Protein ingestion stimulates muscle protein synthesis, the process driving muscle adaptation and growth (1, 2).
Most protein is consumed during the 3 main meals: breakfast, lunch, and dinner (3). This leaves a long overnight period where little dietary protein is available for muscle recovery. Can an extra protein meal/supplement prior to sleep be beneficial?
Our work shows that an extra protein supplement before sleep improves overnight muscle protein synthesis. We have shown this in healthy younger and older subjects (4, 5).
It appears that at least 40 g of pre-sleep protein is required for a robust muscle protein synthetic response. A relatively large dose appears to be needed, perhaps because the overnight period is longer than the period during day time meals.
To maximize overnight muscle protein synthesis, exercise and pre-sleep protein ingestion should be combined (6, 7).
In addition, we have shown that pre-sleep protein supplementation increase muscle mass and strength gains during a prolonged resistance training program (8) .
Little is known if the type of pre-sleep protein matters. We have used micellar casein in our studies. We don’t expect much difference between various high-quality protein.
Just be careful to not rationalize ”pre-sleep protein” as an excuse to eat tons of extra calories before sleeping. A protein supplement can be convenient to avoid non-protein calories.
Finally, it’s important to note that we have not observed any negative effects of pre-sleep protein ingestion on sleep quality (5, 9).
Our open-access review:
Trommelen et al. Pre-Sleep Protein Ingestion to Improve the Skeletal Muscle Adaptive Response to Exercise Training. Nutrients, 2016
Excellent — I’ll be taking 50 grams of whey protein prior to bed tonight and going forward. Now what about a.m.? I wake around 5:30 a.m. after 7.5 hours of sleep with a sleep mask. What are your feelings about hitting some whey just after I wake, before coffee even. I have been dragging my feet and not getting protein until 6:30. I may be missing out on the “golden hour” when testosterone is it’s highest waking level of the day.
It’s not going to make a huge difference, as it’s only 1 h of extra MPS. But taking protein as soon you wake up should more be beneficial.
Thanks! Love the site and the quality of the information. It seems intuitively that a 20 or 30g dose pre-sleep would also increase MPS during sleep but probably for a shorter duration than 40g. Does the data suggest otherwise? I only ask because of the above statement that 40g is needed for a robust MPS response.
Yes, 20-30 g protein *should* do something. The MPS response to protein ingestion is not an on/off switch. I did a study in which I saw no effect of 30 g pre-sleep protein (but I still believe it does something but that the effect was too small to be detectable in this context). When looking at all our studies, every time we gave 40 g (3 different studies), we saw a significant effect. Every time we gave less (2 studies), we did not see a significant effect.
But in our long-term study, we saw that 30 g pre-sleep protein increased muscle mass over time. So I think any amount is useful, but higher doses are probably better up to at least 40 g.