BoxRec

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-18863293

Wasted money it seems.

The articles about the general unfit population. I KNOW that a protein shake 1 hour before and straight after my training helps my recovery and strength gain.

Julia wrote:The articles about the general unfit population. I KNOW that a protein shake 1 hour before and straight after my training helps my recovery and strength gain.

Its a placebo effect Julia. Protein is made up of Branch Chain Amino Acids and they can be found, in plentiful quantities in everyday food. (Not just the food types you would imagine either). Your body is only capable of utilising a small percentage of protein per day.Any extra, just ends up in the toilet pan.
The supplement industry will have you believe that you require a minimum of 1.5-2g of 'protein' per pound of bodyweight, to prevent muscle breakdown and 2g plus per pound of bodyweight to assist with muscle growth.
The average 'protein' supplement powder/mix will serve you between 30-40g of protein per serving. There is zero impartial evidence to back up the claims made by these companies.
However, you cannot under-estimate the power of the placebo effect. If you feel it works for you thats fine. Its just the multi-national companies cant really market their product as a placebo.

CharlesListon wrote:

Julia wrote:The articles about the general unfit population. I KNOW that a protein shake 1 hour before and straight after my training helps my recovery and strength gain.

Its a placebo effect Julia. Protein is made up of Branch Chain Amino Acids and they can be found, in plentiful quantities in everyday food. (Not just the food types you would imagine either). Your body is only capable of utilising a small percentage of protein per day.Any extra, just ends up in the toilet pan.
The supplement industry will have you believe that you require a minimum of 1.5-2g of 'protein' per pound of bodyweight, to prevent muscle breakdown and 2g plus per pound of bodyweight to assist with muscle growth.
The average 'protein' supplement powder/mix will serve you between 30-40g of protein per serving. There is zero impartial evidence to back up the claims made by these companies.
However, you cannot under-estimate the power of the placebo effect. If you feel it works for you thats fine. Its just the multi-national companies cant really market their product as a placebo.

Yep. Protein shakes are used as they are practical. Its not always practical / easy to get the protein you need in, every day. Overnight you need slow release protein like cassein protein. A lot of people might have a whey protein shake and think thats going to help them overnight, but in reality half of that protein won't even make it into your system., as whey protein is absorbed very quickly, if youre body doesnt absorb it, its wasted.

Ideally, you're body needs protein every 3 hours, thats why a lot of bodybuilders will set their alarm for the middle of the night and have food then go back to sleep. I can guarantee you if you swapped your protein shakes with some chicken or tuna or eggs, you would get the same if not better results. But its a lot easier to just have a shake before bed.

Protein isn't that expensive if you get it from places like myprotein.com. But one other problem is, how do you know you're getting 30g of protein per serving? I believe the standards of quality control on protein supplements aren't the best so theres no guarantee that you're actually getting what it says on the tub.

End of the day, your body needs protein to recover and repair your muscles, if you are progressing well using them then that's fine, but don't be fooled in to thinking you 'need' them.

I have a protein shake with oats as my first meal of the day, as I dont have time to cook up a six egg omlette and I don't want meat at that time in the morning. My body is craving protein over night. For my fourht meal after training I have another one because my muscles need protein asap and will absorb anyhting I eat / drink, whey protein is ideal.

I think drinks like NO Explode etc. Used for pre workouts are a waste of money, if you've ate well all day you should have energy to train. If you really need a kick, take some caffeine tablets, it will have the same effect. If you want a better 'pump' in the gym, eat some starchy carbs that day / day before. People think it will help them get in shape a lot quicker but it won't. Its a massive industry and if people want pay for products similar to these, its up to them.

I watched the programme on BBC last night.

The main thing it seemed to focus on was the lucozade/powerade recovery (carb) drinks, trainers (footwear) and BCAAs.

Most of the documentary was a case of it going round it circles, making the same points over and over. Eventually I started to get a little bored with it.

Needless to say, the athletics 'recovery' drinks are a load of crap. I hate the whole endorsement nonsense half of these things are doing with the olympics and other sports people. Maybe if Maximuscle didn't flog so much money on advertising their stuff with gymnasts with dodgy comb-overs then their products wouldn't be so overpriced.

The programme completely avoided looking at any supplements where there is CONCRETE, longstanding evidence for exercise benefits.

e.g. protein supplements, creatine monohydrate, etc.

Obviously, some protein supplements bolt on useless crap inside it as a selling point... but you can't go wrong with a good quality plain old whey protein after weights.

I recommend following Jerry Brainum's blog. The guy has been writing about nutrition for 30 years and isn't trying to flog any products (besides his own Ebook... but no actual supplement products). He follows pretty much EVERY medical study out there, and writes about the results in a form understandable for us laymen.

http://appliedergogenics.blogspot.co.uk/

And just to get this back onto the path of boxing- The guy has been a nutritional coach for a lot of boxers. I found his rather damning verdict on Oscar De La Hoya in an Iron Man article to be quite interesting:

http://www.ironmanmagazine.com/blogs/jerrybrainum/?p=46