Protein Requirements For Bodybuilders, Sports People and Athletes

There is one thing that is certain when it comes to bodybuilding, or any other form of exercise: unless you consume enough protein, regularly enough throughout the day, then your progress will hit a plateau and your results will hit a brick wall. So the question is, “how much protein is required per day and how often is it required throughout the day?”

Well, it makes sense that as your muscles are mainly made up of protein and water, then the more muscle you gain, the more protein you need in your diet to retain it and build more muscle. 1.5g of protein per pound of bodyweight is therefore about right for a decent level bodybuilder, when between 3% and 10% body fat, in my opinion. However, for someone who has only been training a couple of weeks and is 30% body fat, then 1.5g of protein per pound of bodyweight would be excessive. To account for body fat and muscle development when working out your protein requirements, I would therefore use the following formula.

Protein Requirements Per Day

Protein per day = Z x (1.5W – 0.015FW), where:

• W is your weight in pounds (lbs);
• F is your approximate bodyfat percentage; and
• Z takes account of your current muscle development and is 0.8 for non-trained individuals, 0.9 for intermediate gym go’ers and 1.0 for advanced athletes and bodybuilders.

• Example 1: a bodybuilder weighing 200lbs with 7% body fat requires 1.0 x ((1.5 x 200) – (0.015 x 200 x 7)) = 300 – 21 = 279g of protein per day.
• Example 2: a new gym go’er weighing 200lbs with 25% body fat requires 0.8 x ((1.5 x 200) – (0.015 x 200 x 25)) = 0.8 x (300 – 75) = 180g of protein per day.

If you struggle to reach your daily protein requirements with normal food, then you could consider using whey protein shakes. They aren’t vital, but they make life much easier, as getting a carton out of the fridge, or blending some powder is a lot quicker and cheaper than cooking some chicken, eggs or other high protein food source.

Optimum Protein Consumption During The Day

Equally important to total protein consumption per day, is the regularity of protein consumption. Your body doesn’t store protein, it is either used as energy (through a process called gluconeogenesis) or it used for protein biosynthsis (which includes muscle building). It is therefore important that you consume as much protein per meal as will be used for muscle growth as possible, but not so much that it used as energy or worse still, stored as fat. The amount of protein that can be biosynthesised per meal will vary by individual, diet, lifestyle, age, exercise and many other factors, but 40g seems to be an upper limit every 2-3 hours.

I personally think that 20-25g every 2 hours is a better solution and is more in line with recent studies which say 9g of protein per hour is the maximum that the body can metabolise. Further, I think people could get much better results in the gym from consuming 8 smaller meals per day, so that their calories and protein are spread out more. Your body would use protein more efficiently for muscle building and you would probably be able to reduce the amount of protein you consume per day by regulating protein consumption in this way. Of course the supplements manufacturers wouldn’t want you to know this! See the Wikipedia whey protein article for more information.

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For the best muscle building results from using whey protein powder, follow the 10 tips below:

1. Calculate your daily protein intake, i.e. 1.5g per day for every pound of bodyweight. Divide this number by the number of meals you eat per day (6 or more is recommended) and this is how much protein you need to consume per meal, no more, no less. If you need more than 40g of protein per meal, consider eating more meals per day, to spread the protein out better. Whenever your meals contain less protein than required, boost the protein content with whey protein powder.
2. Remember that calories dictate whether you gain weight or lose weight. Consume 10 calories per pound of bodyweight per day to lose weight and 15-20 calories per pound of bodyweight per day to gain weight (15 = slow metabolism, 20 = fast metabolism). But remember, like protein, calories need to be spread evenly throughout the day over 6 or more meals, to regulate insulin levels, which are associated with energy levels and fat loss. Also, eating small meals regularly throughout the day boosts your metabolism.
3. Keep well hydrated by drinking 8-10 glasses fo water per day, every day. Proper hydration is very important for many processes in the body and ultimately results in increased or decreased performance at the gym.
4. High intensity training is a must for anyone wanting to improve their physical performance and appearance, whether you want to lose weight or gain weight (remember weight is controlled mainly by calories). High intensity training has a knock on effect upon hormone levels within the body, which help fat loss and boost metabolism. The higher the intensity, the better. Fifty minutes appears to be the optimum time in the gym, lifting weights and should be repeated 2-4 times per week, depending upon your requirements.
5. Low to medium intensity cardiovascular training, such as a brisk walk or a steady jog are good for increasing fat loss, without affecting muscle mass, when performed for the right duration at the right times. Forty minutes, first thing on a morning, before breakfast, performed 3-4 times per week will boost results significantly. An extra tip is to have a black coffee, or a cup of green tea before exercising. Have your whey protein shakes immediately after you return from your jog, to ensure no lean muscle is lost as a result of the jogging.
6. Follow all high intensity training sessions with a post workout shake. For weight loss, have whey protein powder in water, with a few raisins. For weight gain, mix your whey protein powder in skimmed milk for extra protein and 27g of sugar, which is one of the few times when sugar is a good thing in your diet.
7. Avoid lack of sleep, stressful situations and overtraining as they can result in the release of a stress related hormone called Cortisol, which is associated with muscle loss and the accumulation of body fat.
8. Eat plenty of fruit and veg in your diet, as the vitamins, minerals and other micronutrients found (or not found yet) in these foods allow for optimum performance of your bodily functions, such as improving protein synthesis and increasing energy. You don’t see what these foods do, but they have a massive positive effect upon your overall routine.
9. Make sure your normal meals are low GI and low GL, to avoid insulin spikes. Your body can only store up to 150g or so of glycogen and if you eat a large sugary meal, the extra will either be excreted or will result in additional fat gain. Note: on a morning and after lifting weights, your glycogen levels are depleted, so your instant energy source is gone, meaning you need to use your fat stores as energy for any form of exercise, hence the early morning slow jog. If you do anything higher intensity, the Cortisol is going to kick in, so don’t overdo it on a morning. Similarly for after lifting weights.
10. With reagrds whey protein supplements, if you are lactose intolerant, use whey isolate as it does not contain lactose. Otherwise, I would recommend using AST Whey Protein for everyone else.

Regards,

Gareth

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Creatine or Protein Shakes?

This may seem like a silly question to the more advanced athlete, but to a novice, who has never used supplements, it is a genuine question. The short answer is that both creatine supplements and whey protein shakes will enable you to advance your physical ability and appearance quicker and to a higher level, but really you should know why and I will explain below.

What Do Protein Shakes Do?

Protein shakes are the cheapest and easiest way of getting enough protein in your diet for your body to gain muscle. Protein shakes work out cheaper than chicken, tuna, or any normal food source and provide a better, more digestible form or protein. They are made from milk, via complicated processes that retains the protein quality, whilst removing the sugars and fats. The fact that protein shakes are very low in carbs and fats, means they are low calorie and you can therefore drink 3 or 4 them per day.

Your body can only digest up to 40g of protein every 2-3 hours and small regular meals avoid you gaining fat, hence the 6 meals per day recommendation. This sounds like a lot of eating, but all you need to do is eat breakfast, lunch and dinner and have a protein shake 2-3 hours after each meal. If your regular meals are low calorie, use a protein powder to boost protein content of your regular meals. When you consume protein every 2-3 hours, it keeps your body in an anabolic muscle building state, as opposed to a catabolic muscle losing state which occurs when your body hasn’t been supplied with protein in the last few hours. This is why a high protein breakfast as soon as you wake up is vital, similar applies for a protein shake before bed.

Every second of the day, your body is either gaining or losing muscle, well both actually, but the overall gain or loss is of most importance. Your diet controls this more than any other factor. Other factors include being well hydrated, performing regular high intensity exercise, not being stressed, not overtraining, getting enough sleep, eating plenty of fruit and veg, etc.

What Do Creatine Supplements Do?

Creatine is used by the muscles for high intensity exercise, lasting less than a minute. Creatine is found in beef and other natural foods and supplementing with additional creatine provides more energy for high intensity exercise, meaning you can lift slightly heavier for slightly longer, i.e. more reps and more weight. This means that you will be training to a higher intensity and you will therefore be able to stimulate more muscle growth, if and only if, your diet is sufficient for muscle growth, see above. You can literally gain 7 pounds in 7 days, but it will be mostly water, associated with the super hydration effect that creatine has on your muscles. When you stop using creatine you lose this water, but the net result is that you have trained heavier over the last 8 weeks or so than you would have normally and you should have therefore gained a lot more muscle than you would have done without using creatine.

So Creatine or Protein Shakes?

Protein shakes are the only realistic way of eating 6 high protein, low calorie meals per day, which is essential for muscle growth, so the answer is protein shakes! If you want better results, use a creatine supplement as well, but not instead!

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Why Do I Need A High Protein Diet?

If you have started a weight training programme and you want to get the best results possible, then you need to provide your body with the nutrients required for muscular growth. As muscle is mainly made up of protein and water, it makes sense that you need more protein in your diet to gain more muscle. But, as your body needs protein every 2-3 hours, you need to consume protein every 2-3 hours, to stop your body from breaking down your muscles. You should note that during every second of every day your body is either gaining muscle (anabolic state or anabolism, equivalent to having a positive nitrogen balance) or losing muscle (catabolic state or catabolism, equivalent to having a negative nitrogen balance). You can control this somewhat with your diet and this is why EVERY successful athlete, bodybuilder or sports person eats at least 5-6 highly nutritional, high protein meals per day.

So How Much Protein Do I Need To Consume Per Day?

There has been lots of debate about this subject, but the general consensus is that you need between 1 and 1.5 grams of protein for every pound of bodyweight per day, EVERY day, to keep your body in an anabolic, muscle building state. For example if you weigh 180lbs, you need between 180g and 240g of protein per day. Our macronutrient calculator provides more guidnace on this subject.

Why Do I Need To Use Protein Supplements?

Now you know how much protein you need per day. Next step, divide that number by the number of meals you eat per day, usually 6 and this is the amount of protein you need per meal. So, again, if you weigh 180lbs, you need 180/6= 30g to 240/6= 40g of protein per meal. So, you would aim to consume about 35g of protein every 2 to 3 hours of every day, i.e. 6am, 9am, 12pm, 3pm 6pm and 9pm. So how are you going to get all of that protein, without consuming a massive amount of calories and getting fat? Well, you could either live off chicken, tuna and cottage cheese, whilst spending your life in the kitchen, or you could follow a diet like the one below:

• 6am: 2 scrambled eggs, 2 slice of wholemeal toast, whey protein shake
• 9am: Meal Replacement Shake
• 12pm: Lunch, whey protein shake
• 3pm: Meal Replacement Shake
• 6pm: Evening Meal + whey protein, if meal lacking in protein
• 9pm: Micellar Casein Shake, 1 slice of wholemeal toast with peanut butter

Whey Protein, Micellar Casein & Meal Replacements – Optimum Usage

As already mentioned, you want to keep your body anabolic, so that you are continuously gaining muscle. So, first thing on a morning, you want some fast releasing protein with your breakfast, i.e. whey protein – whey protein concentrate, isolate, or hydrolysate are all effective on a morning – hydrolysate is slightly better, than isolate, which is slightly better than concentrate, but it doesn’t matter much at this time.

During the day, between regular meals, consume a meal replacement shake as they contain about 40g of fast, medium and slow releasing proteins, are low sugar, low fat and also contain most of your recommended daily allowance (RDA) of vitamins and minerals, which improve your overall health and performance. With regular meals, if they don’t contain your 30g to 40g of protein required per meal, then top them up with a scoop of whey protein.

Before bed, you want a protein that provides a slow release and digests slowly, to keep your body in an anabolic state for as long as possible. Micellar Casein is ideal, as it has been shown in trials retain a positive nitrogen balance in individuals for up to 7 hours.

Nearly forgot… you also need to make sure that as well as your protein, your calories need to be spread out evenly throughout the day to increase energy levels, regulate insulin levels and maximise absorption of nutrients. Another rule of thumb is to consume between 15 and 20 calories per day for every pound of bodyweight. Also, drink 8-10 glasses of water per day to keep hydrated – it will allow you to lift more!

Now You Are Anabolic, Get To The Gym!

Now your body is in the perfect environment for muscle growth, you need to stimulate that muscle growth by going to the gym and lifting heavy weights 2-4 times per week, depending upon the individual. I can get away with 2 sessions, but I train to an extremely high intensity which has taken over 10 years to make perfect. If you are fairly new to the gym or you are young and recover quickly, 3 or 4 sessions per week is okay. Research HIT style routines, Ellington Darden style training, Braun series of books by Stuart McRobert and Dorian Yates style training. This will give you all the tools to you need to set up your own perfect routine, that gives progressive results week after week, year after year.

Regards,

Martin Procter
Promart Supplements

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Protein for Muscle Growth & Repair

Every athlete, bodybuilder and the majority of top flight competitive sports people use protein supplements to provide their body with the nutrients required for muscle growth and repair. Muscle is mainly protein, so obviously to build more muscle, you need to provide your body with the raw materials, i.e. protein.

Protein Supplements Benefits

To consume the amount of protein needed per meal, 6-8 times per day, 365 days per year is virtually impossible without using protein supplements. This is because your food bill would be sky high, your life would be spent in the kitchen cooking, eating & washing up and you would also consume way too many calories from eating so much high protein food, resulting in you getting fat. The perfect solution would be a high protein, low calorie food, that doesn’t require much preparation, is high quality and low cost, whilst being good for your health. This perfect solution is available in the form of protein supplements.

What are Protein Shakes and Protein Powders?

Protein Shakes Vs Protein Powder

Protein Shakes	Protein Powder

Protein Supplements come in many forms, but in this article I am only covering shakes and powders. Protein shakes come in ready to drink cartons, making them ultra convenient, whereas protein powders come in tubs and require blending in water. Both are usually made from milk, i.e. they are mostly made up of the protein from milk, but without the sugars or fats, making them low calorie. Protein supplements are easily digested by the body, making them the best source of protein for muscle growth available… above fish, poultry and beef! Further, protein supplements cost less per gram of protein than normal food sources, with protein powder cheaper than protein shakes. Protein powder can be as cheap as 1.7 pence per gram of protein. Protein shakes cost more as they come mixed in water, making them heavier, hence higher delivery costs.

Protein Shakes or Protein Powder

Both protein shakes and protein powder are as good as each other (if the same product, by the same manufacturer), but personally I prefer protein powder as it has a longer shelf life and costs less. Protein powder should form the base of your supplements programme, with protein shakes filling the gaps, where you need the extra convenience of just grabbing a chilled shake out of the fridge, or where you are away from home and don’t have blending facilities, although a protein shaker cup would allow you to mix your protein powder on the go!

Useful Links about Protein Shakes and Protein Powders

1. Benefits of protein shakes
2. Benefits of protein powder

Regards,

Promart Supplements

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Protein supplements are the most important supplement for athletes, sports men and women and bodybuilders. Without them, let’s face it, you’re not going to consume 1.5g of protein per pound of bodyweight per day, no chance. Even if you did, you would have to eat so many eggs and so much meat, that your diet would contain massive amounts of cholesterol and so many calories that you would get fat. Not to mention that your food shopping bill would cost the earth and you would spend your life cooking, eating and washing up. So, if you are wondering how many competitive athletes, sports men and women and bodybuilders use protein supplements, the answer is ALL OF THEM!

Protein Supplements Requirements

If you want to consistently and progressively improve your physique, you will need 1-2 good protein supplements as well. My advice would be to have a whey protein shake with every meal lacking in protein (usally all meals except your evening meal), have a micellar casein protein supplement before bed (with 1-2 slices of wholemeal toast) and if you only eat 3-4 times per day, increase this to 6 meals per day by using high protein meal replacement shakes.

Whey protein supplements are most easily digested, but don’t use more than 20g every 2-3 hours or the extra protein will be used as energy, or stored as fat. Micellar casein protein supplements digest slowly, ensuring a steady stream of nutrients are bing digested up to 7 hours into the night. Meal replacement powders can be used 2-3 times per day, between regular meals.

Protein Supplements ensure that instead of losing muscle, you just Gain Muscle

Your body needs protein every 2-3 hours, or it starts using it’s own stores, i.e. your muscles – this is called a negative nitrogen balance, when your body is in a muscle losing state. It is therefore essential that you consume your protein every 2-3 hours during the day, to keep your body in a positive nitrogen balance, where your body is in a muscle gaining state. It is then up to you to perform progressively higher intensity exercise, which will result in progressive muscle gains.

Ready to drink protein shakes allow you to stick to a high protein diet much more easily, as they taste great and can be a very quick way to get breakfast on a morning when you are in a rush, or late for work.

Regards,

Martin.

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What is Whey Protein?

Whey protein is made from milk and is a by-product of the cheese making process. It is freeze dried and put through various treatments to remove lactose and fat, with natural and/or artificial colours and flavours added for taste and appearance. Drinking whey protein shakes is better than drinking milk, as milk contains a lot of sugar and fat, which means for every 20g of protein from whey protein powder, you would need to drink over a pint of milk, at 2-4 times the calories depending upon whether you use skimmed, semi-skimmed or whole milk. The extra calories from the sugars and fats in milk are likely to lead to the accumulation of unwanted body fat.

How Is Whey Protein Used Efficiently?

To gain lean muscle, when weight training, it is recommended that you consume at least 1g of protein per pound of bodyweight per day, split over 6 meals. For a 12 stone (168 pound) individual, following a weight training programme, requiring 168g of protein per day, results can be massively improved by supplementing with whey protein. Each meal would need to include 28g of protein and as you cannot eat tuna or chicken 6 times per day, you basically supplement the low protein meals with 20g of whey protein, to reach your daily target. You could literally consume a whey protein shake with every meal, as long as you are still eating a complete diet with plenty of fruit, veg, wholemeal bread, rice, cereal, etc.

The mistake that many people make is that they supplement with 40g of whey protein at a time, which can be wasteful, as 20g of whey protein is the optimum amount in terms of digestion and absorption (subject to genetics), not to mention that consuming too much protein de-sensitises the body to protein and provides additional calories.

The Cost of Supplementing with Whey Protein

A 25g scoop of whey protein generally provides 20g or protein, with a very small amount of carbs and fat and based upon the cost of CNP Whey Protein, which is a high quality and affordable whey protein supplement. Each serving costs just £0.35, which works out to be less than 2 pence per gram of protein, meaning that it is the cheapest (and best) source of protein available, whether from normal food or supplements, whilst providing positive health benefits, such as boosting the immune system.

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Whey Protein from EAS

Whey Protein

Whey protein is a collection of globular proteins derived from whey, a by-product of the cheese making process that contains all the soluble constituents of milk. Whey protein is widely recognised as being a high quality, easily digestable source of protein that supports lean muscle growth, fat loss and facilitates muscle recovery after high intensity anaerobic training.

It is absolutely essential to consume adequate amounts of high quality protein whilst training. If an individuals protein intake is too low and infrequent, then their metabolic rate is likely to drop, their strength will diminish and their ability to build muscle tissue will be hindered. In fact, their body will be in a negative nitrogen balance, meaning that they are in a ‘muscle losing state’.

Whey Protein is a fast releasing protein, so makes an ideal protein supplement to be taken with breakfast and before and after training, as well as with regular low protein meals.

CNP Pro Peptide

Protein Supplements

To keep someone weighing 200lbs in a postive nitrogen balance, so that they are in a ‘muscle building state’, their daily protein intake would need to be around 300g (ideally 40g of protein should be consumed every 2 hours throughout the day). To consume this quantity of protein from solid foods such as chicken, fish and milk is very time consuming, costly and not very practical for many people who have busy lives. An excellent solution to this problem is to add protein supplements to an existing well balanced diet. For example, if you are eating a chicken salad, then it is likely that sufficient protein is included within the meal. But, if you are eating pasta in a tomato sauce, then you should supplement such low protein meals with protein shakes. Reflex Instant Whey is an ideal example of a whey protein supplement. Instant Whey contains a high concentration of branched chained amino-acids and a digezyme enzyme system to ease protein digestion.

If you want better results and you have a bigger protein supplements budget, then you could try supplementing with Pro-Peptide from CNP Professional. Pro-Peptide is an advanced blend of bioactive fast and slow proteins. It contains whey protein high fraction concentrate and hydrolysed whey. This mixture of whey contains high levels of probiotic organisms that assist in protein metabolism leading to nitrogen retention and a healthy digestive system. For muscle building purposes, such high quality fast and slow releasing proteins keep you in a muscle building state much longer than regular whey protein supplements.

Its a fact - to develop your body to its full potential a diet rich in protein is critical!

Regards,

Gareth

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What are Sports Supplements?

Sports Supplements are products that are suitable for use by athletes and sports men and women, to enhance physical performance. Sports supplements are a subset of bodybuilding supplements, as sports supplements only make up about half of supplements available to bodybuilders. For example, whey protein supplements, creatine, energy drinks and fat burners are all types of sports supplements, but they are also bodybuilding supplements. Whereas, testosterone boosters, nitric oxide boosters and amino acids are types of bodybuilding supplements, but are not of much use as sports supplements.

Which Supplements are Suitable for which sports?

Below is table showing which sports supplements are suitable for which sports:

Why should you use Sports Supplements?

There is no reason for you to use sports supplements, other than to increase your performance. If you do not want to use them, don’t! But, be aware that your team mates, rival clubs and many other sports people are already using a combination of supplements that may be allowing them to overtake you in your chosen sport. If you want to catch up, or reach a higher level in your particular sport, then take a look at the table above and decide which sports supplements would be most useful for your particular circumstances. Make sure you leave your comments below, to show people how much sports supplements have helped you!

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CNP’s Pro-Peptide is an advanced protein supplement that should be used throughout the day and before bed, to boost protein content of meals.

Pro-Peptide contains a combination of fast and slow releasing proteins in the form of whey protein high fraction concentrate, hydrolysed whey, egg white and micellar casein, which helps maintain a positive nitrogen balance throughout the day and night, which is essential for muscle building.

Nutritional Facts per 2 scoops (65g):
Calories 230
Proteins 45g
Carbohydrates 6g
Dietary Fibre 3g
Sugars 3g
Total Fat 3g
Saturated fat 1g
Cholesterol 45mg
Sodium 350mg
Potassium 350mg

Pro-Peptide Benefits

1. Good taste, probably best in strawberry flavour
2. Mixes fairly easy, but you need a blender. (Tip: hand held blenders are best, cost under £10 from supermarkets and are much more convenient than traditional blenders – just dip the blender in the top of your measuring jug for 10 seconds and your protein shake is ready to drink!)
3. Used long term by the Director of Promart Supplements
4. Easily digestible
5. Contains pro-biotics (friendly bacteria) – which assists in protein metabolism and nitrogen retention
6. High in peptide bonded glutamine
7. Low in fat and lactose

Pro-Peptide – Drawbacks

1. Pro-Peptide is farily expensive compared to normal whey protein powders, but the aim is to keep your body anabolic and Pro-Peptide combines fast and slow releasing proteins to achieve this more effectively than most other protein supplements, making it well worth the cost.

It should be noted that a whey protein shake should be used first thing on a morning and before and after training, due to the faster absorption, whereas Pro-Peptide is to be used throughout the day and before bed. If you can’t afford or don’t want a second protein supplement, then as an alternative, you could eat 8 scrambled egg whites every morning for your protein requirements – but that would cost more than whey protein, which is better and more convenient on a morning anyway.

Overall verdict: Pro-Peptide is a very high quality protein supplement and I would highly recommend it to anyone. The only downside is the cost, although bearing in mind the high quality ingredients, the cost is to be expected.

CNP Pro-Peptide Rating: 9/10 (would be 10/10, but for the cost)

Regards,

Brian.

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