Hey Jordan, I was watching this on YouTube this morning and thought it would strike your fancy. It’s Jeff Nippard doing an interview with Jorn Trommelen on nutrition’s effect on MPS. He backs up a lot of what you say, though he doesn’t totally buy into the MPS refractory period, he seems to feel it’s a bit more “nuanced” than the current studies have shown. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRehf1L231Q
That’s cool! Thanks for sharing.
Loved this video. Great find!
Though the interview is generally bro training/bodybuilder focused, I found the points about elderly populations to be fascinating. This researcher considers it a given that older folks need 40 grams of protein per meal to optimize MPS (and thus probably quality of life), yet I don’t know of any physicians making this recommendation to my grandma. How do we bridge this gap between the lab and the recommendations patients are receiving? Is there an UpToDate page about dietary protein that the Drs could write/update next?
Yea I think there is a resistance to making that sort of recommendation amongst physicians, though I would also point out that there is a disconnect between research in the lab and clinical outcomes. There are a lot of things the clinician has to consider, whereas the researcher doesn’t necessarily have the same restrictions.
Very interesting points he made. He is not convinced of the refractory period in MPS and believes its more of a theory some people came up with without enough evidence(around the 53min mark) and near the end he says that he doesnt believe a person needs a surplus of calories to build muscle but i was under the impression that someone beyond the novice stage of training would need to be above maintenance calories to build muscle.
The refractory period actually has quite a bit of evidence if you allow continuous parenteral feeding studies to be used. That said, he is correct that no one has looked at folks eating every 90 min vs. every 270 min outside the hospital with a good bit of protein per meal.
As far as if you need to gain weight in order to put on significant amounts of muscle mass, I think for the majority of people the answer to that is yes. There are certain cohorts that can get away with less weight gain, as they respond very robustly to training. That said, the majority of people aren’t going to get big and jacked without gaining weight.
One thing he did mention in the video about the refractory period that I thought was interesting was that he did believe it is important with fast protein sources such as whey. So if someone were to take a whey shake that they would get a blunted MPS response if they took another shake 2 hours later. But he felt like it wasn’t as important for whole food protein sources that take longer to digest like meats. So for instance, if someone ate some meat, then two hours later ate another serving of meat, he didn’t believe the second protein meal would have appreciably blunted MPS, at least not enough to matter. He did also admit that this was more of a hunch since there is still a long way to go and it’s obviously a very “nuanced” kind of deal. I still space mine out to be safe, but it’s definitely an interesting take on the matter.
Is there a way to tell how many extra calories you need to gain muscle mass as quickly/efficiently as possible?
Or, is there like a rule of thumb for the average person to follow (assuming they aren’t obese or have a large waist circumference)?
No there’s not, unfortunately.