To maximize protein synthesis, space meals 4-6 hours apart

http://www.xs4all.nl/~eleeuwaa/norton_AF2_09.PDF

The time course of mps [muscle protein synthesis] in response to a meal and the refractory nature of mps in response to constant elevations in amino acids make it seem unlikely that an additional stimulation can be achieved 3 hours post prandially with a second meal of similar composition to the first, as plasma leucine concentrations remain peaked. Thus, in order to avoid refractoriness and maximize mps it may be best to consume larger doses of protein that contain sufficient leucine to maximize mtor signalling and mps while allowing enough time (4-6 hours) for post prandial amino acid levels to fall in between meals in order to re-sensitize the system.

Any 6 meals per day folks up for a constructive debate?

I've read into Norton's research back when I was bodybuilding. His research is very interesting and I'd say it works. He has done it himself and used it on many of his clients with great success.

trianglechoke7 said:

Any 6 meals per day folks up for a constructive debate?

something in nutrition we seem to agree about, lol

I actually found that even more frequent feedings help a lot, especially when using whey protein. I got the idea from a study referenced on a bottle of Designer Whey protein. It was their time release whey, and the study showed that taking in extremely small quantities of whey (5-10g/hr) in addition to meals caused something stupid like a 6 times increase in the rate of protein synthesis. Now, the actual study was doing IV whey I believe, but the same concept applies regardless of ingestion method.

So, being on a ship, I started walking around with a 12 oz bottle full of whey powder and I'd take a small amount at a water fountain every 30-60 minutes and I just swished it around and swallowed. If you've never done this before then I really don't know how to explain what it feels like. You could get a similar effect with liquid whey, but you have to keep it cool so that you're not drinking nastied-up protein. You'd only have to mix up 3-4 bottles a day if you're using 30g protein per bottle. It is really weird, I know, but I seriously gained over 20 lbs that summer and quite a bit of strength. Muscular recovery was quite rapid. It's a very tedious thing to do, and I don't know that it matters for anyone who doesn't have size as a primary goal. After all, it was a hypertrophy protocal. Still, protein synthesis is healing!

3 times every 5h = 15h + 9 h sleeping = 24.

Eating like normal people is not so bad after all.

slizzardman said:

I actually found that even more frequent feedings help a lot, especially when using whey protein. I got the idea from a study referenced on a bottle of Designer Whey protein. It was their time release whey, and the study showed that taking in extremely small quantities of whey (5-10g/hr) in addition to meals caused something stupid like a 6 times increase in the rate of protein synthesis. Now, the actual study was doing IV whey I believe, but the same concept applies regardless of ingestion method.

So, being on a ship, I started walking around with a 12 oz bottle full of whey powder and I'd take a small amount at a water fountain every 30-60 minutes and I just swished it around and swallowed. If you've never done this before then I really don't know how to explain what it feels like. You could get a similar effect with liquid whey, but you have to keep it cool so that you're not drinking nastied-up protein. You'd only have to mix up 3-4 bottles a day if you're using 30g protein per bottle. It is really weird, I know, but I seriously gained over 20 lbs that summer and quite a bit of strength. Muscular recovery was quite rapid. It's a very tedious thing to do, and I don't know that it matters for anyone who doesn't have size as a primary goal. After all, it was a hypertrophy protocal. Still, protein synthesis is healing!

I thought I read about a intravenous study before and it didn't work well, but I can't remember where and I might be remembering that result wrong.

Over how many months did you gain 20 pounds? Do you mean to say that you gained 20 pounds of muscle?

I have the numbers somewhere, but I went from about 200 flat to 232 in 12 weeks, and my BF percentage actually dropped 1%. Keep in mind that means I still gained some fat in absolute terms, but I gained far more muscle than fat. I almost think 20 lbs of muscle is an under-estimate, but I'm not sure. It has been too long for me to try and be accurate with that. I was very focused on hypertrophy at the time, so I wouldn't correlate that too heavily with strength training since that was not my primary goal, though I did lift fairly heavy on front squats, DL and partial benches. Pretty much everything else was still pretty high volume.

trianglechoke7 said:

I thought I read about a intravenous study before and it didn't work well, but I can't remember where and I might be remembering that result wrong.

Over how many months did you gain 20 pounds? Do you mean to say that you gained 20 pounds of muscle?

Keep in mind that burn units use IV protein + other nutrient drips and they get healing rates of 3-4x(I am pretty sure this is the correct multiple) what you would get with solid food. It's insane. Very tedious to try and replicate with shakes, but you can. I just don't know quite how effective that is for what we do here. I'm going to look into it for a bit by experimenting with my own protein intake as I am healing my elbows. I haven't done anything like this in years, it's kind of an exciting idea again lol!

Wow! How long had you been training up to that point? How much were your lifts? Had you previously lost weight?

Up until I joined the Navy I had been 182-190. I gained the 8 lbs during 2 months of doing the 12 weeks to BUDS workout as prep for boot camp. I stayed the same until "A" school, which was 2 months after boot camp, so 4 months after I joined up. When I got there I remember the instructors and a bunch of guys on the getfitnow forum saying that we should gain some extra weight so that we have something we are ok with losing once we get to BUDS as that would help minimize weakness and injury. So, I ate everything in sight, took a good bit of protein and myoblast CSP, and worked out every single day, just about. I did heavy pull up work 3x per week, building up to 3x15 perfect reps with 45 lbs extra weight. I can't even do that now, to be perfectly honest. I did a lot of smith machine work for my legs, lunges and squats which as you can imagine was kind of whatever, and I deadlifted but not as a focus. Lots of overhead lifting with dumbbells, simulating log PT. Anyhow, over those 4 months I shot up to 211 lbs, and went from 10-11 to 13-15% BF. I purposefully gained that body fat, and sure enough it all went away. I didn't lose one single pound during the 5 week indoc, it was pretty easy. Then, during the first 3 weeks of BUDs first phase I dropped all the way to 197 even though I was seriously eating over 10k kcals per day. That seemed to be my body's preferred weight. I stayed there, at first losing a bunch of muscle tone and gaining some BF until I could start using my arm again, and then on the ship I started deadlifting and front squatting on the smith machine. I ran a good bit as well, sprints as well as some (to me) middle distance work (3-5 miles) I couldn't do anything else for a long time, but that next summer was when I got serious and gained a huge pile of muscle. It was pretty crazy. Eat, sleep, work out. But I got huge and strong. I don't remember all my lifts, but I know that's when I went from deadlifting 425x6 to 475x6, my freeweight incline bench got up to 225x12 or something like that and my smith machine partial reps were just off the chain. I started at 10x315 and ended up at 30x725. Keep in mind this was like a 3 inch ROM, moving VERY quickly, AND it was on the smith machine. The bar has a slight but permanent curve now as a result of all that. I was afraid to put more weight on because I didn't want the bar to snap. I wasn't sure how bad I might get hurt... My shoulders felt fine though. Well, the one I could feel did.

Anyhow, after that I dropped all the way to 205 without losing any strength, but it was impossible to gain because I kept jumping from 202-205 to 220-225. I am probably still not as strong in many lifts as I was then, but my body is so much healthier. In the long run, I will be far stronger than I was then. Heck, I am still undoing the 'damage' that I did as a result of far less informed shoulder training than I do now. The rest of me is fine, thank goodness.

My left wrist is a little sore from delivering a bad punch, I wasn't clenched or anything so my wrist bent on the guy's rib cage. I was fine, thanks to the wrist series we do. These joint prehab series are seriously awesome. The knee series saved me from what probably should have been a completely blown out right knee right before I went to the seminars earlier in the month and now the wrist series has really saved my left wrist. Good stuff. You guys are going to LOVE liquid steel™.