While Dr. Ivy’s basic point is true, I’m not clear as to what the beef is here? O
ur inclusion/exclusion criteria specified we’d include any and every randomized controlled study where at least one treatment group consumed a minimum of 6 g EAAs < 1 hour pre- and/or post-resistance exercise and at least one control group did not consume protein < 2 hours pre- and/or post-resistance exercise. It really doesn’t matter whether or not protein timing was the primary objective of the research hypothesis per se. As long as a study employed timing in the manner specified by inclusion/exclusion criteria, then it provides a valid basis for evaluating the effects of timing. If I'm missing something here I'd be happy to hear Dr. Ivy's rationale.
randomly assigned 13 elderly men (average age 74 years) to perform a resistance training protocol 3 days a week for 12 weeks. The only variation in the protocol was that subjects consumed 10 grams of protein (a combination of skimmed milk and soy protein) either immediately following or 2 hours after the exercise bout. Results showed that muscle cross sectional area and mean fiber area of the quadriceps increased by 7 and 22 %, respectively for the group that received protein immediately post-exercise while the group that delayed protein intake showed no increases in fiber hypertrophy. On the surface, these findings would appear to provide compelling evidence in support of a narrow anabolic window of opportunity. Nail-in-the-coffin evidence, right?
Not so fast.
It is highly curious that the delayed-intake group saw *no* gains in muscle growth over a period of 12 weeks regimented resistance training simply because they waited 2 hours to consume protein. Zero! Considering that virtually every resistance training study ever done shows significant hypertrophy in untrained subjects after 3 months of regular lifting, the results must be viewed with skepticism. Moreover, these results were achieved with a dose of just 10 grams of protein (including lower quality soy protein), which equates to ~3 grams of EAA –an amount that as mentioned promotes only half the increase in protein synthesis as our required 6 gram dose. Add to this the fact that elderly subjects tend to be protein insensitive and generally need a ~40 gram dose to fully stimulate muscle protein synthesis and the findings are even more suspect. I’ll also note that the study had a very small sample size (only 7 subjects in the immediate provision group and 6 in the delayed consumption group), limiting statistical power. All told, it’s hard to make a case that this is nail-in-coffin evidence in favor of protein timing.