Protein Shots: Before or After Working Out?

I take a 42g Protein Shot everyday. I was just wondering which would be more beneficial for energy and muscle growth, before or after doing the 30 Day Shred Workout?


Thanks!

I think that you should eat a little protein with each meal, and immediately after a strength training session about 20-25 grams or so.....so maybe half of that shot..... 42 grams is probably too much for your body to effectively use at once.

Protein timing is important for one specific reason.... GROWTH!! Although EVERYONE conducting strength training needs a Whey Protein after a workout, WHEN you take it after the workout is only important for growth.

Like the gentlemen above me mentioned timing is not at all important for overall fitness and nutrition.

If your goal is to grow your muscle size you need protein and creatine before your workout, after your workout, and before bed.

Assuming your workout is 1 - 2 hours (30 minutes prior for Whey Protein Isolate that has BCAA) (15 minutes prior for creatine) However NO-Xplode is the best choice before but NOT with Whey Protein and Creatine

After your workout you need a Whey Protein Isolate for restoration and repair for the muscles you been working it MUST be taken before your "pump" expires. Basically speaking at the very least BEFORE 30 minutes has elapsed after your workout.

Before bed at least 15 - 30 minutes prior you need a Casein protein for the catabolic state your body enters when sleeping for 6 - 8 hours. Have you ever looked in the mirror immediately after waking up? Noticed you appear a bit "smaller? Casein protein stops the catabolic process from pulling "energy" (so to speak) from your muscles.

Quite a few people advocate a Whey protein AS SOON AS you wake up for growth. Although it does work, I personally don't do this because I would be far over my protein requirements for the day.

Again as the gentlemen above me mentioned, timing is NOT important unless you intend for your muscles to get BIGGER!

The postexercise "anabolic window" is a highly misused & abused concept. Preworkout nutrition all but cancels the urgency, unless you're an endurance athlete with multiple glycogen-depleting events in a single day. Getting down to brass tacks, a relatively recent study (Power et al. 2009) showed that a 45g dose of whey protein isolate takes appx 50 minutes to cause blood AA levels to peak. Resulting insulin levels, which peaked at 40 minutes after ingestion, remained at elevations known to max out the inhibition of muscle protein breakdown (15-30 mU/L) for 120 minutes after ingestion. This dose takes 3 hours for insulin & AA levels to return to baseline from the point of ingestion. The inclusion of carbs to this dose would cause AA & insulin levels to peak higher & stay elevated above baseline even longer.

So much for the anabolic peephole & the urgency to down AAs during your weight training workout; they are already seeping into circulation (& will continue to do so after your training bout is done). Even in the event that a preworkout meal is skipped, the anabolic effect of the postworkout meal is increased as a supercompensatory response (Deldicque et al, 2010). Moving on, another recent study (Staples et al, 2010) found that a substantial dose of carbohydrate (50g maltodextrin) added to 25g whey protein was unable to further increase postexercise net muscle protein balance compared to the protein dose without carbs. Again, this is not to say that adding carbs at this point is counterproductive, but it certainly doesn't support the idea that you must get your lightning-fast postexercise carb orgy for optimal results.

To add to this... Why has the majority of longer-term research failed to show any meaningful differences in nutrient timing relative to the resistance training bout? It's likely because the body is smarter than we give it credit for. Most people don't know that as a result of a single training bout, the receptivity of muscle to protein dosing can persist for at least 24 hours: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21289204

Here's what you're not seeming to grasp: the "windows" for taking advantage of nutrient timing are not little peepholes. They're more like bay windows of a mansion. You're ignoring just how long the anabolic effects are of a typical mixed meal. Depending on the size of a meal, it takes a good 1-2 hours for circulating substrate levels to peak, and it takes a good 3-6 hours (or more) for everythng to drop back down to baseline.

You're also ignoring the fact that the anabolic effects of a meal are maxed out at much lower levels than typical meals drive insulin & amino acids up to. Furthermore, you're also ignoring the body's ability of anabolic (& fat-oxidative) supercompensation when forced to work in the absence of fuels. So, metaphorically speaking, our physiology basically has the universe mapped out and you're thinking it needs to be taught addition & subtraction.

I think everyone has their way in terms of muscle growth. Although I've never personally taken NO-Xplode I know people and trainers who swear by it. However for me I've always followed the (30 - 60 minutes pre and post workout) principles of the Muscle and Fitness experts with Weider publishing below.

http://www.muscleandfitness.com/nutrition/and-after

Carbohydrate does not augment exercise-induced protein accretion versus protein alone. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2011 Jul;43(7):1154-61

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21131864

CONCLUSIONS:
Our data suggest that insulin is not additive or synergistic to rates of MPS or MPB when CHO is coingested with a dose of protein that maximally stimulates rates of MPS.

Disassociation between the effects of amino acids and insulin on signaling, ubiquitin ligases, and protein turnover in human muscle

http://ajpendo.physiology.org/content/295/3/E595.full

"However, it was surprising that adding insulin at higher than systemic postabsorptive concentrations had no further effects on MPS or LPS. We cannot account for these differences except to raise the possibility that in our studies the stimulatory effects of amino acids stimulated protein synthesis to a maximal extent and that further addition of insulin had no additional effect"

As I said, to each his own, however concerning Broscience in the article I quoted....

http://www.muscleandfitness.com/nutrition/and-after

The article was written by two PhDs (Dwayne Jackson, PhD, and Jim Stoppani, PhD) in a reputable fitness magazine. Personally I wouldn't call that broscience considering their credentials (see below and their websites). Yet it does bring a bit of interesting topic to the discussion, Alan Aragon contradicts what these two PhDs say in the article. Again as I said to each his own. For me Muscle and Fitness isn't a broscience rag with articles written by PhDs.

I respect your opinions as well as Alan Aragon's and as I said again to each his/her own.

http://www.jimstoppani.com/
"Jim Stoppani holds a doctorate in exercise physiology with a minor in biochemistry from the University of Connecticut. Soon after graduation, he served as a postdoctoral research fellow in the prestigious John B. Pierce Laboratory and Department of Cellular and Molecular Physiology at Yale University School of Medicine".

http://www.microvessels.com/2.html
Dwayne Jackson PhD "Our team is interested in the sympathetic nervous system and how it may modify cellular and molecular responses in a number of different tissues. More specifically, our research investigates the impact of sympathetically derived neuropeptides and neurotransmitters on short-term microvessel modulation, as well as their long-term impact on angiogenesis, cellular mitogenesis, cellular morphology, and cell trafficking".