L-Citrulline Malate Benefits & My Review

L-Citrulline Malate Benefits, My Review & More

l-Citrulline Malate, you’ve probably heard the name before but aren’t entirely sure what it is except it that it can be found on the ever expanding shelves at your local supplement shop. Citrulline Malate is one of the main ingredients in the current batch of pre-workout supplements on the market, but is this ingredient killer or filler?

Let’s find out…

First of all, Citrulline Malate can be found in very small quantities in eggs, meat, fish, milk, watermelons, legumes and more.

Back In the ‘70s Citrulline Malate was used (in a product referred to as ‘Stimol’) to lower the physical and mental fatigue of patients post-surgery.

The primary purpose of Citrulline Malate is to fight muscular fatigue and weakness via resistance training; this is achieved by lowering ammonia levels as Citrulline is a component of your body’s urea cycle that converts ammonia to urea. During high repetition sets (7+ reps) ammonia is produced via the muscular contraction that takes place.

Studies on Citrulline Malate

Citrulline Malate isn’t over-hyped fairy dust like a lot of supplements; it has numerous published studies to back up its claims and benefits.

A study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research shows evidence that individuals given 8 grams of Citrulline Malate (in a pre-workout drink) before their chest workout were able to perform a significant number of additional repetitions, this study can be viewed here.

Another study conducted with 41 men in Spain performing a chest workout indicated that those that did receive the Citrulline Malate noticed a 17.5% increase in muscular endurance (via additional reps) on their 4^th set.

As this was a high volume study on their 16^th set the largest improvement was noted, a 53% increase in reps were reported. More details on this study can be viewed here.

My Thoughts on Citrulline Malate

I tested Citrulline Malate over the period of 4 weeks, performing high volume, moderate repetition (10-12) workouts with 45 seconds rest between sets. Half way through my workouts fatigue generally sets in and although I am performing the desired number of sets and reps I have to significantly lower the weight if I want to continue to utilise the relatively short rest period (45 seconds) between sets.

During the 4 weeks I used Citrulline Malate I was able to maintain the heavier weights I was using for my initial sets while still keeping my rest periods short.

If you like to train high volume like I do I highly recommend you add Citrulline Malate to your pre-workout drink which is far more cost effective to make yourself as opposed to buying a pre-workout supplement full of filler ingredients..

Caffeine, Citrulline Malate and Beta Alanine are the winning ingredients in my home made pre-workout drinks.

If you follow a lower volume, low repetition workout regime such as Starting Strength or Stronglifts 5x5 I doubt you would get the same bang for your buck, although a noticeable difference towards the end of your workout would still be apparent.

Here’s the Citrulline Malate I use and recommend...

Have you used l-Citrulline Malate? If so do you notice a difference in your workouts?
Let me know in the comments below!