Bodybuilding and the timing of nutrients – Protein

In our sport ( bodybuilding / fitness ) it's very important which nutrients you should take when, and when you shouldn't take them. Let's start with the basics. We have three different macro nutrients (and alcohol, but that's another matter): protein, fat and carbohydrate.

Protein

All of these proteins differ from each other in quite some ways. For instance the time span of absorption, how much of it your body can process, how efficiently your body processes it, it's effects on anabolism or catabolism and amino acid composition.

For instance: casein is a very slow protein (it's absorbed over a time span of about seven hours), it has a low bio-availability* compared to whey (which just means that your body absorbs more of the whey protein than of the casein protein) but your body processes the amino acids from the casein more efficiently. Also casein acts more as an anticatabolic protein than whey, but than again: whey is more anabolic. All in all it's rather complicated at a first glance. The thing that should be clear by now though, is that timing of ingesting your protein is crucial.

Breakfast

When you wake up, you haven't eaten in about eight hours. Also, to get your body alive and kicking again, your body's produced quite some cortisol, a catabolic hormone. You should then note the following: my body's starved. It needs protein, as fast as possible. And: my body is in a catabolic state, I need to counteract that. So here's the plan of action: the fastest protein is whey. Though blending it with casein will slow it down a little, it's still fast. This will make sure our body will be anabolic as soon as possible again. And then to counteract the cortisol, we need a protein that acts as an anticatabolic: casein.

Summing it up: you need a breakfast providing both whey protein and casein. To make it easier for you...a supplement like Syntha 6 has it all :-)

You've just rolled out of the gym, and your body's screaming for nutrients for it to grow. You had then best supply it with whey protein, and perhaps some casein too. Science hasn't agreed yet on what's best, there are studies showing that it doesn't really matter as to which one you take, and there are studies that prefer the whey protein. My take: have both. I would recommend milk, it doesn't really matter which. A recent study has shown that skimmed milk performed worse per ml compared to whole milk, and also when they compared it per calorie. There is also research however, showing that taking in fats within two hours after your training slows down your protein synthesis. It's not so clear here what to do, so I'd do the following: when you're bulking, use the whole milk. The extra calories are pleasant, and it's good for your muscle. When you're cutting: use the skimmed milk. This will shave off some extra calories, thus making the cutting a bit easier.

By the way: another option (if you don't like milk) would be to take just whey protein after your training with twice as much dextrose as protein along with it. The dextrose acts as an anticatabolic (and anabolic because of the insulin spike) , and it provides the fastest assimilation of the protein possible. The whey protein provides the anabolic component.

Also, another option would be to take your protein beverage an hour before working out. This way the amino acids will be floating in your bloodstream somewhere when you're half done working out, thus ensuring the fastest possible recovery. You could even take another shake directly after your training to enhance the anabolism even further!

And another tip: research has shown that adding creatine to your post workout shake promotes recovery even better.

A final example: you're tired and want to go to bed. You will be sleeping for about eight hours, during which you won't eat however! How best to prevent catabolism and give your body the ingredients to keep building precious muscle mass? Consume a source providing a slow acting protein like meat, fish or meagre cheese, and you'll be safe for the night.

This was part one, I hope I clarified some of the timing issues on protein, and have clarified some of proteins characteristics.

In the next parts I'll be discussing fats and carbohydrates and their timing.

*Bio-availability is, even though an often used term, quite useless in real life. Research has shown that when you double your intake of a certain source of protein, it's bio-availability drops, and not to shabby either. The bottom line is simple: be sure to include as many sources of protein you can. Not only will this keep your body from wasting a great percentage of the ingested protein, but this will also provide the best balanced amino acid profile.