3x a week I do intense cardio workouts for about and hour/hour and a half. I know after the body depleted its fat and oxygen it attacks protien in the muscle cells. Will drinking a protien shake before my workout help preserve muscle mass?
Taking some BCAAs before cardio may help. Why are you doing an hour and a half of intense cardio? How intense can it be if your doing it that long?
Practing MMA
a protein shake 30mins to an hr before will help preserve some muscle.
I’d personally do some bcaa before and during your training with a shake afterwards.
Gerdy
[quote]Dirty Gerdy wrote:
a protein shake 30mins to an hr before will help preserve some muscle.
I’d personally do some bcaa before and during your training with a shake afterwards.
Gerdy[/quote]
K thanks bro
I noticed a definite improvement in recovery when I starting having whey before and after. I generally have some whey and oats about 30min to an hour before I run and then have another shake directly after I’ve finished.
My runs are typically 45-90mins.
I have never gotten a satisfactory answer to why eating protein before cardio/endurance work to avoid using it for energy is a good idea.
I know it’s what everybody says, but it makes no sense to me at all. Why would I stick my metabolism’s nose right into the very thing I do not want it to use for energy? Muscle tissue is made up of protein. If I do not want it to use that for fuel why would I ever try to train it to do just that?
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
I have never gotten a satisfactory answer to why eating protein before cardio/endurance work to avoid using it for energy is a good idea.
I know it’s what everybody says, but it makes no sense to me at all. Why would I stick my metabolism’s nose right into the very thing I do not want it to use for energy? Muscle tissue is made up of protein. If I do not want it to use that for fuel why would I ever try to train it to do just that?[/quote]
I agree. Eat whatever you want to use as an energy source and then eat after you are done.
BCAAs during weight training makes sense to me but not during cardio.
Anyone have a better answer?
yah everyone says take bcaa’s are like muscle “insurance”, now i agree with that for lifting heavy while cutting, but im skeptical of how it would help during cardio id just be sipping gatorade!
Thanks for the responses guys. This is a tricky question I guess.
unless your starving yourself, your body is not depleting fat and glycogen stores during a 1.5 half hour of cardio. Specially MMA cardio.
The protein shake will do more to hurt your cardio gains than anything thats IF it even does that.
Either way if your lifting weights, extra protein never hurts so if you want to use that as your excuse to take protein go ahead.