How to Maximize Muscle Protein Synthesis | Alan Aragon & Dr. Andrew Huberman

00:00:00.000 | If you can give an across-the-board recommendation of how much protein people should consume

00:00:07.140 | post-resistance training, let's just leave cardiovascular training separately for the

00:00:12.240 | moment, post-resistance training, what would that number be? Would it be 20, 30, 50, or 100?

00:00:18.380 | Should it scale with body weight? And how long after training should one consume that protein

00:00:25.640 | if the goal is muscle protein synthesis? To maximize muscle protein synthesis,

00:00:30.780 | regardless of whether it's post-exercise, and MPS will be larger with the protein dosing

00:00:36.140 | post-exercise than at resting or fasting. To maximize MPS, we really haven't seen doses

00:00:44.220 | beyond 50-ish grams, 30 or so to 50. My colleague Brad Schoenfeld and I, we scoured the literature

00:00:55.280 | and we wrote this paper on what is the maximal anabolic dose of protein per meal for the goal

00:01:03.420 | of muscle building. And we boiled it down to somewhere between 0.4 to roughly 0.6 grams per

00:01:11.900 | kilogram of body weight. And so in freedom units, we're talking 0.2 to 0.25 grams per pound. And that

00:01:23.620 | is what appears to max out muscle protein synthesis. 0.2 to 0.5 grams per pound. 0.2 to 0.25.

00:01:30.360 | 0.25. Yes. Okay. Yeah. So like about a quarter of your body weight in pounds, if you're looking at

00:01:36.660 | grams of protein to maximize per muscle protein synthesis. Yes. Per meal. Okay. Sorry. Because I

00:01:42.580 | think many people, including myself, are going to say, okay, but this is only in the meal post-workout.

00:01:49.520 | I mean, I wake up in the morning and I try to work out before I eat because I like to do that.

00:01:53.840 | Sometimes I'll have a little bit of protein, but let's assume two conditions just for simplicity.

00:01:57.960 | Somebody did resistance training in the previous two hours or, and they're trying to evaluate how

00:02:07.580 | much protein to eat at that meal in order to maximize muscle protein synthesis, or they're eating a meal

00:02:13.400 | separate for, on a day they're not resistance training. Yeah. Right. So, and then as just kind

00:02:19.280 | of a, a generic example of a meal that doesn't follow resistance training in a window of two

00:02:25.200 | hours or so, how much protein should be consumed at these two different meals? The answer to that

00:02:30.540 | is so weird, Andrew, honestly. Really? Why does it have to be so weird? It's freaking weird and

00:02:35.780 | it's complicated. That's because, okay. So if we go all the way back to 2003, 2004, and then we walk

00:02:48.980 | forward 20 years. So John Ivy and Robert Portman put out this book called Nutrient Timing, and they

00:02:57.020 | focused on this narrow post-exercise window of opportunity, they called it. So the, the anabolic

00:03:02.980 | window. And the concept was you needed to consume protein and quickly digesting carbs. So a fast

00:03:12.260 | digesting protein, lightning fast, highly glycemic, highly insulinic carb source together within, within 30

00:03:21.020 | to 60 minutes post-exercise in order to maximize the anabolic response and maximize recovery and then

00:03:27.520 | maximize your muscle gain. So that was their hypothesis. This was all based on subjects who

00:03:36.900 | were training after an overnight fast. And so what happens when you consume a meal pre-exercise or at any

00:03:47.280 | point, let's say, a regular old mixed meal, medium size, the anabolic slash anti-catabolic effect of

00:03:55.420 | that meal is going to last anywhere from three to six hours, depending on the size of the meal. So when

00:04:01.480 | you're somebody whose goal it is, above all the other goals, is to gain muscle at the quickest rate possible,

00:04:08.840 | you're almost never going to train fasted. You're going to have a pre-exercise meal at some point, at least

00:04:15.140 | a couple hours pre-exercise. And so when you're training, you actually still have these substrates

00:04:23.440 | in circulation through the exercise bout. And oftentimes, like if somebody has a meal like an hour

00:04:29.100 | pre-exercise, they're still absorbing that pre-exercise meal post-exercise. So we looked at this whole post-exercise

00:04:40.060 | period as something that just doesn't necessarily have any external validity. It doesn't have relevance

00:04:48.240 | to real world training conditions where people are not training fasted. And so what we did was,

00:04:55.000 | we did a couple of things. First, we wrote a narrative review criticizing the post-exercise

00:04:59.040 | anabolic window. And this was in 2013. We kind of pissed off all the researchers who did the seminal work

00:05:04.780 | in that area. I'm sensing a theme here. It's teasing.

00:05:08.240 | And then we actually, we did a meta-analysis of the existing literature, looking at the anabolic

00:05:15.000 | window thing. And for the listeners, a meta-analysis is a study of the studies. You collect all of the

00:05:21.500 | studies on a given question, and then you kind of see, you look at effect sizes, and you sort of see

00:05:26.320 | where the evidence leans, whether there's a significant or meaningful effect or not. And so

00:05:32.840 | we did this meta-analysis and we collected studies that compared a protein timing condition where

00:05:41.280 | protein was timed within an hour, either pre or post-exercise. And then the control group of the

00:05:47.700 | study would have to have protein, a minimum of two hours of nutrient neglect on both sides of the

00:05:54.660 | training bound. So we collected all the studies that compared these conditions. And we had a brilliant

00:06:02.240 | stats guy, James Krieger. He ran the regression analysis. And essentially, we found that as long

00:06:09.060 | as total daily protein was about 1.66, 1.7 grams per kilogram of body weight, so about 0.7 grams per pound,

00:06:19.360 | as long as total daily protein was at that or more, then the timing relative to the training bout

00:06:27.160 | didn't make a difference.

00:06:28.940 | This is important for people to hear, because what this translates to in my ears is a very simple

00:06:35.040 | takeaway, which is that you don't need to obsess about the post-training anabolic window,

00:06:40.620 | especially if you're eating prior to training because you have nutrients circulating. Now,

00:06:48.820 | if you eat your last bite of food at 8 p.m. and you wake up at 7 a.m. and you're training at 10 a.m.,

00:06:55.300 | then perhaps by the time you finish your leg workout or whatever resistance training workout,

00:07:00.220 | you would want to prioritize getting some protein and other nutrients into your system. What you're

00:07:05.280 | saying, basically, it's so logical now that I hear it, which is that you have nutrients circulating in

00:07:12.680 | your body and stored in your glycogen, and so you're pulling from a reservoir. Fasted doesn't

00:07:17.600 | necessarily mean starving. General rule of thumb, if you're burping your pre-exercise meal towards the

00:07:24.140 | end of your workout, then you don't need to run towards this. This is why I don't like to ingest

00:07:29.680 | anything prior to training besides caffeine, electrolytes, and water. The reason why there's

00:07:35.180 | a weird and complex answer where this is like a single resistance training bout causes this

00:07:41.680 | sort of, you know, this interesting cascade of things where muscle protein synthesis will peak 24 hours

00:07:49.960 | after the resistance training bout. And it'll take as long as 48 to 72 hours to kind of come down

00:07:58.240 | to baseline levels to where you had not done the resistance training bout. So the anabolic window

00:08:06.680 | is actually not hours, but days. So it's more a matter of making sure you are consuming. Well,

00:08:17.400 | the first in the order of importance is total daily protein. So there's this hierarchy of importance.

00:08:23.660 | If you get total daily protein right, then the timing of the constituent doses of the total

00:08:29.500 | are just a distant secondary concern. Even if it's only distributed across two meals,

00:08:35.600 | like let's say, um, I train in the morning, maybe I have a, uh, some caffeine and a scoop of a,

00:08:42.960 | you know, protein shake before like with some whey protein, maybe a few almonds to, you know,

00:08:47.280 | slow digestion down or whatever, um, train. And then I don't get to eat until 3 PM and I only train

00:08:54.340 | for an hour, let's say, and then at 3 PM, I have a little bit of a chicken breast and a salad,

00:08:58.800 | maybe a slice of bread because I'm, I'm on the fly. And then that night I get home and I'm hungry

00:09:03.040 | and I eat two ribeye steaks. I'm exaggerating here. I wouldn't do that. I'd like to, but I don't.

00:09:08.740 | Those two ribeye steaks probably give you 75 or even a hundred grams of protein and a bunch of

00:09:15.920 | other things too. Can you use all of that for muscle protein synthesis?

00:09:20.160 | The short answer is yes. Um, the nuanced answer is, let me tell you about a couple studies.

00:09:26.460 | Okay. Well, as you do that, but, but let me ask you a little differently, not to,

00:09:32.040 | not to shut down the, the, the emphasis on studies, cause that's why you're here. But

00:09:36.460 | is there anything wrong with consuming high or very high protein meal every once in a while,

00:09:46.520 | especially if you're not eating much or consuming much protein throughout the day. And the reason I

00:09:53.020 | ask this is for practical reasons. Many people find it difficult to distribute their protein evenly

00:09:59.080 | through the day. Many people also find it difficult to get enough protein in the middle of the day meals

00:10:06.860 | or the morning meals. It can be done. And I know people will say, well, you have some eggs and some

00:10:10.340 | protein. There are ways to do it. Sure. But at least in this country, most people tend to emphasize

00:10:15.740 | dinner as their largest meal for better or worse. And you can usually order high quality, high protein

00:10:22.940 | foods in a restaurant, like a steak, chicken breast, fish, et cetera. So a lot of people stack their protein

00:10:29.540 | heavily towards the end of the day. Sure. Assuming caloric load is appropriate, et cetera. Is there

00:10:34.320 | anything fundamentally wrong or bad about doing that from the perspective of body composition

00:10:40.120 | and health? I would say no. Um, and then there's levels to it, right? Um, like what population are

00:10:48.960 | we looking at? Are we looking at guys who are trying to win a national competition in bodybuilding,

00:10:54.140 | for example? No, we're talking about men and women, um, teens up to 75 years old who are trying

00:11:02.720 | to be fit by doing a combination of resistance training and hopefully some cardiovascular training

00:11:06.860 | as well, trying to get their steps in. We're talking about the general population, not somebody who's

00:11:11.840 | trying to win a physique competition or run a marathon or ultra. Okay. So generally, no. And I want to

00:11:22.300 | qualify that a little bit. So my colleagues and I did a study testing out this anabolic window thing.

00:11:31.500 | This was 2014 where we tested immediate pre-exercise 25 grams of whey protein versus immediate post-exercise

00:11:39.260 | 25 grams of whey protein. Uh, we ran the experiment for 10 weeks. Yeah. 10 weeks. Yep. Eight or 10,

00:11:48.820 | probably 10. Um, and there was no significant advantage of either, um, condition. So, and our

00:11:57.720 | thinking was, look, everybody's harping about this post-exercise anabolic window. So it really,

00:12:03.100 | if there is this opportunity to consume nutrients at prime time to feed the hungry muscles, then you

00:12:09.160 | would want to focus on availability of nutrients in circulation and not when you actually consume the

00:12:16.680 | nutrients because there's this time course for them to, for the nutrients to peak in circulation. It's

00:12:21.900 | usually somewhere between one and two hours after you ingest the stuff. So how about we consume

00:12:26.960 | protein immediately pre, and then it'll be peaking in the blood like an hour ish later, and then you'll

00:12:32.020 | be right in the anabolic window. So we didn't see any advantage to the immediate pre-protein versus the

00:12:38.620 | immediate post-protein. That was in 2014. So fast forward to 2024 ish, 23, 24. Uh, one of my colleagues,

00:12:47.700 | Yasin Locke, he took our, our pre-post model and he kind of like, he ran his own, uh, randomized control

00:12:57.840 | trial version of it, but he wanted to kind of exploit the possibility of further protein neglect on both sides

00:13:05.280 | of the training bout. So he compared an immediate pre, um, and post immediate pre and post 25 grams of

00:13:12.680 | protein sandwiching the resistance training bout with a group that neglected all, all nutrients for three

00:13:20.440 | hours on both sides of the resistance training bout. Total daily protein was optimized at around, uh, close to a

00:13:28.440 | gram per pound, two, two ish grams per kilogram of body weight. No significant difference, no meaningful

00:13:33.980 | difference in muscle size and strength gains at the end of the, I believe it was a 10 or 12 week study.

00:13:40.660 | That's very reassuring to me. I mean, because I have a busy schedule as do many people. And sometimes I'm a

00:13:47.840 | little hungry before I train and I'll want a scoop of protein powder and I'll think, Oh, is it better?

00:13:52.720 | We'll talk about whether or not it's better to train fasted, uh, for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes

00:13:57.040 | people don't like to train fasted. Sometimes people don't like to eat immediately after they train.

00:14:02.220 | Sometimes you have to shower up and head to dinner after you train or shower up and head to a meeting

00:14:07.940 | and you don't have the opportunity to ingest this in the quote unquote anabolic window. So what I'm

00:14:16.160 | hearing through all these answers, correct me if I'm wrong, is that there's tremendous flexibility

00:14:20.180 | as to when you consume the protein that we all need, but that it, the overall protein requirement

00:14:27.760 | seems to center somewhere around 0.7 to one gram per pound of body weight, somewhere in their total

00:14:33.680 | per day. If the amount in a given meal is a bit higher than 20 or 30 grams, you're fine. If it's a bit

00:14:42.020 | lower, you're probably fine. But the thing that also I believe needs highlighting that most people

00:14:47.880 | don't talk about is distinguishing between what's in circulation versus when one ingests something.

00:14:54.940 | Like we'd love to think that we drink 30 grams of protein or eat the chicken breast or the piece

00:14:59.660 | of steak or have the eggs and suddenly those amino acids are available. And it makes so much more

00:15:05.240 | rational sense now that you describe it, that eating first makes those amino acids available

00:15:10.460 | for the muscles a couple hours later. And we just don't learn about it that way. So I'm very grateful

00:15:17.800 | that you're bringing it up that way. I realized we could probably drill into protein requirements

00:15:22.520 | ad nauseum, but- Think about it this way. The way I like to put it is total daily protein is the cake.

00:15:29.960 | The specific timing of protein relative to the training bout, that is the icing on the cake. And it's a very

00:15:37.160 | very thin layer of icing on the cake.

How to Maximize Muscle Protein Synthesis | Alan Aragon & Dr. Andrew Huberman

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