Regarding protein intake and recovery

benol1

Hi all,

I am hoping someone knowledgeable can shed some light.

The conventional wisdom seems to be that after a workout, one consumes protein to facilitate recovery.
My question is - must one consume "recovery" protein after the workout or can it be consumed in the hours before the workout?
I ask because at lunch time today I had a very large serving of protein and then five hours later attended an RPM class and did some strength training.
Thanks for your time and consideration.

Ben

Edited to fix typo

SideSteel

When you say recovery, are you talking about soreness or are you talking about/concerned about maintaining muscle mass via protein synthesis?

benol1

Hi Sidesteel,
I am meaninging maintaining muscle mass via protein synthesis.
My apologies for not being clear.
kind regards,

Ben

benol1

bump

SideSteel

Hi Sidesteel,
I am meaninging maintaining muscle mass via protein synthesis.
My apologies for not being clear.
kind regards,

Ben

This is a pretty considerable grey area. We have a lot of studies looking at acute protein synthesis but they don't necessarily tell us what happens over the course of larger periods of time. Not to mention several of the studies are not necessarily using protein intakes that are sufficient by bodybuilding standards so that complicates the issue (in theory, timing may matter more when dose is insufficient).

Your first priority would be to take in an adequate amount of protein for the day in total as that's going to be significantly more important than the timing of protein.

Regarding research in this area, the following meta analysis is pretty strong and the conclusion essentially is: "You should probably have some protein within a few hours of training to cover any hypothetical benefits"

http://www.jissn.com/content/pdf/1550-2783-10-5.pdf

SideSteel

One more reply to address your specific case: Eating a massive meal (protein dense) and then training 5 hours later is very likely to be just fine because you're probably still releasing amino acids/etc.

dstromley1

Hi Sidesteel,
I am meaninging maintaining muscle mass via protein synthesis.
My apologies for not being clear.
kind regards,

Ben

This is a pretty considerable grey area. We have a lot of studies looking at acute protein synthesis but they don't necessarily tell us what happens over the course of larger periods of time. Not to mention several of the studies are not necessarily using protein intakes that are sufficient by bodybuilding standards so that complicates the issue (in theory, timing may matter more when dose is insufficient).

Your first priority would be to take in an adequate amount of protein for the day in total as that's going to be significantly more important than the timing of protein.

Regarding research in this area, the following meta analysis is pretty strong and the conclusion essentially is: "You should probably have some protein within a few hours of training to cover any hypothetical benefits"

http://www.jissn.com/content/pdf/1550-2783-10-5.pdf

^ this, its much more important to get ur macro total than meal timing, IT is kinda a debated subject in the BB world. I have a meal hour before and shake immediatly after but thats just because its my meal time.

benol1

Thank you sidesteel and dstromley for your kind and informative responses.
The question was out of curiosity. My main focus at the moment is cardio to get some initial weight loss happening and increase my cardio fitness. I do some strength training as well but its nowhere as intense as the cardio I am doing at the moment.
Day to day, I think I am getting all my macros and eating back 1/2 to 3/4 my exercise calories. I'm burning around 1000 calories a day five days a week. I don't have any concerns regarding my own program. Its probably not optimal but the last thing I want to do is obsess over the minutae of my diet and exercise program. My apologies, I am rambling on.
Again, many thanks for your considered responses, they are greatly appreciated.
kind regards,

Ben

SideSteel

Its probably not optimal but the last thing I want to do is obsess over the minutae of my diet and exercise program.

Generally speaking I think this strategy is far superior to the opposite one.

Sarauk2sf

One more reply to address your specific case: Eating a massive meal (protein dense) and then training 5 hours later is very likely to be just fine because you're probably still releasing amino acids/etc.

Just to add to this. If you eat a large amount of protein in one go, your body will slow down the absorption process when it cannot quickly absorb that volume and the release will over a pretty long time.