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I recently had a discussion with some training buddies what
we considered was the most important supplement. The premise
was, if you could take only one thing, what would you take?
My answer was protein. Certainly, my response was influenced
by the importance of protein in achieving success in the gym,
but beyond that, protein is an essential component of virtually
every cell in the body and also plays a crucial role in the
formation of hormones, enzymes and antibodies, not to mention
energy production. Clearly, anything but optimal levels of
protein will affect you much more than just looking like a
broomstick.
Telling you that a highly active person’s
protein needs are greater than those of the sedentary
person is nothing new. If I said you should take in about
1-1.5 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight each day,
you won’t fall off your chair in amazement. But
if I told you that the amount of protein you ingest should
vary depending on how you exercise, now we’re talking
serious stuff. The problem is, we didn’t really
know too much about this until recently.
Peter Lemon, PhD, and colleagues from the applied physiology
research laboratory at Kent State University in Ohio set
out to determine to what degree protein needs may vary
depending on how intensely you train. They recruited six
healthy, physically active men who exercised on a treadmill
for one hour at a low (42%), moderate (55%) and high (67%)
level of intensity as determined by the subjects maximal
oxygen consumption and use rates (VO2 max). To make sure
diet didn’t confound the results, each subject consumed
the same kind of mixed diet throughout the experiment. |
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Now, the primary method to determine protein needs was to
see how much nitrogen the subjects lost in response to training.
Nitrogen is a byproduct of protein and amino-acid metabolism;
so measuring the amount of nitrogen excreted can result in
fairly accurate estimates of protein use. To increase the
level of accuracy, Lemon and colleagues looked at subject’s
urine concentrations of nitrogen as well as that of sweat
for two day’s after exercising. As expected, both urine
and sweat nitrogen levels increased in response to training.
In fact, total nitrogen excretion was elevated 24-48 hours
after exercise.
Let’s be more specific: The moderately trained group
lost 4.6 grams of nitrogen and the intensely trained group
lost 7.2 grams over the three-day experimental period significantly
more than what the low-intensity and control groups experienced.
Moreover, this difference represents a 16%-25% increase in
protein need for people exercising at moderate and high intensities.
Here’s my take on this research. First, how intensely
you train obviously affects your protein needs. Second, I
don’t consider training at 67%, of VO2 max as tremendously
intense. For the most part, bodybuilders go quite a bit beyond
that when they’ train aerobically. Then we need to consider
that they pump a considerable amount of iron, too, so protein
needs could be even greater.
To me, here’s the most important take-home lesson: You
can’t just increase your protein requirements by 25%
and leave it at that. Consider how intensely you train and
make adjustments accordingly. If you train hard, go for it
and consume about 1.5 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight
daily. If you follow a low-intensity training program, take
in about 1-1.2 grams of protein each day. If you’re
taking time off, consume slightly less. My reasoning? Not
only do your needs change in response to training, but consuming
more protein than you need won’t make you bigger. In
fact, it could result in greater fat deposits and certainly
a lighter wallet.
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