Author from PredatorNutrition.com
In the old days it seemed so easy. You trained for as long and as hard and possible and then eat pretty much whatever you wanted if you were bulking so long as you got a ton of protein in there. Yes, that was pretty much the standard bodybuilding paradigm at one time but as with everything change is the one constant in life.
For bodybuilding this meant that in the 1980's you began to see a trend away from the unhealthiest excesses preached by bodybuilders from the 60's and 70's. There was no room any more for double cream and alcohol, both of which were suggested as ways to break through a plateau in body weight. One thing those who lived the 1980's was that moderation was hardly the new watchword of society and bodybuilding was no different. The 1980's brought with it an aversion to fat of almost any kind as ultra-low fat, high carb diets became de rigeur among bodybuilders. While this may have worked for a genetic elite (often aided by the use of performance enhancing drugs), it worked for very few others.
Move on to the 90's and we saw the rise of the low carbohydrate advocates. Suddenly, after reading the works of Mauro DiPasquale and Dan Duchaine, high fat diets grew in popularity tremendously. The rise of celebrity gossip magazines in the same era seemed to go hand in hand with that of the Atkins Diet. Suddenly carbs were every athlete's mortal enemy!
In more recent times we have seen a number of trends grow more popular such as intermittent fasting, and an increasing focus on nutrient timing to maximise the anabolic effects of proteins and amino acids. Coaches such as Charles Poliquin and Nick Mitchell espouse a high protein diet based around foods which our distant ancestors would have recognised, allied to a high meal frequency. At the other end of the extreme some intermittent fasting coaches will advocate just two or three big meals PER week! In the middle between these, you have people such as Layne Norton advocating a moderate meal frequency pattern of 3-4 meals daily interspersed with doses of an EAA/BCAA supplement. This isn't to forget the advice of mainstream nutritionists who still caution against excessive protein intake and warn the body can only handle 30g of protein per meal.
Today, I want to examine some of the basis for why various people advocate different dietary protocols by looking at some recent research on protein which provides new insight into exactly what the body can, and cannot handle.
Is there a ceiling on protein intake which the body can utilise?
This question was tackled in a recent research paper by Robert Wolfe and Nicholas Deutz (1). The researchers first of all addressed the commonly cited 30g limit of protein per meal, cited by both dieticians and legions of bodybuilders to justify why you need to spread protein intake evenly over several meals a day. In their examination of the research they did not repudiate the assertion that there is a maximal limit to muscle protein synthesis but instead, sought to reframe the question by looking not just at how much protein is synthesised but also net protein synthesis.
What's the difference you might ask?
Muscle protein synthesis measures protein accretion only Net protein synthesis measures protein accretion minus protein breakdown
The former is a bit like trying to predict how fast you will travel on a road with your foot down to the pedal. The latter ensures you take into account other variables such as the fact that if your engine is switched off and handbrake is on you aren't going to get anywhere. Traditionally research has looked jat the former only, leading to many unwarranted assertions being based on how athletes should eat to optimise body composition. By taking into account catabolic processes we clearly get a much more accurate picture.
In a detailed review of the existing literature on net protein synthesis the researchers concluded that there was a linear relationship between amino acid availability (amino acids being breakdown products of protein) and net muscle gain with no plateau in effect. In layman's terms, the more protein they eat, the more muscle gained.
Take Home Messages
. By focusing on more protein in your diet, irrespective of your eating pattern you will help to limit catabolic forces that contribute to muscle breakdown.
. The more protein eaten, the greater the potential muscle gain based on this study.
. Combining carbohydrates with protein, especially after training can provide an additive effect in terms of attenuating muscle breakdown as well as enable the body to utilise the protein consumed for growth and repair (rather than for energy).
In the old days it seemed so easy. You trained for as long and as hard and possible and then eat pretty much whatever you wanted if you were bulking so long as you got a ton of protein in there. Yes, that was pretty much the standard bodybuilding paradigm at one time but as with everything change is the one constant in life.
For bodybuilding this meant that in the 1980's you began to see a trend away from the unhealthiest excesses preached by bodybuilders from the 60's and 70's. There was no room any more for double cream and alcohol, both of which were suggested as ways to break through a plateau in body weight. One thing those who lived the 1980's was that moderation was hardly the new watchword of society and bodybuilding was no different. The 1980's brought with it an aversion to fat of almost any kind as ultra-low fat, high carb diets became de rigeur among bodybuilders. While this may have worked for a genetic elite (often aided by the use of performance enhancing drugs), it worked for very few others.
Move on to the 90's and we saw the rise of the low carbohydrate advocates. Suddenly, after reading the works of Mauro DiPasquale and Dan Duchaine, high fat diets grew in popularity tremendously. The rise of celebrity gossip magazines in the same era seemed to go hand in hand with that of the Atkins Diet. Suddenly carbs were every athlete's mortal enemy!
In more recent times we have seen a number of trends grow more popular such as intermittent fasting, and an increasing focus on nutrient timing to maximise the anabolic effects of proteins and amino acids. Coaches such as Charles Poliquin and Nick Mitchell espouse a high protein diet based around foods which our distant ancestors would have recognised, allied to a high meal frequency. At the other end of the extreme some intermittent fasting coaches will advocate just two or three big meals PER week! In the middle between these, you have people such as Layne Norton advocating a moderate meal frequency pattern of 3-4 meals daily interspersed with doses of an EAA/BCAA supplement. This isn't to forget the advice of mainstream nutritionists who still caution against excessive protein intake and warn the body can only handle 30g of protein per meal.
Today, I want to examine some of the basis for why various people advocate different dietary protocols by looking at some recent research on protein which provides new insight into exactly what the body can, and cannot handle.
Is there a ceiling on protein intake which the body can utilise?
This question was tackled in a recent research paper by Robert Wolfe and Nicholas Deutz (1). The researchers first of all addressed the commonly cited 30g limit of protein per meal, cited by both dieticians and legions of bodybuilders to justify why you need to spread protein intake evenly over several meals a day. In their examination of the research they did not repudiate the assertion that there is a maximal limit to muscle protein synthesis but instead, sought to reframe the question by looking not just at how much protein is synthesised but also net protein synthesis.
What's the difference you might ask?
Muscle protein synthesis measures protein accretion only Net protein synthesis measures protein accretion minus protein breakdown
The former is a bit like trying to predict how fast you will travel on a road with your foot down to the pedal. The latter ensures you take into account other variables such as the fact that if your engine is switched off and handbrake is on you aren't going to get anywhere. Traditionally research has looked jat the former only, leading to many unwarranted assertions being based on how athletes should eat to optimise body composition. By taking into account catabolic processes we clearly get a much more accurate picture.
In a detailed review of the existing literature on net protein synthesis the researchers concluded that there was a linear relationship between amino acid availability (amino acids being breakdown products of protein) and net muscle gain with no plateau in effect. In layman's terms, the more protein they eat, the more muscle gained.
Take Home Messages
. By focusing on more protein in your diet, irrespective of your eating pattern you will help to limit catabolic forces that contribute to muscle breakdown.
. The more protein eaten, the greater the potential muscle gain based on this study.
. Combining carbohydrates with protein, especially after training can provide an additive effect in terms of attenuating muscle breakdown as well as enable the body to utilise the protein consumed for growth and repair (rather than for energy).
