- Aug 15, 2018
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Most of us already hit a solid daily protein target, but the question of how to spread it still comes up, especially when life gets busy and dinner ends up carrying most of the load.
The classic acute study is Mamerow and colleagues in the Journal of Nutrition in 2014. In a crossover design they gave the same total protein either evenly across three meals (~30 g each) or skewed heavily toward dinner. The even distribution produced about 25 % higher 24-hour mixed-muscle protein synthesis rates, and the difference held after a week of habituation. Areta and colleagues (Journal of Physiology, 2013) looked at post-exercise patterns and found that four 20 g doses across 12 hours outperformed two 40 g doses or eight 10 g doses for muscle protein synthesis.
Moore and colleagues later estimated that roughly 0.24 g/kg per meal maximises the response in younger adults and closer to 0.40 g/kg in older adults. Schoenfeld and Aragon's 2018 review in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition synthesised the acute data and suggested aiming for about 0.4 g/kg across at least four meals to support the 1.6 g/kg daily target often linked to maximising hypertrophy. Longer-term trials are fewer and more mixed; some show modest advantages to more even distribution when total intake is adequate, others find total daily protein is the dominant factor.
The practical takeaway from the synthesis studies is that very low-protein meals (especially breakfast) leave some synthesis on the table, while moderate boluses spaced through the day do better than one giant evening meal. Once daily intake is high enough, the extra benefit of perfect distribution is smaller.
How do you currently split your protein, and have you ever tracked whether a more even pattern changed how you recovered or progressed?
The classic acute study is Mamerow and colleagues in the Journal of Nutrition in 2014. In a crossover design they gave the same total protein either evenly across three meals (~30 g each) or skewed heavily toward dinner. The even distribution produced about 25 % higher 24-hour mixed-muscle protein synthesis rates, and the difference held after a week of habituation. Areta and colleagues (Journal of Physiology, 2013) looked at post-exercise patterns and found that four 20 g doses across 12 hours outperformed two 40 g doses or eight 10 g doses for muscle protein synthesis.
Moore and colleagues later estimated that roughly 0.24 g/kg per meal maximises the response in younger adults and closer to 0.40 g/kg in older adults. Schoenfeld and Aragon's 2018 review in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition synthesised the acute data and suggested aiming for about 0.4 g/kg across at least four meals to support the 1.6 g/kg daily target often linked to maximising hypertrophy. Longer-term trials are fewer and more mixed; some show modest advantages to more even distribution when total intake is adequate, others find total daily protein is the dominant factor.
The practical takeaway from the synthesis studies is that very low-protein meals (especially breakfast) leave some synthesis on the table, while moderate boluses spaced through the day do better than one giant evening meal. Once daily intake is high enough, the extra benefit of perfect distribution is smaller.
How do you currently split your protein, and have you ever tracked whether a more even pattern changed how you recovered or progressed?