MYTH BUSTER
If your goal is to build muscle, you may have heard of the ‘anabolic window’ that occurs after your workout. Some people believe that the period after your workout is so crucial for ingesting nutrients that what you consume then is even more important than what you eat for the rest of the day. If you train in a commercial gym, chances are you have seen people slamming their protein shakes as soon as their workout finishes, as if every minute passed is a minute wasted.
The theory is sound. Exercise is a stress on the body, and consuming some protein and possibly some extra carbohydrates could help kickstart the recovery process by raising insulin levels, replenishing muscle glycogen, decreasing muscle protein breakdown and increasing muscle protein synthesis. Basically, if you want to grow as much muscle as possible, you should drink protein immediately after your workout when your body needs it the most.
It’s all relative
But the importance of this hinges on what the rest of your daily food intake is like. For example, if you train fasted, then of course it makes sense that your body would benefit from some protein post-workout. But what if you ate a high-protein meal shortly before training? If you have some protein before your workout, those amino acids are still in your body doing their thing, so consuming protein immediately post-workout
