Diet & Supplementation for Muscle Growth | Dr. Andy Galpin & Dr. Andrew Huberman
00:00:00.000 | I'd like to talk a little bit about nutrition and supplementation as it relates to hypertrophy.
00:00:07.880 | Dr. Lane Norton, who's been a guest on the Huberman Lab podcast and we both know throughout
00:00:14.440 | a number range related to protein intake on the backdrop of how much protein synthesis
00:00:21.640 | can occur by meal across the day, et cetera, a lot of research done there and some important
00:00:28.000 | work by him in particular.
00:00:29.560 | And then the value that he threw out was 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight being the
00:00:36.240 | lower end of the range up to, I believe it was as high as 2.4, maybe even as high as
00:00:41.480 | 2.7 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day.
00:00:47.940 | That's a pretty broad range, but it's on the higher end of what I think most people think
00:00:51.960 | of in terms of protein intake.
00:00:54.120 | And then again, some people might already be right there or maybe even above that value.
00:00:58.000 | Of course, this all depends on whether or not people are omnivore, vegan, meat-based,
00:01:03.800 | et cetera.
00:01:04.960 | We won't even go there.
00:01:06.560 | But assuming people are getting enough protein per day, so somewhere in that range, and they
00:01:11.240 | are spreading out that protein intake to accommodate the fact that the body can only assimilate
00:01:18.140 | a certain amount of protein in any given setting, what do you like to see people ingest at some
00:01:24.520 | point post-hypertrophy-inducing workout in order to get the protein synthesis advantage,
00:01:34.720 | if you will, that is stimulated by that workout?
00:01:38.820 | Earlier you mentioned the post-training feeding window that in the '90s and probably earlier
00:01:43.760 | people were talking about, oh, within the first 90 minutes you have to get 30 minutes
00:01:48.960 | of, excuse me, a certain number of grams of carbohydrate and protein, et cetera.
00:01:52.980 | I think now the understanding is that that window is much broader and how broad, et cetera,
00:01:59.400 | is still a matter of debate.
00:02:01.120 | But when somebody is training specifically for hypertrophy, assuming they are getting
00:02:05.720 | enough protein from quality sources in their other meals and assuming that their overall
00:02:11.080 | macronutrient intake and caloric intake is high enough, that is they have enough of a
00:02:15.540 | caloric surplus that they have the raw materials for hypertrophy, what do you like to see people
00:02:23.540 | ingest at some point post-workout in order to facilitate muscle protein synthesis and
00:02:29.880 | recovery?
00:02:30.880 | And this could include nutrition and supplementation, or if you want to divide those answers out,
00:02:35.560 | feel free to do so, of course.
00:02:36.560 | Okay, great.
00:02:37.560 | So, a ton of work came out of Don Lehman's lab, who was actually Lane's mentor, as well
00:02:41.880 | as Stu Phillips at McMaster, so a ton of work there and we can answer a number of things
00:02:46.360 | here.
00:02:47.360 | So, Lane's numbers that he recommended, also known as about a gram of protein per pound
00:02:51.980 | of body weight.
00:02:52.980 | It's a great start.
00:02:53.980 | Now, once you slide below that, one gram per pound, which is also 2.2, it was 1.6 grams
00:03:03.300 | per kilogram of body weight, all the way up to, I think it was 2.4, but maybe as high
00:03:08.140 | as 2.7 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight.
00:03:11.940 | So, 2.2 in that unit would be the same thing, so 2.2 grams per kilogram is the same as one
00:03:16.580 | gram per pound.
00:03:17.580 | So, depending on which—where you're listening at to this at, one of those may be easier
00:03:22.140 | than the other for you.
00:03:23.900 | If you start getting below that number, now you do start running into questions of protein
00:03:28.980 | quality, protein type and protein timing.
00:03:31.940 | This is one of the reasons why I actually fully agree with Lane, is just get that number
00:03:35.780 | higher than you think and then all those other variables don't matter.
00:03:39.220 | If that number is low, then you need to start paying attention to a bunch of other stuff.
00:03:43.020 | You've added now complexity to your program, things you got to pay attention to, just stay
00:03:47.500 | high and it doesn't matter, and so you can just leave a lot of those things off the table.
00:03:51.980 | That seems to be fairly clear in the work of some of these gentlemen I just mentioned,
00:03:55.340 | that as long as you get to that total number, the question about timing and types and quality,
00:04:00.500 | it seems to matter a lot less.
00:04:01.700 | In fact, Stu's recent work in non-animal-based proteins, it really showed that to be fairly
00:04:07.300 | clear that those are quite effective, assuming total protein intake is high enough.
00:04:12.260 | The amount of leucine and other amino acids in those actual proteins matter less if the
00:04:16.380 | total threshold is just super high.
00:04:18.220 | So just do that and you're fine.
00:04:20.420 | Now the other caveat we have to say here is timing of macronutrients is—seems to be
00:04:25.460 | somewhat irrelevant for protein, but that is not the case for carbohydrates.
00:04:29.700 | So that timing does matter.
00:04:31.780 | Replenishment of muscle glycogen is very specific and you want to make sure that that is around
00:04:36.340 | a lot if you're doing either maintaining training quality or you're sliding into endurance
00:04:40.900 | type of work.
00:04:41.900 | So macronutrient timing does matter with carbohydrates, maybe less so with protein and certainly less
00:04:47.020 | so with protein if the total protein ingestion is high enough.
00:04:50.580 | So it depends on what we're going after in terms of a training goal and where we want
00:04:56.900 | to get with all these things.
00:04:58.020 | In general, the way that we like to think about this is if you're doing a strength
00:05:02.100 | type of work where you're truly targeting that, then a one-to-one post-exercise protein
00:05:07.620 | to carbohydrate ratio is generally what we're gonna go after.
00:05:10.060 | So this would be something like 35 grams of protein and 35 grams of carbohydrate.
00:05:14.580 | It doesn't have to be post, it can be pre or my favorite is actually mid or post, but
00:05:19.900 | somewhere in that range especially if you're training in the morning and you have not consumed
00:05:24.220 | anything prior to your workout.
00:05:25.220 | Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And that's not necessarily eating in the middle of the workout that's
00:05:27.700 | drinking calories.
00:05:28.700 | Evan Brand: Yeah, yeah.
00:05:29.700 | It's gonna be a—
00:05:30.700 | Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I need to see someone eating a sandwich in the gym although I'm
00:05:33.300 | sure it's happened.
00:05:34.300 | Evan Brand: Yeah.
00:05:35.380 | So one-to-one is that like sort of standard number here.
00:05:39.620 | If you're gonna do sort of more of a really hard conditioning workout, that number slides
00:05:44.540 | up to something like three or even four to one, which would be carbohydrate to protein
00:05:48.740 | ratio.
00:05:49.740 | So if we want to stay at 35 grams of protein, we're gonna go maybe as high as like a hundred
00:05:53.020 | or 140 grams of carbohydrate, again, depending on what type of training we're sort of doing.
00:05:58.780 | If you're gonna do a little bit of a combination, then you—like a little bit of strength,
00:06:02.540 | a little bit of conditioning and kind of a standard workout which is probably something
00:06:05.460 | that a lot of people will do, then you maybe want to go to something like two-to-one.
00:06:09.300 | So you know, 35 grams of protein, 60-70 grams of carbohydrate.
00:06:14.300 | And those are kind of just like rough numbers that you can go by.
00:06:16.860 | Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And for pure hypertrophy training, would you like to see people ingest
00:06:21.620 | some carbohydrate post-training?
00:06:22.620 | Evan Brand: For pure hypertrophy training, I want to see that as many of those nutrients
00:06:28.340 | around the training as generally possible.
00:06:30.380 | Now again, I may change my mind when our fasting study comes out, but as it stands now, there
00:06:35.980 | is no advantage to not fueling around the training and there are some known and some
00:06:42.540 | other potential advantages to fueling.
00:06:44.700 | So I just see no reason to not do it.
00:06:47.540 | In fact, most people are generally going to do better.
00:06:50.900 | Now this is not science, this is just my coaching experience and this is with our athletes and
00:06:55.940 | all of our non-athletes that we've worked with and do work with.
00:06:59.300 | They're just going to be better spreading those meals out generally throughout the day
00:07:02.540 | and they're going to be better if they have those nutrients either pre, mid or post.
00:07:07.180 | And so they're going to get even for hypertrophy, they're going to get something like that
00:07:10.660 | one 3 to 1 ratio of carbs to protein.
00:07:14.380 | Personal preference, some people don't like to eat before they train, some people have
00:07:16.900 | to eat before they train.
00:07:18.260 | Some people can't put food in their belly immediately after—work around that.
00:07:23.140 | You can play based on personal preference, but we want that fueling in there because
00:07:27.260 | we want to maximize the potential growth and we want to just get a jump start on recovery
00:07:31.180 | because we're going to be training again pretty soon.
00:07:33.180 | [Music]