I am ignorant to the benefits of L-Carnitine (which auto corrected to carnitas and Caribbean) so that’s fun. I tried the oral and got nothing from it. I understand the oral bioavailability is garbage. But as a power lifter what do you gain from it?
Carnitine is a branched non-essential amino acid your body makes on its own - it is fundamentally necessary for fat mobilization. It transports fats to the mitochondria of cells to be broken down for ATP, energy. Think about injecting exogenous carnitine as hiring a bigger crew to shovel more coal faster to the furnaces of a steam engine. If you are doing the work and creating an energy deficit, you can use burn fat for energy while sparing muscle glycogen stores. It also helps fuel transport in the brain as well, not just the muscles, so it has a mild positive nootropic quality as well.
So taken pre-training, it will provide more muscle endurance. If you inject 3-500mg preWO, it will be obvious that you will be able to tolerate more total sets before exhaustion. This can be useful for someone trying to get more work in. Especially if consumed with a bunch of pre/intra carbs. Your fuel goes further.
For someone dieting, carnitine before training or cardio makes their fat loss during it more successful, while sparing more muscle & helping them hang in their.
For someone doing heavy low volume strength training, taking it post workout or on off-days with the highest carb meal is going to help a little bit to improve recovery from that meal.
L-carnitine helps scrub the AR - it helps androgens that have bound & transcribed unbind sooner, so they can get back into circulation and find another AR to bind to faster. This makes your hormones (both natural test or exogenous steroids) ‘do more’ per mg before getting excreted.
It has some definite interaction with Thyroid. Based on the better composition it tends to promote over time, I would say it’s overall positive. But I don’t really understand it.
It improves male fertility by improving mitochondrial health of your sperm. Definitely want this when trying to get your woman pregnant.
If you are using Cardarine ever, that exhausts carnitine stores. So supplementing helps keep it working better.
It works much better in the presence of sodium and insulin to help transport it. So taking with carbs, amino acids, or a salted drink is ideal (or injecting exogenous insulin).
TLDR - it can support recovery, anabolism, fat loss, endurance on a foundational level.