Evenly Distributed Protein Intake over 3 Meals Augments Resistance Exercise–Induced Muscle Hypertrophy in Healthy Young Men
Jun Yasuda, The Journal of Nutrition, 22 April 2020
Background
Although daily protein intake (PI) has been reported to be essential for regulating muscle mass, the distribution of daily PI in individuals is typically the lowest at breakfast and skewed toward dinner. Skewed protein intake patterns and inadequate PI at breakfast were reported to be negative factors for muscle maintenance.
Objectives
This study examined whether a protein-enriched meal at breakfast is more effective for muscle accretion compared with the typical skewed PI pattern.
Methods
This 12-wk, parallel-group, randomized clinical trial included 26 men (means ± SEs; age: 20.8 ± 0.4 y; BMI: 21.8 ± 0.4 kg/m2). The “high breakfast” (HBR) group (n = 12) consumed a protein-enriched meal at breakfast providing a PI of 0.33 g/kg body weight (BW); their PI at lunch (0.46 g/kg BW) and dinner (0.48 g/kg BW) provided an adequate overall daily PI (1.30 g/kg BW/d). The “low breakfast” (LBR) group (n = 14) consumed 0.12 g protein/kg BW at breakfast; intakes at lunch (0.45 g/kg BW) and dinner (0.83 g/kg BW) yielded the same daily PI as in the HBR group. The participants performed supervised resistance training (RT) 3 times per week (75–80% 1-repetition maximum; 3 sets × 10 repetitions). DXA was used to measure the primary outcome variable, that is, total lean soft tissue mass (LTM).
Results
The total LTM at baseline did not differ between the HBR (52.4 ± 1.3 kg) and LBR (53.4 ± 1.2 kg) groups. After the intervention, increases in total LTM were significant in both groups, with that in the HBR group (2.5 ± 0.3 kg) tending to be greater than that in the LBR group (1.8 ± 0.3 kg) (P = 0.06), with a large effect size (Cohen d = 0.795).
Conclusions
For RT-induced muscle hypertrophy in healthy young men, consuming a protein-enriched meal at breakfast and less protein at dinner while achieving an adequate overall PI is more effective than consuming more protein at dinner.