I remember the day as if it was yesterday, I was standing at my local GNC nutrition center reading labels to all the super mega protein powders with all the shiny fancy labels and it occured to me? How much protein do i really need to build muscle?
This turned out to be quite the obsession for me as I went home and started googling protein to my hearts content only to come up with subpar information that had been regurgitated from the same supplement companies that are trying to sell you the shiny bottles.
I knew their had to be an answer some where as I was tired and sick of choking down 3 protein mega shakes a day to only see small if any changes in my muscular physique.
What was the true answer?
How Much Protein Do I Need To Build Muscle?
To answer that question we first need to understand exactly how muscles grow, I took this from Brad Pilon’s book The Truth About Protein 2.0:
“We know that weight training on its own can add about 2-5 pounds in 2- 4 months, we need to next ask “how exactly do muscles grow?”
“Your muscles are made up of a collection of microscopic fibers simply called ‘muscle fibers’. Muscle fibers are long narrow fibers that can run the complete length of your muscle. In fact, a single fiber in your thigh can be almost a foot long in length.”
“Inside each of these fibers is the sacroplasm, which is largely comprised of ‘myofibrils’ – the stuff that makes your muscles contract. A typical muscle fiber can contain anywhere from 100’s to 1,000’s of myofibrils.”
“Now if you look closely at these fibers you will see little purple dots on them, these are the nuclei of the fibers, sometimes referred to as myonuclei.”
“These nuclei are like the governing body of the muscle fiber. They control everything. However, they can only control a small section of any given fiber. This area is called their domain (kind of like a castle and its kingdom). The ‘domain’ is the sarcoplasm – the stuff that is packed with the contractile and metabolic machinery of the fiber, so the nucleus oversees all of the metabolic processes on your muscle fiber.”
“Because muscle fibers are so long they need multiple nuclei, which is very important in our quest to understand muscle growth. Research has shown us that no matter how big a muscle fiber becomes, the ratio of nucleus-to-domain remains relatively equal. Research has also found that under normal circumstances, adult skeletal muscle is a very stable tissue with very little turnover of nuclei [Charge SBP, 2004]. This means that as a muscle fiber grows, somehow it needs to find more nuclei, and this is where satellite cells come into play.”
“Satellite cells are like ‘dormant muscle seeds’ that sit on the outside of the muscle fiber (hence the name satellite cells). They are present in all skeletal muscles and are associated with all muscle fiber types – albeit with unequal distribution (some muscles have more some have less) [Charge SBP, 2004]. When muscle fibers are damaged through resistance training, satellite cells are activated, and move into the muscle where they provide new nuclei for muscle fiber growth (now that the muscle has a new nucleus it can add more ‘domain’ around the nucleus) [Robertson 1990].”
“You can think of satellite cells as the body’s reserve of muscle cell nuclei. In fact, because muscle cells are ‘post-mitotic’ meaning they cannot create new nuclei by themselves, they have to rely on satellite cells as the exclusive source of new nuclei for the maintenance and growth.”
“In fact, satellite cells are considered ESSENTIAL for the physiological adaptations that drive muscle growth.”
For more info about this checkout Brads Book ==>The Truth About Protein 2.0
Next we know that you must do resistance training to cause tears and stress into the muscle fibers in order for them to repair themselves and get bigger. We do know there are signafigent benefits in consuming protein to build muscle as it has been concluded long periods with out protein will cause muscle shrinking (think of having your arm in a cast for a long period of time).
It has been concluded that resistance training and regular protein intake play a large part in your ability to synthesis protein to build muscle, and in most cases a consistent resitance training program with the trainee consuming roughly 70-120 grams of protein per day will see a consistent increase of muscle mass over the course of 6 to 8 weeks(the average being 2-4 lbs), this is a far cry from the labels of every jug of super mass monster shakes you are being sold on the shelfs of your local health food store.
For a complete and detailed report of protein and its ability to build muscle check out…
The Truth About Protein 2.0
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