Truth about Protein

Mike Dudley wrote:I am sure a lot of you know why more about the subject .... I guess my main question is could a protein supplement added to this workout routine help me recover faster?

Don't assume the masses know so much more. Many only think they do.

Everyone gets all hyped up about protein as a recovery aid. But in actuality, carbohydrate is more important. So, I would start focusing more about timing and intake of carbohydrate for recovery if that's what you're really interested in.

Some research shows a mix of carbs and protein in the hour after activity is superior to just carbs, but this is not overwhelmingly conclusive.

Instead of asking random people on the Internet about nutrition, why don't you get a good sports nutrition book from the library or bookstore? I recommend one by Nancy Clark. She is a registered dietician who specializes in sports nutrition and actually works with college athletes of all kinds.

And some people have considerable personal experience on the subject. In the end, you're best off reading what you can from a variety of scientifically based sources and then experimenting yourself. This will take time and you will not get an "answer" overnight. If you stick with it, you will learn what works for you.

Everyone's body is different and if you actually take your training to a serious level your body will surprise you and you'll learn a lot.

Just a thought from someone who went off the couch to relatively elite performer in the last 4 years.

Little late with a reply, but here's something I posted on an unrelated but somewhat relevant forum. The question was mainly about recovery after a workout, but also asked about protein and supplements in general, and NOXplode in particular. Some of this is not necessarily relevant to your question, but I haven't edited it out. Also note I have no formal education in exercise physiology. I have quoted reliable sources when I can, but if it looks like an opinion, then it's mine. Read this, consult professionals, use your own body for experimentation and listen to the feedback it gives you.

In a nutshell, the most important thing you can do for recovery, outside of sleep, is to replenish glycogen stores after a hard workout. For a 175 lb athlete, this can be accomplished by consuming up to 700 calories of carbohydrates and 175 calories of protein (depending on the length/intensity of the workout) within the first two hours after the workout. Again, note that this is after a hard workout.

Supplements should be used as a last resort--for most of us non-Olympians, they will rarely be necessary. There may be some cases when supplements are more convenient, but with a little planning that can usually be overcome.

Many people use supplements as an addition to fix something that is wrong with their normal diet...it is better to fix the diet first. For the purposes of this discussion, I use “supplements” to mean any non whole food item. For example, milk is a food, whey protein is not.

Your question focuses on three supplement points...protein, other supplements, and NO. You also asked about timing. Additionally, calories have been mentioned. I'll take them one by one.

PROTEIN

Question #1 is, How much? For a simple overview, check out this article in simple terms.

In particular, their advice is:

"While the protein requirements for adult males are less than one gram per kilogram of body weight per day, estimates for athletes based on studies that evaluate nitrogen balance, a product of protein breakdown, suggest that up to 2.5 grams/kilogram/day may be required in exceptional circumstances. However, 2.0 grams/kilogram is used by many sports nutritionists as an upper ceiling of protein intake for athletes, weight trainers in particular. (Divide by 2.2 to get protein in grams/pound body weight/day.) Much less than this is going to be sufficient for moderate or less intense exercise."

(The figures are somewhat of a shorthand—e.g. 2.0 grams/kilogram means 2 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight, and it is understood that the figures are a daily average.)

Many people will pounce on this and think, Oh, I'm training pretty hard, so I fall into the "exceptional circumstances" and need one gram per POUND of body weight (2.2g/kg). Unless your name is Lee Haney or are being paid obscene sums of money for your sports prowess, you do not fall into the 2.5 grams/kilogram, or even into the 2.0 grams/kilogram. More likely, you are closer to the 1 g/kg.

Okay, for more scientific-based reports:

One NCBI article recommends 1.76 g/kg for strength athletes, but I didn't read far enough to know what the training was like.

And another one recommends 1.0 g/kg, and says that the only time more protein is needed is "in top sport athletes where the maximal requirement is approximately 1.6 gPRO/kg/d"

Again, look closely at the recommendations. 1.6 g/kg is for “top sport athletes”. Based on these studies, 1.0/kg is likely enough for the average weekend warrior type athlete. That answers question #1.

Question 2 is “How much protein are you currently getting?” The only way to know this is to track your intake. Guesstimates are a starting point, but most people will underestimate current intakes. Fitday or another tracking site will help you with this.

The answer to Question 2 will tell you whether or not you need to increase or decrease protein from your present intake. If you DO need to increase protein intake, then do it by incorporating more protein rich foods into your diet. By food, again I mean real foods. Food is synergistic, meaning that in many cases the nutrients in foods are better utilized by the body in the presence of other nutrients in the food—isolate the nutrients, and they do not always have the same effect. An example of this is milk, which includes two types of protein, cassein and whey. Cassein protein is generally slowly absorbed by the body, making it a great protein to eat just before bed. But cassein is absorbed quicker by the body when obtained by milk than when isolated, likely due to the presence of whey.

OTHER SUPPLEMENTS:
A couple of areas where the convenience of supplements may outweigh the “whole food” rule:

When training periods last more than an hour, supplements can help rehydration. Think “Gatorade” or similar products. Homemade recipes are just as good.

For training periods of over two hours, glycogen intake may be necessary in order to avoid bonking. The body generally stores enough glycogen to fuel about two hours of steady exercise. “Hitting the wall” was used by marathoners to describe what happened to them at the 20 mile mark—about two hours for good marathoners—as glycogen stores became depleted. An intake of simple carbs will overcome this—think banana (whole food) or a packet of GU (supplement), for example. For longer efforts (generally four hours or more) a medium-chain carb (maltodextrin, technically short chained but still longer than simple sugars such as glucose) is likely more helpful.

Edmund Burke (and others) also advocate increasing Vitamin C well above RDAs during periods of intense exercise. (Reference #1 at end of post)

NO:
The Nitric Oxide pathway is outside of my knowledge comfort level, from what I do know is highly dependent on arginine and...surprise, vitamin C. Perhaps another good reason to add Vitamin C into the diet, but again I'm on shaky ground here. NO levels are likely higher in trained athletes than in the sedentary population, but whether or not NO levels can be increased by supplementation is, at this point, unknown. (Reference #3 16344941at end)

There are a few studies on arginine supplementation; one of these studies states “The results of this study suggested that short-term arginine supplementation had no effect on nitric oxide production, lactate and ammonia metabolism and performance in intermittent anaerobic exercise in well-trained male athletes.” The athletes used in the experiment were college-level judo players. (Reference #2, 18708287, end of post)

Looking at the ingredient list of NO Xplode would not lead me to believe there is anything “special” in NO Xplode. Their advertising states that “Many of the ingredients in NO-Xplode are completely unique and relatively unheard of, and to date have never been applied to a product of this magnitude.” This type of hyperbole is often used when there is no scientific basis for the product.

TIMING:

Post workout: after a long hard workout, the body needs most to replenish glycogen stores. Dr. Edmund Burke (who has done some pioneering research in this area) recommends one gram of carbohydrate per pound of bodyweight to restore glycogen, taken within two hours of exercise. Additionally, the body's uptake of glycogen is increased in the presence of protein when in the ratio of 4:1 (4 grams of carb : 1 gram protein). If you're 175 lbs, this means 175 grams of carbohydrates (700 calories) and 44 grams of protein (175 calories) ingested in the first two hours after heavy exercise. Fat intake should be minimized. (Reference #1 at end of post). This intake can be either in the form of whole foods, a recovery drink such as Endurox, or a mix of the two. (Reference #1 at end of post)

Protein intake timing:
For strength training, there may be some benefit to a small amount of protein intake before exercise. For cardio training there is a benefit for post exercise intake, which can be met by the 4:1 carb:protein intake plan above. (Reference #4 12831698 at end)

ONE LAST ITEM, CALORIES
How many additional calories will you need? The Mayo clinic gives some guidelines here.

I think some of their numbers for higher intensity exercises may be overstated—they may be using calories per minute x 60 = one hour, but most training periods are not full intensity every minute. Since you'll be ingesting 875 calories in the first two hours after exercise in order to replace glycogen stores (as above), this will likely replenish most of the calories burned in your exercise period, especially if you've also taken in calories during exercise.

It is all too easy to get too many calories in the standard American diet (SAD), as witnessed by the growing epidemic of obesity in this country and in other countries that have even somewhat adopted the SAD. You may find the additional calories consumed after exercise are going to reduce the calories needed from your normal sit-down meals.

References:
(1) books.google.com/books?id=v…)

(2) ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/187…

(3) ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/163…

(4) ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/128…

Couple of things from the 'proj's own Steve Edwards:

steve-edwards.blogspot.com/…

From an article he wrote, specifically cut to recovery:

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Post-exercise. When it comes to eating for exercise, the most important time slot is immediately after your workout. Your body will only store up enough glycogen (blood sugar from carbohydrates) to get you through about an hour or so of hard exercise. At the end of a workout, our glycogen stores tend to be extinguished and need to be replenished. The quicker we can replenish these, the faster we will recover.

This aside is to warn you that this is the toughest part to understand for most people.

Since protein makes up muscle tissue and muscle tissue is what's broken down during exercise, it makes sense to think we need to consume protein after a workout. But this isn't how the process works. Protein is absorbed by the body very slowly, whereas sugar is utilized very rapidly. The longer it takes to get nutrients after a workout the slower our bodies are able to recover.

Because of this, sugar immediately after exercise is the body's preferred fuel source. In general, we don't need any sugar at all and are much better off eating complex carbohydrates that include fiber and make our body break them down into sugar. However, post-exercise, the quicker we can replenish our lost blood sugar the faster our body will begin to recover. So a small amount of sugar after exercise is essential for efficient recovery. We've known this for a long time, which is why most "sports" drinks tend to be sugary. So essentially what would be a bad nutritional strategy most of the time is a good strategy after exercise.

During the 1990s science unlocked another key when studies showed that sugar with a small amount of protein—a 4:1 ratio being optimal—could enhance recovery around 25 percent over sugar alone, and up to 400 percent better than protein alone, when consumed within an hour after a workout. Again, fat and fiber are left out of this equation. While very important components of our diet, both fat and fiber interfere with rapid digestion, which is our goal after finishing a workout. This is the reason that our P90X® Peak Recovery Formula is designed the way it is.

Note that the 4:1 ratio thing is based almost exclusively on Dr. Burke...who also is a part-owner company that makes Endurox and Accelerade. Nobody has compared say 3:1, 5:1, 10:1 carb/protein ratios in studies published in peer-reviewed journals and they probably won't until they have a product to sell.

Besides it's well documented that craft-brewed beer is the ultimate recovery tool for climbing ;-)

Clyde wrote:Note that the 4:1 ratio thing is based almost exclusively on Dr. Burke...who also is a part-owner company that makes Endurox and Accelerade. Nobody has compared say 3:1, 5:1, 10:1 carb/protein ratios in studies published in peer-reviewed journals and they probably won't until they have a product to sell.

That's simply wrong. Millard-Stafford (2008) review the results of ~14 studies of post-endurance exercise nutritional treatments with CHO–protein ratios ranging from 2:1 to 7.5:1, and I've seen several studies of post-resistance exercise treatments with ratios from 3:1 to 6:1.

Jay

Ref: Millard-Stafford M, Childers WL, Cnoger SA, et al. Recovery nutrition: Timing and composition after endurance exercise. Current Sports Medicine Reports (2008); 7(4), 193-201.

Jay Tanzman wrote:Millard-Stafford (2008) review the results of ~14 studies of post-endurance exercise nutritional treatments with CHO–protein ratios ranging from 2:1 to 7.5:1, and I've seen several studies of post-resistance exercise treatments with ratios from 3:1 to 6:1.

And the gist of all those studies?

What ratio is optimum?

Burke did the research first, then got involved with the company to make a product that fit his findings, not the other way around, fwiw. You're very correct about where funding usually comes from, however. Chocolate milk has become a popular post-exercise drink, and the first studies that showed any benefit to drinking chocolate milk were funded by milk-related interests.

Everyone seems to be pretty spot-on, based on what I learned in my exercise physiology class and 4 more semesters of physiology (and 3 years as a national-level athlete). A couple things:

I assume we are talking about climbing, which I'd argue is both aerobic and anaerobic--both from a whole-body perspective and at a muscle-group level (say, wrist/finger flexors in the forearm). So, the type of nutrition you need is not purely aerobic endurance focused or purely anaerobic strength focused. I'm betting that most climbing is more like strength intervals, where anaerobic endurance is most important, rather than aerobic endurance (easy multi-pitch trad) or max strength (bouldering or cruxy sport cragging).

As for dietary protein's role in increasing performance and recovery, it's best to think of the protein you ingest as NOT going on to become muscle (which, of course, a small percentage of it does), but rather to become enzymes and mitochondria.

Enzymes (large, complex folded strands of 1,000's of amino acid proteins) are the worker bees of your body. They are what do the work of creating, storing and consuming glycogen stores (strands of glucose in the muscle and liver) faster. Enzymes are also responsible for breaking down stored fats into free fatty acids (FFA) and transporting them into the liver and working cells (muscles) to be converted into glucose (also done by enzymes)for storage or immediate use; increasing FFA consumption spares muscle glycogen stores. These enzymes also turn-over very rapidly, more rapidly than structural proteins (ie muscle), and are prone to damage due to changes in temperature, pH and other intra-cellular environmental changes (which occurs during strenuous exercise). With consistent training, your body's need for enzymes increases significantly, both due to increased rate of enzyme turnover and also due to your body's adaptation to exercise, which significantly increases the quantity of enzymes that are involved in cellular energy production to allow for more energy production from stored resources (cellular glycogen, blood glucose, FFA's).

Mitochondria are the "power plants" of the cells--they produce the ATP (the energy currency of your body) that power your cells, including muscle contraction. Mitochondria are very dense in protein, and increase in BOTH size and number in your muscle cells with aerobic exercise. Mitochondria are where the majority of ATP ("energy") is produced, through the Kreb's (aka "TCA") cycle. The Kreb's cycle is a multi-step process that requires many, many different enzymes (seeing a theme?) to convert pyruvate (a product from glucose after glycolysis) into energy, water, and CO2. The Kreb's cycle requires O2 to work (through the Electron Transport Chain--yet more enzymes). Mitochondria also change rapidly in response to exercise.

Our metabolism is high during exercise due to catabolism, the break-down of substrate to produce energy. Our metabolism stays high immediately after exercise for two reasons: one is that it's still catabolizing glucose, fats, and some protein for energy to clear waste products of exercise; and secondly it begins to repair damaged enzymes and structural proteins (anabolic processes), and to restore glycogen stores in the liver (through protein breakdown) and muscle. This window of high energy demand is crucial for determining recovery time. Without external sources of BOTH carbohydrates and protein, the body has to synthesize both of these from it's stores, which requires both catabolic and anabolic processes--like taking apart a lego set all the way to individual pieces and then re-building what you want--a very wasteful process. This window of high metabolism is when your body is most primed (temperature, pH, hormone levels) to quickly convert food into stored energy and anabolic production. Metabolism drops off quickly after exercise stops (non-linearly), and is almost back to baseline after 2hrs. The best window for simple-moderate carbohydrates (high to moderate glycemic index) and simple protein solutions (whey, etc) is the first 30min after exercise. If you wait until later (many hours), your body is not processing your intake as quickly (both in gross absorption from your GI tract, and in utilization once in the blood stream), so it takes longer to restore muscle glycogen and synthesize proteins. In practice this after-exercise intake doesn't have to be huge, just a small shake or the equivalent of a couple Clif Bars (the specific amounts others have given on this web site are the same I learned as well).

If you provide just carbs, your body still has to breakdown the broken enzymes for it's component parts (the amino acids) to be able to build new enzymes, and it still doesn't get the 9 (some say 7, others 10) essential amino acids your body can't produce. Alternatively, if you just eat protein, then your body will have to use that protein (very inefficiently) as fuel for it's energy needs.

So, eat carbs to power your body and replenish your glycogen stores (increasing recovery) and protein to give it the building blocks it needs to increase fitness, both aerobic (mitochondria and enzymes) and anaerobic (muscle proteins and enzymes).

Hope you've made it through my geek-out session and have gotten something useful from it.

I'm leaving out a lot of details regarding calculations and whatnot, but the best post-workout protein intake I have found is:

A couple of hard-boiled eggs and a tall glass (or two) of chocolate milk.

Tastes better than any powdered shake additive, it's easy, it's cheap, and it's a perfect post-gym/pre-bed snack at 10pm.

So I am going to talk some science here about protein so just a warning.

Protein is an amine group (hence amino acids) which have many uses in the body. A lot of protein is stripped of the amine group (amines contain nitrogen and this group creates urea which becomes urine and is the reason pee smells so bad) which leaves carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen, the basis of glucose or it may create fatty acids depending on the bodies need. Protein also has many other functions in the body, such as cell growth and repair. Proteins are the base structures for enzymes and hormones. Proteins make up antibodies, a critical part of the immune system created by white blood cells in response to a threat to the body. Protein is a source of energy (4 kcal/g vs. fat which is 9 kcal/g) but there isn't a good way to store it so it isn't the best source of energy for the body. Note when I mention kcal, I am referring to what is the standard calorie mentioned on nutrition labels. DNA, most of all, is made up of protein (if you don;t know that by know then I don;t know what to tell you).

So Protein is just as important as any of the other macronutrients (there are three: carbohydrates, fat, and protein). You need approximately 0.8g/kg of your body weight. This should roughly translate to about 35% of your diet. Most of your calories will come from carbohydrates. Glucose is the only form of energy used by the brain and glucose is obtained mainly from carbs. So ladies and gentleman, I can not stress enough how stupid it is to eliminate carbs from your diet, such as the atkin's diet suggests. Keep a balanced diet.

How does my rant concern you guys and climbing?? Good question. It is most important to eat healthy, meaning a variety of foods, and eat adequate amounts of all macronutrients. It doesn;t hurt to take a multivitamin either. Keeping a balanced diet can keep you disease free as well as give you the energy you need to climb all day long.

Have fun

Matt Toensing wrote:Protein is just as important as any of the other macronutrients (there are three: carbohydrates, fat, and protein). You need approximately 0.8g/kg of your body weight. This should roughly translate to about 35% of your diet.

If I ate 0.8 g of protein per day per kg of my body weight, and my diet were 35% protein, my entire diet would contain less than 600 kcal per day. I think you need to check your "science."

Jay

JLP wrote: If you had to pull out a calculator to figure out most of this thread is BS, you're not that smart either...

What? An asshole on the internet? What a novelty.

Jay

Got these figures from the FDA, learned about them in my nutrition class and was just going off of old notes. Basically it depends on your weight and your metabolism. I eat like 3000 kcals a day but they are going off of a 2,000 kcal diet I am sure. Anyways just guidelines man. No need to argue.

Matt Toensing wrote:Jay Got these figures from the FDA,

I'm sure we can all trust the FDA :)