supplements out there now, how are you supposed to know which ones will work? Our list of the best EAA supplements of 2022 should get you on the right track to finding one for you to use!
Determining which EAA supplement to take for workout recovery can be a challenge. You’ll need to take nutritional requirements, your physical requirements, and your diet into account. Take a look at this selection of the five best EAA supplements on the market.
For a no-nonsense and straightforward product that delivers a large number of essential amino acids, Solgar has capsules that give people the EAAs they need.
For the last 70 years, Solgar has created quality supplements, nutrition aids, and other health products. Part of this ongoing goal is to deliver supplements for different dietary needs, including vegans. Thus, this product was developed and released to the market.
Part of Solgar’s formulation process involves the use of scientific data and small-batch manufacturing to ensure that its supplements meet high-quality standards. Their supplements don’t offer much in terms of flavor, but these capsules don’t taste like the vegetable matter that makes up their filler.
Overall, Solgar does it right when it comes to delivering a health product that doesn’t get in the way of the nutrients you need for your body to function well.
Solgar has an even blend of eight different essential amino acids, each at 75mg total. The capsules use vegetable cellulose as their filler, which slowly releases the amino acids over time after consumption. This slow-release formulation ensures that your body can absorb all the amino acids without wasting too much of the dosing.
The capsules are relatively small and meant to be taken twice a day with food. You only need one capsule per dosing to supplement enough essential amino acids into your diet. Considering that other products require more tablets or flavoring to work, having something simple like a capsule to pop after dinner is simple and easy, making Solgar the best EAA supplement on our list.
These are the specs for Solgar’s Essential Amino Complex, including its size, taste, and form factor:
For the heavy lifters and other muscle-minded individuals out there, our runner-up for the best EAA supplement is the NutraBio Alpha EAA powder. This stuff blends a lot of what makes EAAs great for post-workout recovery with a few other additions to improve hydration and absorption by the body.
NutraBio is a company that wants to make effective health supplements for its customers. With how many companies out there want to turn a quick buck on crummy products, NutraBio stands out by putting effort and scientific research into their formulations. You can especially see this focus in their workout recovery powders.
Similar to other top-rated companies in this field, NutraBio makes its products in small batches to ensure quality. Rather than sending out large piles of mediocre recovery powder, NutraBio tests each batch to ensure each scoop has the listed amounts of EAAs.
This product contains more than just the EAAs needed to fuel your body. Those just represent the muscle-building section of this workout recovery tool.
In addition to heavy doses of BCAAs and EAAs for your body, this product also has both taurine and coconut water powder to help hydrate the body after a hard workout and improve overall heart health. Taurine is known to have health benefits for both diabetics and individuals with heart conditions.
If you haven’t tried coconut water for recovery after a workout, you should give it a try. A study found that this natural product contains crucial electrolytes like magnesium and potassium, making it an incredibly effective option for post-workout recovery.
There are also four different ingredients to help with your mental focus, including choline and an extract from ashwagandha root. These two ingredients work with the rest to aid your body’s absorption of the EAAs.
These are the dimensions and other info for the NutraBio Alpha EAA listed here:
If you aren’t impressed by the NutraBio Alpha EAAs, then you have plenty of other choices for the best EAA supplements to take after your workout. One of our preferred replacements for that product is the Gaspari Nutrition Proven EAAs supplement. While it doesn’t have the same list of ingredients as the NutraBio one, this product will do a lot for your workout recovery.
Gaspari is a company with over 20 years of experience designing and manufacturing workout supplements for the average person. While some dedicated bodybuilders or athletes rely on Gaspari’s supplements, the manufacturer doesn’t forget about the weekend warrior, either.
Overall, this product focuses on four things: muscle recovery, muscle growth, electrolyte recovery, and vegan-friendly manufacturing. Each of these four facets is what Gaspari keeps in mind when producing its EAA supplements.
One of the main draws of Gaspari is its EAA breakdown. The company uses a 4:1:1 blend of leucine, isoleucine, and valine for the BCAA component of this product. This blend gives the supplement plenty of BCAAs to stimulate muscle growth after your workout, making it one of the best EAA supplements for bodybuilding.
From there, almost all the EAAs are present inside the formulation. These EAAs, along with the Himalayan pink salt-based electrolyte recovery package, give the product the amino acids and salts needed to recover your body after a workout.
However, this product doesn’t have the exhaustive list of ingredients that the other workout supplements do. Compared to the NutraBio product, this one doesn’t have as much thought put into the electrolyte recovery. Plus, none of the ingredients help with mental clarity.
Still, Gaspari’s EAA supplement does an excellent job at supporting muscle growth and development by offering plenty of EAAs to your body.
Here are the physical dimensions and the flavors you can choose from when ordering the Gaspari Proven EAAs:
If you have an active partner, sharing supplements tends to be challenging. Each of you needs different nutrients to grow and maintain your body. However, Granite Essential Amino Acids offers an EAA blend that works regardless of your body, sex, or fitness level to improve workout outcomes.
Granite Supplements came about to create workout supplements made from organic sources that work regardless of your goals or body type. The company focuses on transparency and openness when it comes to where they source their materials and what goes into their products.
This product also works for just about any lifestyle. In addition to being indiscriminate for the body type, the product is also vegan-friendly, made in the USA, and meets the Good Manufacturing Practice standards set forth by the United States government.
Granite uses a 2:1:1 blend of BCAAs to deliver fast muscle growth and muscle recovery when using their product. They refer to this blend as their Instaminos, which are fermented into a bioavailable form to ensure the body absorbs them as fast as possible. The blend also includes all eight essential amino acids.
The product also contains a collection of hydrated calcium, sodium, and potassium salts. Sodium and potassium are both needed for the cellular structures that power your muscles. These electrolytes deplete during workouts due to you sweating them out. Having these be replaced by this supplement improves your ability to fight off muscle fatigue and dehydration.
Much like the other workout supplements on this list, Granite encourages people to use one scoop of their product with some water. This process ensures that your body keeps all resources available to process the EAAs in the product since things like food and caloric drinks can get in the way of that.
Below is the size, flavoring, and packaging information you might want to know for the Granite Essential Amino Acids:
For another EAA workout supplement, you can also look to FUNDAMINOS Vegan EAAs/BCAAs. This product contains a blend of amino acids perfect for both pre and post-workout. While it doesn’t offer the same benefits that other workout supplements do, the amino acid blend is one to take a look at.
Since 2008, FUNDAMINOS has been formulating and creating EAA workout supplements for athletes of all types. Unlike other EAA supplements, though, you can use this one both before and after a workout, depending on what that athlete needs from their supplement.
The main draw to the FUNDAMINOS EAA blend is its focus on bioavailable energy. The blend used in this product provides the body energy without creating extra waste or leaving some of the EAAs behind in your digestive system.
The product also has a botanical blend in it to promote muscle recovery and prevent fatigue from intense workouts.
FUNDAMINOS uses a preparation method for its EAAs that it called NutriAminos. This method makes the amino acids up to four times more bioavailable than other supplements, ensuring that your body absorbs everything when you drink the supplement. These NutriAminos contain all eight EAAs, including the three BCAAs needed for muscle growth.
Using this product is simple, too. The package mentions that all you need is a scoop of the powder and some water to add to the mix. Ideally, you drink this a little before or well after a meal so that your body isn’t tied up with digesting and processing other foods before you drink this.
The product also has an extensive list of lifestyle-friendly manufacturing practices. Overall, this product is GMO-free, paleo-friendly, vegan friendly, and made with 100% natural ingredients. For those who need or want clean and organic supplements, FUNDAMINOS has you covered with the best vegan EAA supplement.
Here is the packaging, size, and flavor info for the FUNDAMINOS essential amino acid blend:
Given how many EAA supplement products are out there, it is understandable there would be some questions. Here are the answers to the some of the common questions we see out there about the best BCAA and EAA supplements:
BCAAs and EAAs fill different purposes in the body. While the BCAAs also fall into the category of EAAs, the three BCAAs out there trigger muscle synthesis and recovery. However, your body needs all eight EAAs to synthesize all the proteins your cells need to perform well.
Unless you have a specific workout goal that calls for BCAA supplements, EAAs will fill most of the same roles BCAA supplements do.
How much of an EAA supplement to take depends on your body’s needs. EAAs are essential for those trying to supplement their standard diet, bodybuilders, and other athletes.
People looking to build muscle can require between six and twelve grams of EAAs per day to increase their muscle growth, but those numbers come down by a lot for the average person. It’s always best to talk to a nutritionist before supplementing your diet.
In general, you don’t need to supplement with both BCAAs and EAAs. This fact comes down to how all BCAAs fall under the category of EAAs. BCAAs stand out for the unique structure that allows them to stimulate muscle growth and recovery. However, EAAs are needed for more than just muscle building since they offer the building blocks required for proteins across the body.
Taking EAAs if you need to supplement will tend to be enough for most.
EAAs are okay to take even if you aren’t working out or doing any bodybuilding. Some people elect to diets that restrict the kinds of amino acids their body encounters, meaning that an EAA supplement gives them the nutrients they need for a healthy lifestyle.
Also, people who aren’t working out need the same amount of EAAs as those who do. EAAs help to stimulate muscle recovery, but too much can lead to adverse health outcomes like stomach irritation and nausea.
Ultimately, your EAA supplements need to match up with your lifestyle. An EAA supplement meant for recovery after an intense workout is going to look much different than the best EAA supplement meant to help vegans and other people get the amino acids they need for healthy cells and bodily functions.
When considering the best EAA supplement, think about what you need the product for. Athletes should lean toward the high EAA-count supplements to ensure their body receives enough EAAs to regrow their muscles. Likewise, the average person with no special workout plans can get away with a basic supplement.
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