Many muscle building supplements market the concept of increasing ‘protein synthesis’. The assumption is that protein synthesis = muscle growth.
This is half right.
For a muscle to grow larger two things have to happen
1) An increase in protein synthesis (anabolism)
2) A decrease in protein breakdown (catabolism)
Regular weight training workouts can stimulate and net increase in protein synthesis and some research labs are measuring exactly what happens in your muscles after a workout.
In todays audio lesson I interview a friend of mine Dave Gunderman who is doing his research on the protein synthetic effect of working out.
Dave will walk you through what it’s like to be in one of these studies, the basics of muscle protein synthesis and the type of workouts that he suggests are best for maximizing protein synthesis.
John
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Excited to listen…too bad they started blocking you guys at my work!
To be honest, I was disappointed with this week’s podcast.
Clocking in at only 20 minutes long? Is that all the time the guy had available? There were so many questions left unasked and statements made by him that you didn’t follow up on.
Why didn’t you ask him how his acute training studies apply to long-term effects? Sure, long-term studies have many uncontrolled variables involved, but they have value in that they show whether actual muscle growth occurs or not. There’s a difference between acute effects of something, anything, and long-term effects from chronic exposure. Indeed, someone needs to study the acute stuff and that is apparently him and his lab. But, I would like to see the direct connection at least stated in the interview of his acute studies to other long-term studies. Don’t just state the flaws of the long-term studies and then talk up the acute ones. This podcast isn’t a funding review board or anything. You don’t have to do that.
Furthermore, he didn’t get into the design of his studies using fasted training vs fed training vs infused to a baseline level of amino acids saturation, etc.
Does he get into measuring any actual increases in the cross sectional area of muscle fiber? If not, what’s the evidence to support his acute training sessions and the resulting biology with long-term increased CSA? Would you not say that these acute sessions and their measures are proximity measures?
I would love some follow up! Interview him again when he has more time!
Robert,
I understand your concerns. It frustrates me as well that we can’t just look inside muscle and see what’s going on. We have to do these experiments to indirectly get to the conclusions. I didn’t mean to imply that fractional synthetic rate (FSR) is the only means to analyze muscle growth. Training studies are still done, even in our lab. There are limitations to every experimental design you can think of. What I was trying to emphasize in this podcast was that this would be the only way to truly understand a mechanism behind muscle growth. If we accept that muscle growth is a product of muscle protein synthesis (relative to breakdown) then it’s not much of a stretch to assume that elevated muscle protein synthesis is a requirement for muscle growth. Our lab uses this assumption and compares interventions in it’s ability to induce an elevation in muscle protein synthesis. Chronically over time we would naturally assume that the synthetic response will fade with the same stimulus but that is to be expected with gains in size and strength as well. I guess, I’m trying to say that even though MPS is not a direct measurement of muscle growth over time, it gives us additional information about muscle growth that can’t be obtained from longitudinal training studies.
I’m not sure I understand your second question, but let me elaborate. Feeding protein alone can stimulate muscle synthesis, so we always start our protocol in the fasted state so we can isolate the specific source of muscle synthesis. That being said, we can add a nutritional intervention after we get the baseline measurements, it all depends on what you are interested in looking for.
Your last question deals with measuring cross sectional area. Our lab is equipped to do this, however, this can only be done with training studies where substantial muscle growth has already taken place. With an acute bout of exercise the quantity of muscle growth would be undetectable looking at a whole fibre. Also realize that we can’t look at the same fibre before and after, so we would have to take averages of a large range of muscle fibres and run statistics to determine a significant difference in size. There would be absolutely no way to detect such a small increase in CSA even if the measurements were possible.
I hope some of these responses help answer your questions.
DMG
I know this might not have much to do with the topic. And i didn’t even listen to the podcast yet, but i really wanted to ask this question.
Im a little guy. No huge musclemasse, somewhat lean but not where i want to be. My problem is that i kinda want both things, gain muscle AND lose bodyfat. And after what i understand you (Brad and John) say that you CAN accomplish this simultaneous. Because if the muscle really need extra calories to grow, and they are not there in the form of food, you body can simply use the energy from your fatstores.
Am i right?
So, If i workout hard and stay in cal deficit for a while, would i be able to get lean (as i want) While gaining some muscle?
Andreas,
Bodybuilders usually seperate the building and cutting in two phases. You can do it your way, but it wont’ be as efficient. Howver, it is crucial that your calorie deficient diet has adequate protein. You can’t build muscle on fat reserves.
DMG
Okay, what?
1. This is one of those studies that only examine a surrogate endpoint (namely, protein synthesis), and yet your book (or was it Brad Pilon’s “How Much Protein” book?), you go to great lengths to explain why surrogate endpoint study is dangerous, especially when you assume that protein synthesis is a measure of muscle “growth.”
2. Dave at the end recommends spreading the timing of your protein intake evenly to triple muscle synthesis, and you agree with this, John? This confused me because you, Brad Pilon, and Brad Howard make a big deal about how meal timing has no effect.
User,
Dave was simply explaining what his lab does and I was giving him a forum to do so. The point was to show you where the most modern research is at and what we can determine from it. Yes these are surrogate end points, and the point is that these are still some of the only things we can measure. It doesn’t mean it’s ideal, it means it’s all we’ve got so far.
JB
User,
In response to #2, I have a couple points to make. First, spreading your intake of nutrients isn’t necessarily a timing effect. You can take them whenever you want to achieve a maximal synthetic response. However, once you reach a maximum response, additional protein consumption (at that time) will have no additional benefit. Therefore, it is suggested that you spread our protein consumption at your choosing to increase the frequency in which you stimulate muscle synthesis.
My second comment has to do with an actual timing effect. There is a body of evidence demonstrating that immediately after resistance exercise, protein (and carbohydrate) consumption has a synergistic effect on muscle synthesis. There is no concrete cut off time, since we haven’t tested every time point, but taking supplementing with protein within 2 hours after your workout would be beneficial.
DMG
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