Muscle Memory, MPS and Protein distribution

Muscle Memory(MM)

It describes the phenomenon of muscle fiber regaining the size and strength faster than initially gaining them.

let’s comprehend this by an example, imagine a person named “Bruce”.

Bruce started weight training and he gained decent amount of muscle and strength after 2 years of training. Unfortunately bruce met an accident and got injured by virtue of which he convalesced for 8 months and lost his all hard gained muscle and strength.

After 8 months of recuperation, bruce again instigated weight training and this time he gain back his lost strength and muscle in 7 months which took 2 years when he did it initially. This phenomenon is called muscle memory.

It happens due to very wonderful trait of our body called adaptation. Just like you practice Italian language for 2 years, you’ll become virtuoso at it, similarly in weight training, the more you train muscles, they will adapt to it and you’ll become more skilled, strong at lifting weights.

Muscle Protein Synthesis(MPS)

Protein is the building block of muscles and protein synthesis is the process of building new proteins. This process happens in all the organs of the body.

Muscle protein synthesis is the process of building specifically muscle protein.

Let’s comprehend this by an example – think of muscle as a wall, each brick is a protein. MPS is the addition of bricks to the wall. This means wall will become larger and larger but there is an opposing process which is removing bricks on the other side of wall, a process called muscle protein breakdown(MPB) also known as muscle degradation or muscle proteolysis.

The speed of these two opposing forces determines the net change in the wall. If MPS>MPB, the muscle will grow and vice versa.

Whole body protein synthesis vs muscle protein synthesis:

Whole body protein metabolism measures the synthesis of all proteins in the body(250+). Resistance exercise/weight training specifically builds muscle protein, it does not increase protein synthesis in other organs which is legit because you don’t want your organs to grow big in size. So, resistance training do exactly what it is supposed to do i.e. build your muscles, not your organs.

How to optimize MPS

As the internet is littered with ways to optimize MPS, the ways are pretty bemusing, they’ve compared whey protein concentrate with isolate in order to find which provide better MPS, they’re focusing on leucine(amino acid), protein timing but the three most important methods i deduced are:

• weight training or exercise regularly
• consume ample protein
• eat whole foods, mixed meals

Yes, studies have proved that leucine and other amino acids are important for MPS but if you’re consuming ample protein according to your needs, you’re already consuming enough leucine and other aminos as protein is build up of amino acids.

Does protein distribution matters? How much protein you can consume in one sitting?

While there are many fallacies out there regarding this topic. Some people assert that you can consume only 30 gram of protein in one sitting but they all are just erroneous claims. So what’s the truth?

First thing first, yes protein distribution do matters because our body doesn’t have any storage mechanism for storing protein. So, consuming 20g protein in breakfast, 40g in lunch and 100g in dinner won’t be a good option to optimize MPS comparing to an evenly spread protein throughout the day like 50g in breakfast, 50g in lunch and 50g in dinner.

Various studies have been conducted which substantiate the claim that you should evenly spread your protein intake throughout the day rather than eating less at one meals and overconsuming at another.

So, try to aptly spread your protein requirement throughout the day. For instance if your daily protein requirement is 200g and you consume 5 meals a day, so 200/5 = 40g protein per meal you should aim for.

I will provide a link to the video of layne norton(scientist) who has intimately explained this concept of protein distribution. If you are inclined to know more about this topic, check out that video by clicking on this.

So, that’s all about today’s blog, see you all in my next blog. Till then, stay fit, keep exercising and be benevolent towards others.

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