How much protein per hour can your body actually use during recovery?
This question came to me after watching a bodybuilder down a full shaker of whey the thickness of a milkshake (he was on a bulk cycle and a big dude and might have needed that much protein). It seems to me that, regardless of needs, at a certain point the digestive system hits a protein limit of what it can process for muscle repair/growth and either converts the rest to glucose or just lets it pass along unused.
I’ve searched and found a bunch of information on protein needs per day, but nothing on maximum per hour.
“Controversy exists about the maximum amount of protein that can be utilized for lean tissue-building purposes in a single meal for those involved in regimented resistance training. It has been proposed that muscle protein synthesis is maximized in young adults with an intake of ~ 20–25 g of a high-quality protein; anything above this amount is believed to be oxidized for energy or transaminated to form urea and other organic acids. However, these findings are specific to the provision of fast-digesting proteins without the addition of other macronutrients.”
If you notice most protein powder supplements are in the 20-30g/serving range. If your body could use more, and get bigger, faster, I imagine these supplement companies would throw 50g/scoop in there and charge out the wazoo for it. Just like the nutrition companies are doing to cyclists for carbs.
Recent research indicates that you can have a 100g protein meal at night and will have increased protein synthesis overnight. This is what I do, >60g in my last meal and for breakfast.
Just like carb absorption, it’s really about digestion rates. So 60g in a whey shake might have more wasted (or converted) than 60g in a meal full of fat and veggies.
I wonder also if there is an element of gut training (like carb uptake in cyclist) or how anabolics affect it. I wouldn’t be surprised if you were on a ton of gear and you body is just constantly being signaled to build muscle that it’s able to take up and use more protein as a result.
A 30 gram scoop is usually 20-25 grams protein and the rest carbs, fat, and fillers - its easy to adjust the amount you use.
As for the OP’s question I think generally 25-30 is the amount from what I recall per meal in 2-3 hours. The big thing IMO is it doesn’t matter as much as the protein amount per day and how consistent that is week to week. I’m pretty sure the body will adapt to what is being ingested over time to maintain homeostasis.
Here’s a better example of where I was going, a guy I know from CrossFit calculated that he needed to supplement his (pretty decent) diet with a little over 100g of protein. He hates the taste of whey, so he dumps 4 scoops (@24g protein per 31g scoop) with water and chugs it so he only has to deal with it once a day. So his body is probably only using a third of it as he intended. I’ll pass the info along - he’s all about good data.
BTW: I’m using TR for XTERRA/ADV races. TR is the base, and I add a couple CrossFit workouts for the races where I wind up carrying my bike up an unrideable hill or portaging a kayak through the woods to the next river over.
Agreed! The notion that we need to break our daily protein amount into feedings of 30 grams or less is based on the old science. Here’s an article discussing the study:
My takeaway is that the daily total is much more important than the amount per feeding. There’s probably some small benefit to dividing total protein across 3 or 4 feedings instead of getting it all in 1 or 2 but I very much doubt it is significant enough that it would have a noticeable impact.