PROTEIN intake on test e??

[lee1092]

And yet, I***8217;m going to tell you how to rationalize all of the above stuff that I imagine most of you skimmed in the first place. Two researchers, named Tipton and Wolfe wrote a cool paper about this argument. In it they first detailed all of the stuff I just bored you with. At the end they gave their recommendations where they basically argued that
We don***8217;t know how much protein is required to optimize all of the potential pathways important to athletes.
We know that a protein intake of 1.4 g/lb (3.0 g/kg) isn***8217;t harmful and may have benefits that are too small to be measured in research
As long as eating lots of protein doesn***8217;t keep an athlete from eating too few of the other nutrients (carbs/fats), there***8217;s no reason to not eat a lot. And there may be benefits.
Essentially, a high protein intake won***8217;t hurt an athlete (basically everything you may have read about the dangers of high protein intakes is nonsense), it may provide small benefits of importance to elite athletes and, at the end of the day athletes and coaches don***8217;t give a shit about pedantic scientific debates over amino acid metabolism that gives researchers and nerds like me a giant hardon. Admittedly, they didn***8217;t put it in exactly those terms but that***8217;s the gist of it.
So here***8217;s my recommendation, strength/power athletes should aim for 1.5 g/lb protein per day (again, this is about 3.3 g/kg for the metrically inclined). So for a 200 lb strength/power athlete, that***8217;s 300 grams of protein per day. For a 300 lber, that***8217;s 450 grams per day. If you***8217;re Jeff Lewis, I imagine your protein requirements are basically ***8216;All of it***8217; or perhaps ***8216;A cow***8217;. Per day.
Since most strength/power athletes have plenty high caloric requirements, this will still leave plenty of room for the other macros and, if nothing else, will ensure that protein intake is not limiting in any way. I***8217;d note that female athletes often restrict calories heavily (for both good and bad reasons) and it is possible for them to get into situations where protein ends up making up damn near all of their daily food intake. There is some evidence that female athletes can get by with less protein but I***8217;m not going to get into that here; perhaps a later article for Elite Fitness can address that.
I***8217;d add that athletes who are using anabolics may wish to take this even higher, 2 g/lb (4.4 g/kg) or possibly higher. Again, very little research here.

 

[lee1092]

Retrospective analysis of available data (Figure 4) has indicated that a ***8220;safe***8221; level of protein intake for strength-trained athletes is 1.33 g · kg***8722;1 · d***8722;1; however, this estimate is based on nitrogen balance, which is at best a badly flawed approach for examining protein requirements. All things considered, it is abundantly clear that any protein requirement set for strength-training athletes is of little relevance, considering that these athletes habitually consume protein far in excess of any recommended level, even the pseudo-recommendation based on Figure 4, in their normal diet. In other sports of which strength and power are components, e.g., wrestling, rugby, ice hockey, or American football, a requirement for dietary protein would be easily met when the athlete is consuming adequate energy, which may have a much greater influence on protein requirements than protein itself. Therefore, as a guide, I believe that the joint position statement of the American College of Sports Medicine, the American Dietetic Association, and the Dietitians of Canada62 is the best guide that can be given: ***8220;Data are not presently available, however, to suggest that athletes need a diet substantially different from that recommended in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans or the Nutrition Recommendations for Canadians (55% to 58% of energy from carbohydrate, 12% to 15% of energy from protein, and 25% to 30% of energy from fat).***8221; There is no evidence to suggest that protein supplements are more effective than consumption of high-quality protein from standard dietary sources.