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?
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
I am very confident this would not happen without said expectation.
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.
I am very confident this would not happen without said expectation.
So what would happen? You seem to be implying that my body (or the typical person’s body) would just quietly and slowly lose muscle in the background, while everything else stays hunky dory. My experience the last few years has been that, when there’s some upset of the training load / recovery balance, I start “suffering” in some way – joints hurt, muscles hurt, fatigue, or just general malaise, accompanied by a strong desire to make a change to my training. I think a drastic long-term (just a guess: more than a few weeks continuous) cut in protein would upset that balance. I would agree with you that a less drastic protein cut (3 to 1.6g/kg/day) probably wouldn’t cause any what I call “suffering”.
…correlation between pain and dietary protein intake in active individuals is not what you’re making it seem…
I’m not referring to active individuals. I’m referring to people training hard. There’s a big difference. It’s the difference between a Corolla and an M5. I’m referring to people who have it dialed in, and they are pushing it hard. They are walking the tightrope between training stress and recovery. I’m with you that the typical “active” American would not develop pain from a moderate or even substantial protein cut.
…the RDA (0.8g/kg/d) or higher. Less than that isn’t associated with pain either…
Because they’ve never tested ultra-low protein on people pushing themselves hard, to near their recoverability limit. I just don’t see how a hard-training person who has their protein slashed (say 200 g to 50 g) for weeks or months on end would just quietly lose muscle in the background, while everything else stays fine and they feel great and continue training hard.
Overtraining has also never been substantiated in resistance training
I know you’re not a big fan of the term “overtraining”, from some of the things you’ve said and written. But say somebody has an established training program, and they have an established lifestyle, and they are going along and training and recovering, and they feel decent but each workout feels really tough. But they’re making it. And then they decide to increase the overall training load by adding 2 sets at the same load on the bar to every exercise they’re doing. Maybe they survive and feel decent, so they increase the training load more by either adding weight to the bar, or more sets. Everything else in life stays the same: their off days, their micro- and macronutrient intake, their sleep, their everyday background stress level, their water intake, everything that contributes to recovery. A couple weeks later, and they start to feel ‘off’. The stuff I mentioned above: joints, muscles, fatigue, malaise, lack of motivation to continue, that deep-down feeling that they’re pushing themselves too hard and they better make a change before it gets even worse. What do you call that, if not “overtraining”? I mean, there has to be a “breaking point” somewhere. You can’t just keeping adding training load to an individual’s life and expect them to just keep on adapting. There’s only so much you can pile on the body physically. Once you’ve piled on too much for too long and things start to hurt, what do you call that if not “overtraining”?
going from 3 to 1.6g/kg/day isn’t likely to change anything with respect to recovery or pain.
I agree. Again, I’m referring to the person training hard, walking the tightrope, and then they attempt to slash their protein from like 200g to 50 g for weeks or months on end.
Again, most likely nothing unless the protein intake is very, very low. If it’s low enough to lose muscle, other health problems may arise. I am talking about people who are training very hard. Harder than you. Harder than me. Recovery is not improved via higher protein intake when it’s already high enough.
200 to 50g of pro/day? All bets are off, but this is the first time you’ve said any numbers. That’s why I am pushing back against what you said. Low protein diets @ RDA and below have been tested in people training very hard btw.
In my response to the OP, I said:
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.
If you have specific issues with what I said here, please clarify.
Making blanket statements about what eating less protein will and won’t do in response to the above comment is precisely what I took issue with. If you had said, “yea, well eating less protein than that can pose an issue” I’d have said, “true, but that wasn’t the question.”
I know you’re not a big fan of the term “overtraining”…What do you call that, if not “overtraining”?
No, overtraining is a syndrome and this has never been characterized in resistance training. Ever. Typically people get injured first from overuse meeting bad luck, but this has nothing to do with protein intake either.
I mean, there has to be a “breaking point” somewhere. You can’t just keeping adding training load to an individual’s life and expect them to just keep on adapting.
That’s actually what happens if the person doesn’t get injured. Give them long enough, they adapt and get better (in general).
I just want to say that I’m not in the ultra-high protein, or even high protein, camp. I think we physical culturists agonize too much over getting what we think is enough protein. I think we don’t need nearly as much as we’re led to believe. I know you would counter with “But what is the goal of the individual? If they’re trying to build as much muscle over a lifetime as possible, then need to eat above a protein threshold”, and you’re right. I just mean in general, for the recreational physical culturist, we agonize too much about it.
Low protein diets @ RDA and below have been tested in people training very hard btw.
But for how long? And did they look at pain and demoralization? I would argue that it’s not sustainable long term for the vast majority of people training hard. You can test a group of people at below RDA for 6 weeks or 12 weeks or whatever, but that’s fairly short term, and those people will know that they only have to hang in there for a few more weeks and they can go back to something sustainable, or quit training after the study and let their bodies recover.
If you have specific issues with what I said here, please clarify.
I don’t have issue. It sounds reasonable, and I know it’s based on your knowledge of the literature and your study of human physiology, etc.
No, overtraining is a syndrome and this has never been characterized in resistance training. Ever. Typically people get injured first from overuse meeting bad luck, but this has nothing to do with protein intake either.
If an overuse issue develops in the context of a very low protein diet, who’s to say that at least a little more protein wouldn’t have prevented that? For example, if a person develops an issue (sustained long-lasting ache / pain / injury / malaise / etc) and they’re eating 50g / day and they weigh 200 lbs, could 120g or 150g have prevented their issue from ever developing? If not protein, then what variables could have helped?
That’s actually what happens if the person doesn’t get injured. Give them long enough, they adapt and get better (in general).
I guess I meant that for the person pushing really hard against their individual recovery situation, and they tip that balance in the wrong direction (too much training load for their recovery situation) for too long, bad things can start to happen. It’s the recovery situation and recovery capabilities that limit their adaptation. There’s only so much a person can do on the recovery side. If they’re sleeping 10 hours, do you expect them to start sleeping 11, and then 12? If they’re eating a diet that’s at the top of the range of all the various agency’s guidelines, what else can they eat? More days off? I think that goes against your philosophy of people needing more training over time, not less. To use a phrase you used before in another thread, what other levers can they pull on the recovery side of things? That’s where I take issue with this idea that people can just continue to adapt to an ever increasing training load.
I don’t know how to reply to your first paragraph, but if you’re consuming > 1.4-1.6g/kg/day, that’s definitely high. It probably doesn’t need to be higher than that to build the most strength or muscle mass possible across a lifetime.
Yes, pain and protein intake has also been studied. I would argue that an individual’s uncontrolled experience should not be generalized to other people. If you’re wanting to get the final word on protein and pain, I’ll happily agree that someone eating < RDA for years and training really hard will likely have more pain and less gainzZz than someone eating well above the RDA. That said, they’re also more likely to die so…maybe less pain overall.
As far as we know, protein intake does not correlate with tendinopathy or similar overuse injuries. I don’t feel confident that there’s no correlation under any possible circumstance, but I don’t think that’s a concern for anyone who has ever posted on this board either.
With respect to your recovery claims, no, recovery is trainable just like anything else. We are not static. When we train more, our work capacity and training tolerances go up.
If you don’t have any specific disagreements with my response to OP, I think we can move on. If there are remaining questions, we should probably start a new thread.