Protein and muscle

These notes combine advice from 33 reviewed passages across 27 workouts.

Overview

Coach’s advice

Daily protein is planned against body weight and the training being done. Endurance-style work calls for a lower level, around 1.5 g per kilogram, while strength-focused work calls for more, around 2 g per kilogram. The practical working range sits between 1.7 and 2 g per kilogram.

Coach’s advice

Protein targets are counted in grams of actual protein, and food weight alone is a poor guide. The same target can be met through different foods, and meat, eggs, and protein powder are all accepted ways to reach it.

Daily protein targets

Coach’s advice

For endurance training, aim for about 1.5 g of protein per kilogram of body weight. After a stretch of heavy strength training, about 2 g per kilogram works better, and the working target is at least 1.7 to 2 g per kilogram.

Coach’s advice

Avoid excessively high protein amounts. Keep the figure relative to body weight, because past a certain point the very high gram counts stop being realistic.

Coach’s advice

A huge daily protein load is not required. Modest protein, on its own or combined with carbohydrate, can give good natural results, since the body synthesizes what it needs.

Coach’s advice

A sharply defined, lean physique needs high protein. The old gladiator diet, low in protein and heavy on wheat and carbohydrate, is the opposite of that pattern.

Protein sources

Coach’s advice

Get your protein from meat instead of protein bars.

Coach’s advice

Food weight and protein weight are different. Eating 150 g of meat does not deliver 150 g of protein: 100 g of chicken carries about 31 g, 100 g of lamb about 25 to 26 g, and 100 g of steak about 27 g.

Coach’s advice

One egg holds about 6 g of protein when cooked and drops to roughly 4 to 5 g raw, so cooked eggs are the better choice. Three eggs cover about 20 g, and ten eggs add up to about 50 g in one sitting; cooking ten is manageable, though eating them one by one is a chore.

Coach’s advice

Eggs are an excellent protein source, and four or five eggs can be added to a meal. Protein can come from sources other than meat as well, so more eggs can stand in for some of the meat.

Coach’s advice

When cooking time or budget is limited, keep to simple protein foods; a chicken breast is the practical minimum. Protein powder is also a legitimate option for people who cannot afford meat or have little appetite.

Coach’s advice

A single scoop of protein powder compares to about five chicken breasts.

Coach’s advice

Ayran replaces the salt lost through sweating and supplies about 2 g of protein per 100 ml, nearly 20 g per liter. Sweet flavored protein shakes are not a healthy choice, and a salty ayran shake with its protein content raised is the preferred swap.

Coach’s advice

In Turkey, simit and ayran are a known low-cost way to build a body when protein powder is unaffordable.

Coach’s advice

A meat amount that includes bone-in cuts, such as lamb chops, lands around 800 g to 1 kg of total weight, which counts as sufficient.

Meal habits

Coach’s advice

Eat at meal time and nourish the muscles properly. Eat well, and get your protein in.

Coach’s advice

Keep the diet protein-focused. Choose good meals built around protein, and make sure protein comes with each meal.

Coach’s advice

To gain size, eat clean and add more meat, more chicken for its protein, and more carbohydrate such as rice. Stay away from processed food, because once you start, it is hard to keep it under control.

Coach’s advice

Raise the protein and cut dietary fat, aiming as low as zero fat.

Coach’s advice

In a period when carbohydrate needs are low, cutting carbohydrate and keeping protein can shape the body faster.

Coach’s advice

Lifting runs on another food scale: lifters may need up to six or seven meals a day, with large amounts of real food and powder as only part of the picture. Healthy calisthenics progress also needs adequate quality protein and carbohydrate.

Recovery and timing

Coach’s advice

The hour after training is important, because that is when the muscles take up what you eat. Protein can be taken quickly in that hour, without cooking, and it goes straight to the muscles.

Coach’s advice

Recovery is supported by good food, good sleep, and a good protein source.

Meat and muscle

Coach’s advice

Meat is necessary for building a large muscular body.

Coach’s advice

If meat is left out of the diet, muscle quality can drop, health can suffer, and mental work can slow down.

Coach’s experience

In his own approach, he prefers getting protein from meat over protein bars, even though most people around him buy bars.

In his own routine, he drinks ayran often, including before training.

He finds chocolate, lemon, and banana protein shakes unappealing and prefers a plain salty ayran shake.