Just made 55 and have a question about AA XPFollow

I wanted to get my 3 run AA's before I press on to level 56, but do I need to get an XP cushion 1st so if I die I will not lose a level??

If you are working on AA's and die do you lose XP from the AA pool or regular XP pool or a little from both?

Speaking from experience myself...while i was working on getting first 6 AA's i died and had lost a small amount of exp from both regular and AA. My advice is if you want the initial title, such as Baron, acquire your first 6 AA then go with 100% in regular up to 65. at 65 AA comes very quickly at about 5% or more per kill.