Protein For Building Muscles

Training for muscle mass requires more than just hard work, it requires protein, as much as 1 gram per pound body weight per day for some individuals, but as you may discover, obtaining enough protein without consuming too much fat is often problem.

What is protein?

Protein is used by the body to build, repair and maintain muscle tissue. As we'll see, in this area bodybuilders have been way ahead of most nutritional experts in recognizing that building muscle (in fact, hard training of all sorts) requires a lot more protein intake than had been formerly realized.

The body cannot use the protein you ingest for muscle-building unless all of the necessary amino acids are present. However, the body itself can produce only some of these amino acids. The others, called the essential amino acids, have to be obtained from the foods you eat.

What is protein made of?

Protein is made up of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen (as are the other macronutrients) and one more element non of the other nutrients have--nitrogen. If you have hear someobyd talking about being in positive nitrogen balance or negative nitrogen balance what they are referring to is whether they are in an anabolic state--able to build muscle--or in a catabolic one--losing muscle.

Some foods contain what is called complete protein--that is, they provide all the amino acids necessary to produce usable protein. Examples of these foods are milk, eggs, meat, fish and various vegetable products, such as sybeans. But even these foods contain differring amounts of usable protein per weight. That is, even though a food might contain, say, 10 grams of protein your body is able to use only certain percentage of it--for example, only 7 or 8.5 grams.

Protein Supplements

There are three different types of proteins typically used in protein supplements. Milk proteins (whey, milk protein concentrate, and caseindate), egg and sory protein. All are considered high-quality protein, and although there is little scienctific evidence that suggests one protein source is better for muscle growth than another, protein supplements that are derived from milk or egg have gained the greatest acceptance amonn bodybuilders. But soy protein has benefits that milk and egg proteins don't. Soy protein has recently gained attention in the medical community becuase of research that shows soy protein can lower serum cholesterol in some individuals. So for individulas who have problems with their cholesterol, sory protein may be the best choice.

Following is chart that shows on the left what percentage protein makes up of various foods commonly used as protein sources and on the right what percentage of that protein your body is actually able to use for building muscle