1.5g vs 2g protein per lbs bodyweight.

[Sully1234]

I always get told I'm wrong on this but when I was hammering 50g PeptoPro plus more whey peri workout my recovery was unbelievable.

So I've always thought PeptoPro/Hydrowhey/EAA on a gram per gram basis is better for muscle building than chicken, beef, eggs etc.

 

[Josefein421]

You guys can over complicate anything. Lol

Protein builds muscle.
More protein = more muscle.
Would rather have and not need than need and not have.

 

[Sully1234]

You guys can over complicate anything. Lol

Protein builds muscle.
More protein = more muscle.
Would rather have and not need than need and not have.

To be fair, you just went to the other end of the extreme and over simplified.

I do agree with you FOR ME, the more I pushed protein up the better and my logs books showed it.

 

[Josefein421]

To be fair, you just went to the other end of the extreme and over simplified.

I do agree with you FOR ME, the more I pushed protein up the better and my logs books showed it.

It was intentionally a gross oversimplification but I feel the point remains.

 

[qbkilla]

You guys can over complicate anything. Lol

Protein builds muscle.
More protein = more muscle.
Would rather have and not need than need and not have.

This is what I've always believed i began reading forums in 2000s lol. But im starting to shift my views some. If I were to construct a counter point I'd argue that when protein gets so high that it causes digestive distress, constipation, etc...then it could be suboptimal. A bodybuilder eating 400g with horrible digestion may grow better at say 270g (same total calories) with on point digestion. Just speculation on my part. Seems like gut health and the microbiome is becoming more talked about and way more important than we thought 10-20 years ago.

 

[Josefein421]

This is what I've always believed i began reading forums in 2000s lol. But im starting to shift my views some. If I were to construct a counter point I'd argue that when protein gets so high that it causes digestive distress, constipation, etc...then it could be suboptimal. A bodybuilder eating 400g with horrible digestion may grow better at say 270g (same total calories) with on point digestion. Just speculation on my part. Seems like gut health and the microbiome is becoming more talked about and way more important than we thought 10-20 years ago.

That is because we are old lol. I found IM and PM in 2004 from Al Asad Iraq lol. I read everything Dante wrote back then and I guess since it was my formative years of my lifting experience/education it has what has always stuck.

And good point about the digestion. We arent talking the healthiest or smoothest process for anything when talking extreme size in bodybuilding.

 

[Flex500]

I think we’re talking past each other a bit when we use the terms high vs low protein. I was recently talking with a well known coach who calls himself a lower protein guy. For me he’d usually recommend around 275 to 300 grams, maybe up to 315. I weigh about 220. By my definition that’s still very high protein.

I think the confusion is that some people use high protein to mean the extreme 400 to 500 plus crowd, while others consider it high once you’re consistently over about a gram or 1.25+ per pound of bodyweight.

So when someone says lower protein, I think they often just mean lower than the modern bodybuilding extremes, not actually low...and often still quite high.

Curious how you all define "high" vs "low" protein.

 

[Mufasa123]

You guys can over complicate anything. Lol

Protein builds muscle.
More protein = more muscle.
Would rather have and not need than need and not have.

This is why I set a daily minimum protein at 1g per lbs. I'm usually over it but I like to ensure I get at least that.

Point was made earlier by qbkiller I think that a lot of us are older or in maintenence and even bringing or have brought bodyweight down. That is definitely a factor in my mind and given that includes a lot of muscle memory I wonder how much at least my ease of doing things now is driven by decades of lifting, hard work, and carrying more muscle than present for many years. Interesting to ponder.

 

[Sully1234]

I think we’re talking past each other a bit when we use the terms high vs low protein. I was recently talking with a well known coach who calls himself a lower protein guy. For me he’d usually recommend around 275 to 300 grams, maybe up to 315. I weigh about 220. By my definition that’s still very high protein.

I think the confusion is that some people use high protein to mean the extreme 400 to 500 plus crowd, while others consider it high once you’re consistently over about a gram or 1.25+ per pound of bodyweight.

So when someone says lower protein, I think they often just mean lower than the modern bodybuilding extremes, not actually low...and often still quite high.

Curious how you all define "high" vs "low" protein.

Personally I think of "high" as above 1.5g per lb body weight. I'm sure others have different definitions.

 

[d4ve]

You guys can over complicate anything. Lol

Protein builds muscle.
More protein = more muscle.
Would rather have and not need than need and not have.

After doing this for a couple decades all told, I don’t think I agree. It’s just not the case, and I think a more objective look at true limiting factors vs. assuming more is better - in many regards - will serve a lot of young bodybuilders well, allowing for greater longevity and less strife.

Bottlenecks to muscle growth are generally energy (glycogen / carbs), recovery, and all the things that affect those two- sleep, the state of the nervous system, central and peripheral fatigue, etc.

There is still a small part of me that wonders whether just supplying a crazy amino surplus leads to greater growth, but I doubt it, and I certainly couldn’t explain a viable mechanism for that being the case. Or at least the body mass conversions don’t scale as you get heavier.

I think we already have some good case studies along the younger crowd- the 20-somethings who are really getting after it but also combining that old school work ethic with some modern refinements. People are posting their diets and full days of eating all over the place, and there are plenty of guys getting huge and strong on modest protein intakes with tons of carbs.

So, maybe up and comers don’t need to bear the digestive stress and financial burden of 8-10 oz of cooked meat 4-6 times per day

 

[Josefein421]

After doing this for a couple decades all told, I don’t think I agree. It’s just not the case, and I think a more objective look at true limiting factors vs. assuming more is better - in many regards - will serve a lot of young bodybuilders well, allowing for greater longevity and less strife.

Bottlenecks to muscle growth are generally energy (glycogen / carbs), recovery, and all the things that affect those two- sleep, the state of the nervous system, central and peripheral fatigue, etc.

There is still a small part of me that wonders whether just supplying a crazy amino surplus leads to greater growth, but I doubt it, and I certainly couldn’t explain a viable mechanism for that being the case. Or at least the body mass conversions don’t scale as you get heavier.

I think we already have some good case studies along the younger crowd- the 20-somethings who are really getting after it but also combining that old school work ethic with some modern refinements. People are posting their diets and full days of eating all over the place, and there are plenty of guys getting huge and strong on modest protein intakes with tons of carbs.

So, maybe up and comers don’t need to bear the digestive stress and financial burden of 8-10 oz of cooked meat 4-6 times per day

Here's the thing though Dave... you said it in the first sentence... you ate high protein for decades. Combine that with your heavy compound progressive overload/powerlifting and here you are a SHW. I have seen Dante say, and im paraphrasing, "People forget what got them where they are.". Would you be the size you are if you ate 1g/pound? I dont know. I do know I dont recall any SHW mass monsters talking about how they got to that size eating "low" protein just like I dont hear them talk about fluffy training. The biggest and best have always eaten the most and trained the hardest (generally speaking, yes there are the Phil Heath's of the world). When in comparison the large majority of people I see advocating low protein be in athlete, coach, IG, at the gym... at 190-210 physique or classic guys.

So yeah I guess my opinion is that it takes a whole lot more of everything to get somewhere than it does to stay there be it drugs, calories or weights.

 

[luki7788]

Here's the thing though Dave... you said it in the first sentence... you ate high protein for decades. Combine that with your heavy compound progressive overload/powerlifting and here you are a SHW. I have seen Dante say, and im paraphrasing, "People forget what got them where they are.". Would you be the size you are if you ate 1g/pound? I dont know. I do know I dont recall any SHW mass monsters talking about how they got to that size eating "low" protein just like I dont hear them talk about fluffy training. The biggest and best have always eaten the most and trained the hardest (generally speaking, yes there are the Phil Heath's of the world). When in comparison the large majority of people I see advocating low protein be in athlete, coach, IG, at the gym... at 190-210 physique or classic guys.

So yeah I guess my opinion is that it takes a whole lot more of everything to get somewhere than it does to stay there be it drugs, calories or weights.

Honestly, sometimes I really wonder if people even follow bodybuilders at all, or if they just repeat things because everyone else around them says the same stuff.

This whole talk about Phil Heath or Dexter Jackson, that they didn’t train hard or that their training was “light”, is complete nonsense. Just turn on old training videos of Dexter or Phil and actually watch how they trained. If someone thinks that incline pressing 365 lbs on a Smith machine, or using 150 lb dumbbells for reps like Dexter and Phil did, or doing incline Hammer Strength with five plates per side is “light training”, then sorry, but we clearly have a very different definition of what light training is.

The same goes for food. Just watch Phil’s old videos, training or diet videos, where he talks about eating seven meals a day, with half a pound of white fish in every single meal. Those are massive amounts of food.

So no, they didn’t train light, and they didn’t eat light. Not even close. These are just myths made up by people who clearly didn’t bother to actually look at how those guys really trained and lived.

 

[ChickenRiceRepeat]

Not force feeding oneself is always going to be more comfortable no doubt about it.
If we are talking about growing muscle as optimally fast as possible , i am not sure that comfort plays a really big factor.
At my highest calorie intake i really wasn't growing much at all as i had stalled out. Then i cut back over 1000 calories a day and started to gain again. I cut the calories from carbs and fats. And kept protein the same at 1.5gr/lb. I was still natural then.
I am sure i was just stressing my digestive system out to much where things were just passing through.
Once i started anabolics i upped things to about 1.75 with no real digestive issues. I tend to think anabolics allow for higher protein utilization/anabolism.

I think comfort does play a big factor, but not in an obvious sense.

If you’re pushing food in a way that is very uncomfortable every day, that is likely biofeedback that to me would indicate an ongoing loss of insulin sensitivity; which I think is one of if not the biggest secondary dietary factor for growth (behind caloric intake).

I mean yeah my high carb days are uncomfortable, but my rest days are slight deficits in a growth phase and this keeps me so much more comfortable yes but that also correlates to staying much leaner and growing even more.

Take this for example. One off season I pushed 6k calories every training day and 5500 on rest days, meaning my surplus was basically the same every day.

When I pulled back to 4500 calories and even lower on rest days, my progress in the gym got better, (which surprised me), I also got leaner, and was more comfortable.

I was able to push much harder in the gym and enjoy my workouts more, and on top of that, I think I was utilizing my food better and getting more out of it due to the insulin sensitivity.

So yeah, being comfortable itself is irrelevant but in my opinion it strongly correlates with ability to train maximally, process food ideally, and maintain insulin sensitivity so as to be in an optimal state for growth

 

[d4ve]

Here's the thing though Dave... you said it in the first sentence... you ate high protein for decades. Combine that with your heavy compound progressive overload/powerlifting and here you are a SHW. I have seen Dante say, and im paraphrasing, "People forget what got them where they are.". Would you be the size you are if you ate 1g/pound? I dont know. I do know I dont recall any SHW mass monsters talking about how they got to that size eating "low" protein just like I dont hear them talk about fluffy training. The biggest and best have always eaten the most and trained the hardest (generally speaking, yes there are the Phil Heath's of the world). When in comparison the large majority of people I see advocating low protein be in athlete, coach, IG, at the gym... at 190-210 physique or classic guys.

So yeah I guess my opinion is that it takes a whole lot more of everything to get somewhere than it does to stay there be it drugs, calories or weights.

Right, I did eat more protein and focus on progressive overload - and by no means am I saying the latter (progressive overload) isn't the primary driver of most size gains, in terms of training.

But on the protein topic, I am actually claiming that I could have made the same gains eating less. Obviously I can't prove that, but this is why I pointed to the large cohort of very large bodybuilders who are making a ton of progress that way. I mentioned that you can find them all over social media, but even some of the coaches I know personally from Destination are doing the same with their clients, who are making insane progress. I'm talking ~1g / lb. bodyweight total daily protein.

"Fluffy" training is kind of a tangent. I don't see anyone making great progress without training their ass off and training "heavy" relative to their rep range and the strictness of their technique. And I think I fully agree with Dante here, i.e. you're not going to see someone make big leaps in muscularity without making big jumps in strength.

 

[Josefein421]

Honestly, sometimes I really wonder if people even follow bodybuilders at all, or if they just repeat things because everyone else around them says the same stuff.

This whole talk about Phil Heath or Dexter Jackson, that they didn’t train hard or that their training was “light”, is complete nonsense. Just turn on old training videos of Dexter or Phil and actually watch how they trained. If someone thinks that incline pressing 365 lbs on a Smith machine, or using 150 lb dumbbells for reps like Dexter and Phil did, or doing incline Hammer Strength with five plates per side is “light training”, then sorry, but we clearly have a very different definition of what light training is.

The same goes for food. Just watch Phil’s old videos, training or diet videos, where he talks about eating seven meals a day, with half a pound of white fish in every single meal. Those are massive amounts of food.

So no, they didn’t train light, and they didn’t eat light. Not even close. These are just myths made up by people who clearly didn’t bother to actually look at how those guys really trained and lived.

I said that because I have never seen footage of Flex, Dexter, Phil, etc train anywhere like Dusty, Dr Scott, JP, Justin Harris, Ronnie, Dorian, Branch… perhaps I’m dating myself as all those guys are retired now but that was they era I grew up watching and what I default to as the standard.

I think it’s pretty obvious Phil, Dexter, Flex, Kevin, Dillet, etc were genetic freaks even amongst freaks and none are know for their brutal training. Dillet was enormous and said to be as lazy as can be.

 

[Josefein421]

I think comfort does play a big factor, but not in an obvious sense.

If you’re pushing food in a way that is very uncomfortable every day, that is likely biofeedback that to me would indicate an ongoing loss of insulin sensitivity; which I think is one of if not the biggest secondary dietary factor for growth (behind caloric intake).

I mean yeah my high carb days are uncomfortable, but my rest days are slight deficits in a growth phase and this keeps me so much more comfortable yes but that also correlates to staying much leaner and growing even more.

Take this for example. One off season I pushed 6k calories every training day and 5500 on rest days, meaning my surplus was basically the same every day.

When I pulled back to 4500 calories and even lower on rest days, my progress in the gym got better, (which surprised me), I also got leaner, and was more comfortable.

I was able to push much harder in the gym and enjoy my workouts more, and on top of that, I think I was utilizing my food better and getting more out of it due to the insulin sensitivity.

So yeah, being comfortable itself is irrelevant but in my opinion it strongly correlates with ability to train maximally, process food ideally, and maintain insulin sensitivity so as to be in an optimal state for growth

Not surprised you got leaner you reduced food a ton!

But agree with you otherwise though. Force feeding constantly is like Hunter Labrada and his whey/rice krispy diet… sign of a big problem. But being full, bloated, uncomfortable… lethargic from high androgens or gh… is just part of forcing extreme growth. And I say that as someone who has had trouble tolerating those feelings and thus short changed my progress a lot for a very long time.

I guess I’m asking the question… are guys growing bc of low protein or in spite of it? Would Dave, Dusty, etc be the size they are with 1g/lb their whole career? I guess we will definitively never know. But in the end whatever works for someone is all that matters. No one knows or cares how many grams of protein you eat onstage right?

 

[madg]

For me .. dexter is the GOAT

 

[DOGGCRAPP]

Honestly, sometimes I really wonder if people even follow bodybuilders at all, or if they just repeat things because everyone else around them says the same stuff.

This whole talk about Phil Heath or Dexter Jackson, that they didn’t train hard or that their training was “light”, is complete nonsense. Just turn on old training videos of Dexter or Phil and actually watch how they trained. If someone thinks that incline pressing 365 lbs on a Smith machine, or using 150 lb dumbbells for reps like Dexter and Phil did, or doing incline Hammer Strength with five plates per side is “light training”, then sorry, but we clearly have a very different definition of what light training is.

The same goes for food. Just watch Phil’s old videos, training or diet videos, where he talks about eating seven meals a day, with half a pound of white fish in every single meal. Those are massive amounts of food.

So no, they didn’t train light, and they didn’t eat light. Not even close. These are just myths made up by people who clearly didn’t bother to actually look at how those guys really trained and lived.

I absolutely 1000% disagree with you on this. I had a friend that personally lifted in the same gym as Phil Heath for years....He could not believe the beyond pathetic training that resulted in a 1 in a million physique. Same thing with Dexter. People down florida way saw him train for years and and it wasnt even close to an expenditure or output that a non genetically gifted bodybuilder has to train at to make the most miniscule of gains. I take what someone does on film as a grain of salt. Nobody is going to train like a flat out "pussy" when its being filmed and are going to make a great effort during that. But the rest of the time? Josefein421 is spot on concerning those two guys. That reputation of those two guys lollygagging it training wise does not come out of thin air...it was viewed by a slew of people over the years.

 

[luki7788]

I absolutely 1000% disagree with you on this. I had a friend that personally lifted in the same gym as Phil Heath for years....He could not believe the beyond pathetic training that resulted in a 1 in a million physique. Same thing with Dexter. People down florida way saw him train for years and and it wasnt even close to an expenditure or output that a non genetically gifted bodybuilder has to train at to make the most miniscule of gains. I take what someone does on film as a grain of salt. Nobody is going to train like a flat out "pussy" when its being filmed and are going to make a great effort during that. But the rest of the time? Josefein421 is spot on concerning those two guys. That reputation of those two guys lollygagging it training wise does not come out of thin air...it was viewed by a slew of people over the years.

As I wrote, I'm talking about what I can see on YouTube. I never claim to know the truth from real world. I can only judge based on what I can see, but I don't think that what they do in these videos is "lazy and weak training."

 

[Flocci]

I absolutely 1000% disagree with you on this. I had a friend that personally lifted in the same gym as Phil Heath for years....He could not believe the beyond pathetic training that resulted in a 1 in a million physique. Same thing with Dexter. People down florida way saw him train for years and and it wasnt even close to an expenditure or output that a non genetically gifted bodybuilder has to train at to make the most miniscule of gains. I take what someone does on film as a grain of salt. Nobody is going to train like a flat out "pussy" when its being filmed and are going to make a great effort during that. But the rest of the time? Josefein421 is spot on concerning those two guys. That reputation of those two guys lollygagging it training wise does not come out of thin air...it was viewed by a slew of people over the years.

Reminds me of @Skip hill commenting on Phil's training as well. He's mentioned on the podcast, blood sweat and gear, that when he was filming for his longevity DVD and phil was in the gym and noticed the camera, phil would turn up the intensity and make noise like he was busting his ass all of a sudden. So theres several counts of people seeing the same thing.