Something to consider regarding post-workout protein timing

[Colin Macdonald]

Here's an interesting video from Brad Pilon summarizing a study that looks at the effects of protein timing in relation to workouts.

 

 

He basically says that if you look at protein synthesis in people who supplement during or shortly after a workout you do indeed get a big spike. But studies that look at a longer time frame find that it all averages out, and that big spike is followed by a big drop.

[Larry Roseman]

I don't pay attention to Brad Pilon but it sounds like he's saying that after 8 hours the synthesis rate returned

to baseline. Well, no one is saying that it remains elevated for eternity!

 

I'm not sure what is point is, but if you post the studies referred to it would help...

[Joshua Naterman]

The better you feed yourself, the faster your body completed whatever it is it needs to do, in terms of tissue repair and growth,which means you need less recovery time. This can lead to you being able to handle more frequent training, which leads to better long-term gains (when you are recovering properly) because you are getting more training sessions each year.

 

How quickly synthesis returns to baseline depends on the volume of training, intensity of training, type of training (how much tissue you are using, and how are you using it), and how well you feed yourself (macros, whole foods, veggies, frequency, etc).

 

The other thing you need to consider is that studies often give a single dose, and then wait to see what happens. That is not anywhere even remotely close to real life, where you should be eating quite regularly, and getting quite a bit of food PWO.

[Colin Macdonald]

The better you feed yourself, the faster your body completed whatever it is it needs to do, in terms of tissue repair and growth,which means you need less recovery time. This can lead to you being able to handle more frequent training, which leads to better long-term gains (when you are recovering properly) because you are getting more training sessions each year.

 

Sure, that makes sense in theory. Lets say for arguments sake that you are correct, and that the body has little to no recovery capacity except following a meal. Now the average strength trainer is generally going to be following a 3 day a week full body schedule or a 5-6 day split. So for most that means at least 48 hours of recovery between sessions. What kind of differences in recovery would you predict if somebody delays eating for four hours post workout, and thus allowing only 44 hours of recovery time?

[Joshua Naterman]

Sure, that makes sense in theory. Lets say for arguments sake that you are correct, and that the body has little to no recovery capacity except following a meal. Now the average strength trainer is generally going to be following a 3 day a week full body schedule or a 5-6 day split. So for most that means at least 48 hours of recovery between sessions. What kind of differences in recovery would you predict if somebody delays eating for four hours post workout, and thus allowing only 44 hours of recovery time?

The less often you are working out (3x per week vs 5-7x), and the less intensely you are working (most people aren't really training super duper hard), the more likely it is that being super on point with your nutrient timing will not have a huge effect, but I don't know that for sure.

 

If you're doing a 6 day split, it is much more important to be on point. You're doing so much damage, because these splits usually involve 12-20 sets of hard work per muscle group, that your protein synthesis stays elevated for quite a while, at least 36 hours, and this makes your nutrition extremely important, because your body is ALWAYS in need of extra protein and energy. That's why successful bodybuilders are borderline obsessive with their nutrition.

 

The more frequently you train, the more important it is to be really good about your nutrition, but seriously... It's not that hard to get it at least 90% right all the time, so why not just do that and be done with it?

 

Forget for argument's sake, this stuff has been proven in the lab using real, live humans. You restrict their food intake and they do not start recovering until they start eating again, and then the body goes into overdrive to try and recover. For a single bout, this is no big deal, but when you're talking about more frequent training it IS a big deal.

 

Additionally, for people who are physically active, more frequent meals are correlated with lower body fat. For a multitude of reasons, some purely regarding recovery and others regarding other aspects of training effects, you should just go ahead and follow solid nutrition. It's not exactly a huge burden to at least have a pile of carbs after your workout, or to have protein with that pile.

[Quick Start Test Smith]

If you're doing a 6 day split, it is much more important to be on point. You're doing so much damage, because these splits usually involve 12-20 sets of hard work per muscle group, that your protein synthesis stays elevated for quite a while, at least 36 hours, and this makes your nutrition extremely important, because your body is ALWAYS in need of extra protein and energy. That's why successful bodybuilders are borderline obsessive with their nutrition.

 

The more frequently you train, the more important it is to be really good about your nutrition, but seriously... It's not that hard to get it at least 90% right all the time, so why not just do that and be done with it?

 

Didn't realize that... guess that means I need to be doubly sure I get all my protein and food because I'm training GST 5 days a week and practicing karate 4-6 times a week.

 

Edit:

 

Damn... I didn't look at the dates again !! 

[Colin Macdonald]

The more frequently you train, the more important it is to be really good about your nutrition, but seriously... It's not that hard to get it at least 90% right all the time, so why not just do that and be done with it?

Absolutely, getting your nutrition right is really important, the question is what is proper nutrition. And it is really easy, just focus on whole, unprocessed foods that are dense in micro-nutrients and most people will do well. I'm only questioning the importance of meal timing that body builders think is so important. (Ok, to be fair I question a lot of body building dogma, but I don't want to open that can of worms, you seem annoyed enough with me already  )

 

What I'm specifically trying to do is balance the potential health benefits of IF and maximize training results as well. Autophagy seems to be a critical process for many bodily functions and eating piles of carbs and protein every few hours is extremely detrimental to that process. Autophagy seems to be not only beneficial for avoiding disease and long term brain health, it appears that it's also a critical process for proper muscle growth. A study was performed in conditioned knockout mice to deactivate the Atg7 gene to specifically block autophagy in skeletal muscle. They expected to see improved preservation of muscle mass and increased strength. What actually happened was it caused muscular atrophy, weakness and 'several features of myopathy'. Certainly excessive autophagy is detrimental, but it's clear that there is a certain balance to be found, and just getting tons of protein all the time doesn't seem to be the right answer. 

 

 

 

Forget for argument's sake, this stuff has been proven in the lab using real, live humans. You restrict their food intake and they do not start recovering until they start eating again, and then the body goes into overdrive to try and recover. For a single bout, this is no big deal, but when you're talking about more frequent training it IS a big deal.

 

Do you have anything on hand I can read on this subject? I haven't been able to find anything. I'm not asking in order to challenge your views, I'm genuinely open to criticism to my approach and I'd be interested to see what these studies have to say. Do you have any research that has looked at delayed nutrition on the long term? Or are they short term studies?

[Joshua Naterman]

 

Absolutely, getting your nutrition right is really important, the question is what is proper nutrition. And it is really easy, just focus on whole, unprocessed foods that are dense in micro-nutrients and most people will do well. I'm only questioning the importance of meal timing that body builders think is so important. (Ok, to be fair I question a lot of body building dogma, but I don't want to open that can of worms, you seem annoyed enough with me already  )

 

What I'm specifically trying to do is balance the potential health benefits of IF and maximize training results as well. Autophagy seems to be a critical process for many bodily functions and eating piles of carbs and protein every few hours is extremely detrimental to that process. Autophagy seems to be not only beneficial for avoiding disease and long term brain health, it appears that it's also a critical process for proper muscle growth. A study was performed in conditioned knockout mice to deactivate the Atg7 gene to specifically block autophagy in skeletal muscle. They expected to see improved preservation of muscle mass and increased strength. What actually happened was it caused muscular atrophy, weakness and 'several features of myopathy'. Certainly excessive autophagy is detrimental, but it's clear that there is a certain balance to be found, and just getting tons of protein all the time doesn't seem to be the right answer. 

 

 

 

Do you have anything on hand I can read on this subject? I haven't been able to find anything. I'm not asking in order to challenge your views, I'm genuinely open to criticism to my approach and I'd be interested to see what these studies have to say. Do you have any research that has looked at delayed nutrition on the long term? Or are they short term studies?

 

Yes, I will dig that up. I won't try to do so until May 7th, since that's when I'm done with final exams I may forget about this between now and then, so definitely remind me if something isn't up by the 8th!

 

The delayed nutrition studies are something that Alan Aragon has brought attention to in the past two years, so you may want to see if you can find the references on his site. He's an excellent, excellent resource... I'd go so far as to say that he's one of the best practical nutrition academics that there is. 

 

When you read his articles, you may get the impression that he and I have different viewpoints, but apparently in his books, where he has the time and space to go into quite a bit of detail, we are almost perfectly in agreement, if that means anything to you. This is according to friends here who have read his books, I have not yet read them myself.

 

What the studies did was to see whether the body would still respond with increased protein synthesis after varying lengths of complete fasting, during which blood markers were used to show that there was literally zero change in protein synthesis until the food was given. The fasting periods were up to 24 hours long, but I don't remember much more than that. 

 

Alan's main point was to not freak out if you miss a particular meal or something, because on an occasional single-bout basis this really won't matter much at all. He said more than that, but his main point was that regular fitness enthusiasts who hit the gym 3 days per week don't need to freak out about super-accurate nutrient timing. If they're 2 hours late on a meal, it's whatever.

 

And, if you make up the calories, I find this to be true, but I also find that if you stay in the deficit you feel it for days on end. It's kind of crazy how this works once your body is in tune with itself, if that makes any sense at all.

[Colin Macdonald]

Thanks, I'm looking forward to reading them!

 

Do you subscribe to his research review? I've been tempted, but $10 a month seems really expensive. They only other magazine I subscribe to is Cook's Illustrated online and I think that's $10-$15 a year.   

[Joshua Naterman]

10 per month is money well spent if you are getting some pretty expert opinions on research that you care about, at least in my opinion.

 

It depends on what you feel like spending, and how you feel about nutritional research

 

I didn't even know he had such a thing lol, sounds good though!

[Colin Macdonald]

I didn't know he had a book, so we've both learned something!  B) 

 

http://alanaragon.com/researchreview

[Colin Macdonald]

How did you exams go? As per your request, this is your reminder to dig up those articles if it's not too much trouble.