Each day you should take two grams of protein per kilogram of your body weight. This is a golden rule and recommended daily intake of protein in bodybuilding to have muscle growth.
During the last few years, bodybuilders started to increase this dosage, consuming much more protein than the recommended dosage. Some are taking even three times larger doses than two grams per kilogram of body weight.
The question is, will the increased intake of protein help you get bigger muscles? The answer could be both yes and no.
For the muscles to grow at all, you need to intake enough protein, and if you eat more than two grams per kilogram of your body weight, you will definitely fulfill your needs providing your body with a sufficient amount of protein.
However, maybe it’s not that clever to increase the intake of protein. Here is why. We will explain to you how you can change your daily protein intake and consume more on some days and less on other days. This is a great way to stimulate your body to hold more protein and stimulate muscle growth.
Basic Rules Of Protein Intake
Each day consume enough protein – two grams per kilogram of your body weight. For bodybuilders that have heavy workouts, this intake is typical and efficient to stimulate muscle growth.
If you daily consume two grams of protein per kilogram of your body weight (that is, two hundred grams for hundred kilograms of body weight), you will provide your body with enough protein for the growth and recovery of muscle tissue that got damaged during the workout.
When you are recovering and rebuilding tissue, the results are obvious – your muscles grow. It does not matter if you are training to gain mass, using some special diet regime for a bodybuilding contest, or deciding to take a few weeks off from working out. It would help if you still tried to intake this recommended dose of protein.
The only exception is if you are changing the intake of protein, as we will show you here.
What Is Too Much?
If you think you need four grams per kilogram of your body weight, then you will intake four hundred grams of protein (in case you have 110kg). That is a lot of chicken, meat, and eggs. If you are taking protein powder, then that is many shakes (and you can get belly issues if you overdo the shakes).
We believe that this high daily protein intake is exaggerated even though it is prevalent nowadays amongst bodybuilders.
We do not recommend it simply because this kind of approach shows totally wrong understanding of how muscle grows.
Growth depends on a sufficient intake of protein, not on an exaggerated intake of protein. It is also very connected to the intake of carbs.
The right combination of carbs and protein in a diet most likely stimulates muscle growth much better than a diet full of protein and poor in carbs.
Usually, those who overdo it with the protein consume too little carbs. No matter how many proteins you take, a too-small amount of carbs can stop optimal growth. Besides that, there is a limit up to which the body can grow regardless of the amount of protein you consume.
What Is Too Little?
Muscles grow when a person consumes 1,4grams of protein per one kilogram of bodyweight. If you consume less than this per day, you probably will not feel any changes.
How Should You Change The Percentage Of Protein In Your Diet?
The best answer to the question, how much protein you should consume daily, maybe is not in accordance with the conventional one that says two grams per kilogram of bodyweight.
Even though you will most certainly get excellent results if you consume two grams of protein per kilogram of body weight daily, maybe those results will be even better if you change the percentage of protein in your diet.
This is how you can do it:
Phase One
The first five days consume fewer proteins than you usually do. One bodybuilder won’t lose weight overnight if he consumes fewer proteins (1,4-1,6 grams per kilogram daily).
What actually happens is that body slows down the consumption of protein. Basically, when you eat less protein body adapts and slows down its consumption.
When the body gets in the state of anti-catabolism, half a battle is already won regarding muscle growth.
Phase Two
After five days, increase the percentage of protein in your diet. In the first phase, the decrease of protein stimulated the release of the enzyme that induces anti-catabolism.
Now, after five days with less protein in your diet, you increase the intake. That additional protein with the addition of the enzyme that slows down the absorption of protein can lead to the piling up of a larger amount of protein in the muscles. Also, the change in the percentage of protein intake stimulates the building of new muscle tissue.
In the second phase, eat 3-3,5 grams of protein per one kilogram of body weight a day. This phase should last nine days and the entire cycle two weeks.
That is more than enough time for the body to benefit from that hyper-anabolic state. Finally, after one cycle, stick to the golden rule of two grams of protein per kilogram of body weight daily.
