The Anabolic Window, Or "Hurry Bro I Gotta Have My Shake!"

Greetings,

Gather round, brethren, for today a most ubiquitous issue haunts us. Tread lightly. Catabolism lurks in the shadows, ready to feast upon our hardly achieved gainz.

Bullshit.

I know this may be a dying myth, but also a pretty resilient at that. Plenty of people still live by the 30 minutes rule. "Take the shower at home bro I gotta have my shake or otherwise this session will have been useless!"

Allow me to present a rebuttal. But before that, let's properly define the "anabolic window", as proposed by most supplement companies and 135lbs soaking wet gurus. The anabolic window is a period of time during which you have to eat, especially protein, not to hinder gains. Some even claim that gains can be null without this post workout shake/meal. Some have even claimed that timing the intake may even play a bigger role than net daily energetic balance towards changes in body composition. We have before us, then, a really wide spread notion.

This wouldn't have happened if he had had his low GI high fructose corn syrup with casein, by Bull Hit Nutrition.

This seems to be a very favorable notion for supplement companies that live on their customers' naivete. Indeed, who else could have spread such a myth? Who benefits from it? Exactly. Some critical thinking is usually good, boys. Throw some sets into your routine.

Fortunately, many actually educated people fight on our behalf day after day. Many nutritionists and coaches have been trying to debunk this and other myths in the last decades, much to the aforementioned companies' dismay. Let's see what some of them have to say.

Among other variables, the most often preached benefits of the post workout shakes are their seemingly uncanny glycogen stores refilling properties, and the ability to raise protein synthesis.

Glycogen stores repletion

Given the traditional target of these companies' advertisements are bodybuilders, powerlifters, and weightlifting practitioners in general, a sport where most of our fuel will come from glycolysis, glycogen repletion should be something to be concerned about.

In several studies (MacDougall et al, Robergs et al), an elbow flexion at 80% 1RM, from 1 to 3 sets in the different studies, showed results indicating that the glycogen stores had been depleted, from as little as 12% from a single set to as much as 24.1% from 3 sets of 12RM.

It's been noted that a super compensation occurs when adding a carbohydrate shake immediately after training, and apparently delaying it for two hours can reduce this glycogen re-synthesis for as much as 50%.

What's the point of working out if you miss your anabolic window bro? May as well start doing cardio.

However, these same studies show that routines ranging in the 5-10 sets of volume per muscle group depleted as much as 30-40% of the glycogen. Therefore, unless a trainee were to workout several times a day, his glycogen stores would have time to recover. When upping the volume to 20+ sets, almost total depletion occurred, but these high volume routine are usually arranged in a low frequency protocol, as well.

Other study (Parkin et al) compared the differences in glycogen levels after 8 and 24h in groups that had taken a high GI carbohydrate shake immediately after training, and another one which had a normal replenishing meal hours after having trained, and found no differences.

Protein synthesis

What else, right? La pièce de résistance of every anabolic window theorist. Fuck glycogen depletion, what boys out there really care about is how much will their bulging biceps make up for their underdeveloped lower limbs (feel free to think of it as a double entendre). Protein synthesis is the really only important matter. Well, let's see what science says.

First of all, muscle protein synthesis is highly increased (as much as 200%) post exercise when using resistance training. This is counteracted by the catabolic (oh, NNNNOOOOEEES!!1!!one!!) effect of faster proteolysis.

It's generally acknowledged that eating post workout raises protein synthesis, although the existence of the anabolic window is argued still. One study (Levenhagen et al) showed a threefold increased when consuming a shake with protein, carbohydrates and fats immediately after training, whereas waiting 2 hours to take it showed only a 12% increase. These results, however, were attributed to increased mitochondrial/sarcoplasmic protein fractions instead of contractile elements (Brad Schoenfeld & Alan Aragon) due to the aerobic nature of the exercise in the study.

On the other hand, Rasmussen et al found no difference in amino acid net value when the shake was taken 1 or 3 hours afterwards. Conversely, Tipton et al found no difference when the protein shake was taken 1 hour before or after workout. Yup.

You'd better hurry and crawl in while it's open like you're Frodo at the Black Gate!

So what to do, after all this? Needless to say, it seems that the research fails to prove vehemently the existence of the infamous anabolic window. However, and the foregoing notwithstanding (I wanted to sound smart yo), bashing on the people who choose to take advantage of the anabolic window seems very arrogant. Research doesn't prove its definite existence, (if we take the definition of 1 hour window, a replenishing meal following workout as late as 3-4 hours later is still highly advised), but it doesn't prove it wrong either. As it is, trying to take any small benefit may be good, as long as the benefits are worth the hassle.

So what do we have?

• In low volume (circa 5-10 sets/MG), high frequency routines, there's not much need to worry about glycogen depletion because of the smaller portion of the stores these protocols use.

• In high volume (20 and upwards) there's a real concern, but the lower frequency makes up for that.

• Having a protein shake immediately afterwards may help raise MPS. I'd advise taking it if we can, although given the lack of definite proof I wouldn't go out of my way to do that.

• Many studies showed that what caused a dramatic change in MPS was the net protein intake, and not its timing. I'd advise aiming for 1.8g/kg of bodyweight, which is so far the maximum proved to be used by the body for structural reasons. Here you can see how much protein you need.

Stay safe,

J

Sources:

 MacDougall JD, Ray S, Sale DG, McCartney N, Lee P, Garner S: Muscle substrate utilization and lactate production.

Can J Appl Physiol 1999, 24(3):209-15.

 Robergs RA, Pearson DR, Costill DL, Fink WJ, Pascoe DD, Benedict MA, Lambert CP, Zachweija JJ: Muscle glycogenolysis during differing intensities of weight-resistance exercise.

J Appl Physiol 1991, 70(4):1700-6. 

 Parkin JA, Carey MF, Martin IK, Stojanovska L, Febbraio MA: Muscle glycogen storage following prolonged exercise: effect of timing of ingestion of high glycemic index food.

Med Sci Sports Exerc. 1997, 29(2):220-4.

 Levenhagen DK, Gresham JD, Carlson MG, Maron DJ, Borel MJ, Flakoll PJ:Postexercise nutrient intake timing in humans is critical to recovery of leg glucose and protein homeostasis.

Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab 2001, 280(6):E982-93.

 Tipton KD, Rasmussen BB, Miller SL, Wolf SE, Owens-Stovall SK, Petrini BE, Wolfe RR: Timing of amino acid-carbohydrate ingestion alters anabolic response of muscle to resistance exercise.

Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab 2001, 281(2):E197-206.

 Tipton KD, Elliott TA, Cree MG, Aarsland AA, Sanford AP, Wolfe RR: Stimulation of net muscle protein synthesis by whey protein ingestion before and after exercise.

Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab 2007, 292(1):E71-6.