Protein Intake and Long-Term Hypertrophy

[ColorLock]

So I've seen around here and some other places that around 1.6g-2.0g/kg of protein daily for most people would be sufficient protein to maximize muscle gains. If you ate less protein, assuming it is not too low, obviously you could still build muscle, although it may be a bit less, right? So could it be that over a long enough period of time, you would eventually "catch up" as everyone reaches their peak, but it would just take you longer to get there? Like you build less muscle during the same period of time, but then you could just keep building a smaller amount of muscle year after year until you caught up, or would you be limited significantly before your peak because you simply need more protein to go beyond a certain FFM for your body? Like once you get to a certain weight and muscle mass, you need more protein to gain more muscle mass even though you are only adding 1 more pound, but maybe because it is a pound above a certain weight, your body needs more or something?

[Jordan Feigenbaum]

CL,

Thanks for the post.

I don't think if someone is eating ~1.4g/kg/day of protein they're likely to gain less muscle than someone eating 2.0g/kg/day. If you're < 1g/kg/day, you are likely to build less (or no) muscle and never catch up to someone eating more. If it's much lower than 1g/kg/day, you may lose muscle even if in a Calorie surplus.

Additionally, people don't need more protein per kilogram bodyweight as they gain more muscle.

-Jordan

[Brian Waligura]

With low protein, I would be way more concerned about lack of recovery and developing those nagging long-term pains as a result, than with lifetime muscle accrual. If you're devoted to this game for a lifetime, like many of us are, it really doesn't matter how much protein you eat, unless you're just eating woefully little every single day for months and years. But if you are eating that little, you won't make it months/years. Your body will shut you down with recovery problems and nagging pain and injury long before anything else detrimental (like muscle loss) transpires.

[Jordan Feigenbaum]

With low protein, I would be way more concerned about lack of recovery and developing those nagging long-term pains as a result,

Provided someone is getting 1 g/kg or so, neither of these things are concerning. Less hypertrophy and strength (performance) than with 1.4-1.6, but not concerned at all about recovery or pain.

your body will shut you down with recovery problems and nagging pain and injury long before anything else detrimental (like muscle loss) transpires.

Quite the opposite. If protein levels are actually too low, you'll lose muscle mass before function decreases. This is how sarcopenia, cachexia, and malnutrition cases present. Pain is far more complex and unrelated to protein intake directly.

[Brian Waligura]

I'm very confident in saying that if I cut my protein intake substantially, the first thing I'd notice is aches and pains starting to develop, and recovery starting to be a problem. I'm confident that it would happen pretty quickly in the grand scheme of things.

I'm approaching this from the perspective of a person with an established training program, someone committed to training, someone that's training hard.

If somebody is "training hard" (I know that's a loose term, but work with me here; we all know what that means), their body is not going to jettison muscle when they cut their protein intake substantially. Their body will start hurting, and recovery will become a major problem. The person training hard will start to get into an overtraining -- or more accurately, an under-recovering -- situation quickly if they suddenly cut their protein intake substantially. I know it would happen to me. I know I'm not a special snowflake, just a regular guy, so I think this would also apply to the vast majority of people as well.

I just think for somebody training hard and then cutting protein intake substantially, the first thing they need to worry about is under-recovery and developing nagging aches and pains that become a major demotivator to training, and not immediate muscle loss. The muscle loss will be glacial in comparison to the under-recovery and demotivation from the nagging aches and pains that will hit fairly quickly.

[Jordan Feigenbaum]

I'm very confident in saying that if I cut my protein intake substantially, the first thing I'd notice is aches and pains starting to develop, and recovery starting to be a problem. I'm confident that it would happen pretty quickly in the grand scheme of things.

I am very confident this would not happen without said expectation.

I
I'm approaching this from the perspective of a person with an established training program, someone committed to training, someone that's training hard.

Same, even under extreme conditions. To the rest of your post, I think we can agree that RT is a bigger lever to pull than protein intake with respect to long term trajectories for muscle mass and muscle strength.

That said, if correlation between pain and dietary protein intake in active individuals is not what you're making it seem, though this assumes someone is eating ~ the RDA (0.8g/kg/d) or higher. Less than that isn't associated with pain either, but a relatively high potential for muscle loss.

Overtraining has also never been substantiated in resistance training. Similarly, "under recovery" would need to be defined to specifically address what you mean. Yes, protein intake can influence recovery, but going from 3 to 1.6g/kg/day isn't likely to change anything with respect to recovery or pain.