Jeff Nippard interviewed me on how to maximize muscle protein synthesis for his youtube channel/podcast.
These interviews are quite long and we go DEEP into the science. If you don’t care much about understanding the science, here are some of the practical takeaways.
Part 1: Training to Maximize Muscle Protein Synthesis
Training guidelines to maximize muscle protein synthesis:
- Hit each muscle group with at least 10 total sets per week
- Hit each muscle group at least two times a week
- Rest at least 2 minutes between sets (of the same muscle group)
- Rep ranges don’t matter much: as long as a set is taken close to muscular failure it will result in muscle growth
Youtube timestamps
Key: MPS = muscle protein synthesis
- 0:00 – Intro/disclaimers
- 1:42 – Interview begins
- 2:07 – Jorn’s area of research and interests
- 5:59 – What is muscle protein synthesis?
- 10:12 – Is the point of resistance training to “tear the muscle down”? (Why does weight training work?)
- 17:08 – What is the BEST way to train to max out muscle protein synthesis (MPS)? (Reps, split, volume)
- 24:10 – Rest periods
- 25:29 – How frequently should you train to max out MPS?
- 36:03 – What is the role of progressive overload in terms of MPS? Is it required for growth?
- 44:18 – EMG/Muscle Activation Discussion & Answering?: “Does MPS correlate with hypertrophy?”
Part 2: Nutrition to Maximize Muscle Protein Synthesis
Nutritional recommendations to maximize muscle protein synthesis:
- Eat at least 1.6 g per kilogram body weight per day to optimize gains
- Eat up to 2.2 g per kilogram body weight per day to include a safety margin
- Animal-based protein appears slightly more efficient than plant-based protein
- You can eat more plant-based protein or mix protein sources to compensate
- Unclear how much protein distribution matters throughout the day. Possibly a small benefit of eating at least 4 protein rich meals distributed throughout the day (e.g. breakfast, lunch, dinner and a pre-sleep protein snack)
- Muscle protein synthesis rates are suboptimal in a caloric deficit
- Insufficient sleep lowers lean body mass and slows down fat loss.
Youtube timestamps
- 0:00 Intro
- 1:38 The role of carbs (insulin) and fats in stimulating MPS. Is insulin anabolic?
- 7:46 Whole eggs more anabolic than egg whites? (New research)
- 11:00 “Just hitting total daily protein intake” and an “IIFYM approach” to protein
- 13:25 Collagen protein discussion
- 14:32 How much protein do you need per day? 1g/lb per day? (The controversy)
- 20:21 Does protein intake depend on lean body mass/body weight?
- 26:13 Role of individual differences
- 28:02 Protein quality (plant vs animal protein)
- 31:46 Should vegans supplement leucine? (And leucine discussion)
- 34:25 How much leucine do you need per meal? (Is the “leucine threshold” legit?)
- 44:17 Protein distribution (Can you eat all your protein in one meal?) What is the “muscle full effect”?
- 47:28 Intermittent fasting – is it sub-obtimal for MPS? (What happens when you eat 50-100+g in one meal?)
- 52:52 Is there a “refractory period”?
- 1:03:35 Protein before bed? How much and what type?
- 1:09:56 What about a protein feeding in the middle of the night?
- 1:14:35 Summary of training and nutrition for MPS
If after all this you still want more, check out The Ultimate Guide to Muscle Protein Synthesis. It has even more information than this interview and includes helpful images and references.
If you found this useful, please leave and a comment and like underneath the videos on Jeff’s Channel so he also get’s some love!
Could you comment on Eric Helms’ “MPS is largely theoretical” comment in this video with Jeff Nippard? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1Xr8rMK-Gw&t=817s
I think somewhere in your interview you said something like (I’m probably poorly paraphrasing) ‘MPS literally what muscle building is’. So I was surprised to hear Eric say it’s ‘largely theoretical’.
Is this just a difference of opinion or is he talking about a different aspect?
Hey Random Destiny,
I dont have time to look at that video, but its not uncommon to hear people say they think MPS does not correlate with muscle growth.
MPS is the addition of new amino acids to muscle protein. That doesn’t always perfectly translate to muscle growth, because some other factors are also involved that should be taken into consideration such as that the protein synthesis might be used to repair damaged muscle protein, and the breakdown of muscle protein.
That might sound like MPS is not a good measurement…
But the same concept is true for ANY measurement. Also the long-term measurement of muscle growth.
For example, if you measure “muscle mass” before and after a dehydration and glycogen depletion protocol, your measurement is incorrectly suggestion a loss of muscle mass. Because you violated the assumptions of the method.
For all methods, assumptions need to be met for the conclusion to be valid. However, methodology is very complex and not many people have a good grasp on it (and therefore imo jump to incorrect conclusions).
Thank you a lot for this information I’ve learned a lot from it. I do have a few questions though that I would appreciate if you were to respond to.
1. Based on what you said in this video, would you say it is more important to aim for 3 meals with 20 grams of protein and a 40 gram post sleep meal than to aim for about 1 gram of protein per lbs of body weight? Or would you say it would be most optimal for me to do as I said above, but also add in more protein to some of the meals listed above in order to reach the 1 gram per lbs of body weight that is often recommended?
2. You mentioned that if you consume more than 20 grams of whey protein(or really any fast protein) then your body starts burning it. Because of this, would you say there is no point in supplementing more than 20 grams of whey protein in a single sitting, and if you want to get more protein in during that meal consume the rest from a slow digesting protein?
3. Also just curious on your opinions on micro bulking/cutting where you, for example, might bulk for 2 or 3 weeks then cut for one week then repeat.
Thanks
Hey Sam,
1. Not necessarily. How important/unimportant protein distribution throughout a day is not really clear from the current research. It does appear protein distribution is some super important, but that does not mean it should be thrown out of the window completely. For most people, getting 3 meals during the day with at least 20 g and an extra meal just before sleep with a bit more protein, is pretty feasible to do. That would be a good starting point to get a decent amount of total protein intake and have a decent distribution.
2. It’s not that black white that you only start to burn protein after 20 g, but after 20 g you start to burn most of it. 40 g fast protein does result in a 10-20% higher MPS response. Might be worth it for some. With slow protein, you wouldn’t get a higer MPS response, but the response might be longer (has not been directly researched, but some of my research suggests this).
3. I would take whatever approch is most practical. I don’t think the overall strategy will matter much with terms of body composition, so doing whatever you liked the best is what I recommend.
Cheers,
Jorn
Thank you for your response. I have a few more questions.
1. Since we know it is important to intake enough calories for your body to have enough energy to maximize protein synthesis, I aim for about a 200-300 caloric surplus when bulking. Also you said that after 3 days of being in a caloric deficit it will start to lower protein synthesis and therefore hinder muscle growth. That being said, do you think I could go on a 200-300 caloric deficit 2 days a week during bulking to try to minimize fat gain without it effecting muscle growth? Or do you think that could potentially slow muscle gain so it would be more optimal to just stick to a slight caloric surplus everyday of the week when bulking?
2. I play on my high school basketball team, so during the season we have a 2 hour practice everyday. During this time I’m still trying to gain muscle. I’m not sure how all this extra cardio effects protein synthesis. Since I’m relatively new to lifting I’m going for 12 sets per week per body part. Do you think I should lower my weekly volume during the season, or am I able to keep it the same.
3. As I said above I play basketball, so one of my goals is to increase my vertical. For upper body I just lift like a bodybuilder, but for lower body I do one bodybuilder leg workout and one vertical jump workout per week. Should I count each set of a vertical jump exercise as a set for legs? Also if so, should it count as a set for quads, glutes, and hamstrings, or just quads and glutes? Also I know that you may not have a definite answer for this question as there may/may not be enough research to answer this question as of now, and this isn’t in your main realm of research as you are a protein synthesis researcher. But I’m still interested to see if you have an idea on this as you are very knowledgeable in protein synthesis so you might have an idea.
4. In addition to trying to increase my vertical, I am also trying to increase my speed. I know that weight training will increase my leg muscle mass and therefore make me faster, but I do think that doing additional sprint work on a track is also probably important for getting faster? If I do sprinting during the week, should I lower my leg volume per week, and does it matter what day of the week I do it-meaning should I do it on different days than when I weight train my legs?
Thank you so much for your time answering my questions, it really helps me a lot. Also a big fan of all your research so keep up to good work! The information you give has helped me a lot with my body composition goals, and I’m sure it’s helped many other people.
Sam
Jorn directly above you mention take sets to failure but then add in leave 1-2 reps in reserve. Wouldn’t the 1-2 reps in reserve not have you going to failure? Is this to help avoid probability of injury? If not, what is your justification behind it? I’ve been training for a while now and never leave reps in reserve which is why I ask. Aside from higher likelihood of injury, are there any cons to not leaving reps in reserve in terms of muscle gains? Please advise, thanks.
Sets to failure cause a lot of fatigue. When do you a set to failure, your performance on your next sets will suffer because of it. So it’s a trade of between getting as much as possible out of each set (the closer you get to failure, the more you get out of it), and making sure your total training is solid. Therefore, it’s often adviced to get close to failure (1-2 reps in reserve), but not actually hitting failure (unless it’s the last set of an exercise/training for example).
Note there isn’t much clear studies showing that such as reps in reserve approch is superior, it’s just often advised based on the real-life experience that performance goes down fast if you take everything to failure.
First of all thank you Jorn for this nice and compact information.
I do have a question regarding the duration of muscle protein synthesis.
Let’s say I want to maximize my gains for the time invested,
meaning: I want to be in the sweet spot when it comes to time spend in the gym vs fatigue accumulated under the constraint of muscle protein synthesis being as long elevated as possible.
how would such a training program look like for a beginner?
go to the gym every time doing work @ 70% of rm with a moderate amount of sets?
bonus question: how would i measure without hiring a lab how long my muscle protein synthesis is elevated?
are there any good proxy markers?
thank you in advance,
Stefan
Hi Stefan,
Thank you for the kind words.
I would do a slightly higher %1rm (75-80), although that doesn’t matter too much. Take sets to failure (1-2 reps in reserve), aim for about 5-10 weekly sets per muscle group. That would be the basics that give you most bang for your buck.
Unfortunately, there is no way to know how long your MPS is elevated after a meal or training session. Even with state of the art facilities and years of research we don’t know the exact time lines.
Would protein a intake above 2.2g/kg of body weight be better when in a caloric deficit? If so, how much would be recommended?
Current recommendations for protein intakes during weight loss in athletes are set at 1.6-2.4 g protein/kg/day. During severe caloric deficit, you would like to be in the upper range.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29182451
Jorn, you are definitely one of the great MPS specialists of these days. Could you please provide some names of your colleagues who do high quality research on collagen synthesis?
Our lab has started looking into it, but nothing’s published yet.
Michael Kjaer has done a lot of work on this topic:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Kjaer+M+%5BAuthor%5D+collagen
Here’s a promising study:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27852613
Thanks Jorn! And just also found this great review article by Keith Baar:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5371618/
I just finished your interview on Jeff Nippard’s podcast. I found it very interesting and insightful. I was curious about the ideal fat and carbohydrate ratio in relation to a 1.6-2.2 g/kg body weight. I understand that there is no fixed rule for this however I would like to hear your opinion on the matter. I am a nutrition student and my professors often push 45-65% carbohydrate ratio I believe this ratio is due to the brain and red blood cell glucose demand, with the research you have done and read is this an accurate estimate? You mentioned that protein intake stimulated insulin enough to at least create an anabolic environment for protein synthesis so would that suggest we truly don’t need as much carbohydrate as we say? I ask this question in the context of a body builder trying to build muscle as well as in the context of an average person just maintaining their weight.
I hope my question makes sense and I hope to hear from you if you have time.
Thanks,
Katarina
I don’t necessarily think in a ratio/% of protein:carbohydrates:fat. You would start with your daily caloric intake and then first fit in your protein (usually the lower end at 1.6 g/kg). After that, get a bit of carbs and fat for general functioning. After that, you can kinda fill in your remaining calories as you want. Depening on how much calories you have left to play with you want to increase both the protein (to 2.2 g/kg), carbohydrate and fat. But some people like to go very high in carbs, other try to keep carbs relatively low. There’s no convincing science it matters much either way (although I think you should avoid keto).
You don’t need carbs to optimize MPS. Having said that, there’s no clear evidence that you need the fat to optimize MPS either. Carbohydrates might be somewhat important with regards to muscle glycogen. But unless you’re really low in carbs, that shouldn’t be much of a concern for bodybuilding as you tend to replenish it before your next workout.
Similar with regards to fat loss, the fat or carbohydrate % doesn’t seem to matter much. Personally, I think that’s good news, it allows people to pick a moderate or higher carbohydrate content based on their personal preference.
Hello Jorn! Thank you for your valuable and very informative content!
You kind of touched on this subject but I would appreciate it if you provide some details.
What happens to a muscle if you train it again while it is still experiencing MPS after the previous training session? Does this new training session harm the ongoing MPS? For simplicity let’s assume that this person is in trained state so that both of these training sessions did not cause significant muscle damage and his MPS is not repair-oriented.
Hi Alexey!
No-one really knows. My best guess is that MPS might further increase a little bit more, but that the main effect is that the MPS response stays elevated longer.
So in made up numbers (MPS rates on separate days):
Single session: 5 4 3 2
2-day in row: 5 6 4 4 3 2
This is total speculation though.
In practice, there’s almost always a trade-off between volume in each session and weekly frequency. If you train more frequently, are you still doing the optimal volume in each separate session?
Thank you for sharing all this scientific knowledge! I have a question for each video.
I know you said that full range of motion exercices give better results, but do isometric exercices to fatigue/failure have an interesting effect on muscle protein synthesis and hypertrophy, or is it a “waste of time” in that regard?
I understand that you can’t go wrong with whey as first food intake after resistance training for optimal MPS, but if I always train before dinner, will eating a meal right after a whey supplement have a negative impact on whey absorption and MPS?
Thank you Julien.
1) You can build muscle with isometrics, but a set of isometrics is likely less effective than a regular set (concentric + concentric movement).
2) I wouldn’t worry too much about a meal slowing down whey and therefore reducing MPS. It could theoretically happen, but any possible negative effect is probably so little than it’s not worth the inconvenience to change your pattern.
amazing content! thank you so much for sharing!