Really, the protien after workout this is a myth too?

It is true. Carbs before workout, protein after workout.

I find that I get killer headaches if I don't have some protein after a major workout. For just that reason alone I make sure I get enough. There are plenty other reasons to have protein after a workout. It's not a myth.

Protein and potassium after a work out help your muscles to recover faster so that you don't get the unbareable soreness! It all has to do with the biometrics of how our muscles work and use energy.

Protein and potassium after a work out help your muscles to recover faster so that you don't get the unbareable soreness! It all has to do with the biometrics of how our muscles work and use energy.

No, it does not matter WHEN you take protein so long as you get enough each day. The reason is that the anabolic window for building muscle after a lifting session lasts around 48hrs. It's not the first hour after lifting, it's basically the next 2-3 days. So, keeping a constant, high protein intake is much more important than downing a shake PWO. If you like taking a shake PWO, go ahead it will help your daily intake but it's not giving you any adavantage.

Nutrient timing is not important. So long as your daily intake is where it should be, it does not matter when you eat it. Read Alan Aragon's site on this, I think he has some articles there someplace on this subject.

Per my posting, I've started reading Runner's World and they report that the window for getting the most out of recovery is to consume carbs and proteins 10 to 30 minutes after the end of the run. The emphasis was that that's the optimal time to get the glucose back in the body and the body absorbs glucose or proteins at a very high rate when consumed immediately after exercise.

I don't have the citations handy, though.

I'll check out Aragon's site, though. Thanks for the citation.

Well, for glycogen will replentish any time you add carbs to the system. So, yes, you will uptake carbs faster immediately after a long run because you have so much more space for it, but it will still naturally fill over the course of the day with meals so it's not that important. The only time replentishing carbs right after a workout/run is if you intend to workout compete again later in the day or in a triathalon where you are switching from one leg to the next or during a marathon.

Don't for get that runners typically have to run 13-15 miles before their glycogen stores are depleated. There is a secondary store of glycogen in the liver and that will take some addition time to deplete. This is why some runners get a second wind in marathon when they start kicking into the liver glycogen. It's also why it's not a bad idea to take a large dose of carbs right in the middle of a marathon.

However, protein absorbed much slower and the process of hypetrophy takes place over 2-3 days, so timing for protein does not matter. Ideally, for building muscle, you'd keep carb and protein levels at adequate levels every day and do not need to spike either of them immediately after lifting.

I read an article a while back, I think it was one debunking myths actually, that said if you exercise more than 40 you should eat some kind of protein afterwards. I usually just do a cup of skim milk.

I fail to see how that makes a point. You say it says to eat protein after a workout so how does that debunk the advice to eat protein after a meal?

Chocolate milk has been found to be one of the best post recovery drinks but it's important to have enough supportive protein and carbs for your workout.

ETA: They have proven that protein powders give you no advantages over someone who takes in their protein through normal means. Perhaps that's what you're thinking of?

Alan Aragon, Lyle McDonald, and Martin Berkhan I believe would all agree that nutrient timing is irrelevant as long as you consume your required minimums of macronutrients each day that is based along with your daily calorie intake that coincides with your TDEE.

Consuming protein directly after a workout is fine if you like to do it, but it's not neccessary. You don't need to OCD over it.

OK, here's the money post...straight from the Alan Aragon himself. Sounds like total daily macros are king....and PWO nutrition can be followed if he were FORCED to draw up some guidelines.

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"Big picture is to hit your macros by the end of the day. As it's been mentioned, I just did an article in my research review updating the original nutrient timing series, and I was actually surprised to see the lack of results over a decent battery of non-acute (longer-term) trials shuffling protein &/or carbs around various points relative to the training bout, but no effects occurring as long as the totals were adequate. There's a bunch of interesting things that are seen in the short term (anabolic signalling, amino acid uptake, lower indexes of proteolysis, etc), but these things have for the most part not panned out to impact body composition or strength in the long term -- as long as the totals are hit. There are exceptions, but they definitely are in a narrow cache.

Okay, so with all that said, if I were forced into issuing guidelines, I'd say have a decent hit of protein within an hour of training & within an hour after training. If you have a solid meal preworkout & can't train well with anything you can feel digesting, a 2 hr lag before training will still have you in a state of hyperaminoacidemia during the training bout as long as you don't skimp on protein in your meals.

How much protein per dose? Well, looking at acute effects, the anabolic response seems to be "saturable"... That is to say, beyond a certain amount of protein in a single dose, markers of the anabolic response flatten out. This threshold amount was recently seen to be 25g protein. Adding carbs to this did not further stimulate muscle protein synthesis or inhibit muscle protein breakdown. Not to confuse things more than they need to be, but let it be clear that amounts beyond this will not go to waste; they'll just take longer to process (I've written a full-length article on this in another site).

Important note about the 25g figure - it wasn't a lot of training volume done, and the subjects were 80 kg on average, so you can scale things up accordingly. I'd rather error on the side of abundance & never come up short. That's why I've traditionally recommended a protein dose of 0.2-0.25g/lb LBM (or you can use target bodyweight as a proximal measure of lean mass plus a little extra) taken in solid form at any point 2 hrs prior to training, or in liquid form at any point 1 hr prior to training, and dose it again at any point within an hour after training. Carbs don't appear to be capable of increasing the protein-synthetic response of a single protein dose if the protein dose is large enough (this has already been demonstrated twice in the literature). Therefore carbs can be either consumed or deferred to any point in the day of your choosing (just hit the total target by the day's end).

All of these recommendations change if we're talking about endurance athletes - and they're different still for endurance athletes with multiple glycogen-depleting bouts (of the same muscle group) in a single day. "