Ep. #296: The 3 Best (and Worst) Protein Powders for Muscle Growth

This episode is brought to you by me. Seriously though, I’m not big on promoting stuff that I don’t personally use and believe in, so instead I’m going to just quickly tell you about something of mine. Specifically, my one on one So the long story short here is this is the personal coaching service that I wish I had when I started in the gym many years ago.

Every diet and training program that we create for clients is 100 percent custom. We provide daily workout logs and do weekly accountability calls. Our clients get priority email service and discounts on supplements and the list goes on and on. Furthermore, my team and I have also worked with hundreds of people of all ages, circumstances, and needs and goals.

So no matter how tricky you might think your situation is, I promise you, we can figure out how to get you results. If I have piqued your interest and you want to learn more, then head on over to www. muscleforlife. com forward slash coaching and schedule your free consultation call. Now, I’ll tell you, there’s usually a wait list and new slots fill up very quickly.

So if you’re interested at all, don’t wait, go schedule your call. All righty. That is enough. Shameless plugging for now, at least. Let’s get to the show. Hey, Mike Matthews here from us for life and Legion athletics. And in this video podcast, we are going to talk. Protein powders and muscle growth.

Specifically, we’re going to go over the three best and worst protein powders for building muscle. So let’s start with a quick primer on protein powders and muscle building. Why are protein powders so popular among muscle building people, among weightlifters, powerlifters, bodybuilders, and so forth, and the reason why is mostly convenience.

If you want to maximize muscle growth, then you need to eat quite a bit of protein every day, somewhere around one gram per pound of body weight per day. You can go a little bit below that and be fine. And if you’ll really like protein, you can go above that and be fine. But one gram per pound of body weight per day is generally a sweet spot for most people.

Now you can do that with whole foods alone. If you don’t mind eating three to five 40 ish grams servings of whole food protein every day. However, many people like to replace some of that with powder because it is very easy and especially before and after workouts. It’s very easy to just mix some powder in some water, drink it down, go to the gym and then mix some powder in some water, drink it down after the gym than it is to make food and eat it.

That’s what I do personally. And I also like to have a shake in the middle of the afternoon. So I like to eat about five to six meals per day. I know you don’t have to, but I like to. And from a muscle building perspective, eating three, four, five servings of protein per day, separated by a few hours is a bit better than just one or two servings separated by many more hours.

So there’s that as well, But I mostly eat that way because I enjoy it. So I eat lunch around 12 o’clock. It’s usually a salad with chicken and I’m eating dinner usually around 630 or seven, which is usually some chicken some sort of lean protein and vegetables. And I like to have some protein in between there around three, three 30.

And it’s very easy just to have a scoop of protein powder and get back to work. Now what types of protein powders? Am I using and what types of protein powders are best for muscle building purposes? They have to meet a few criteria. They have to taste good. They have to be relatively inexpensive.

They have to be very rich in essential amino acids and they have to be well digested and well absorbed. And number one on the list is whey protein. The one that everybody talks about, and rightly because it checks all of those boxes. It tastes pretty good. It is relatively inexpensive. It is very rich in essential amino acids and in leucine in particular, which is the amino acid, which directly stimulates muscle building.

And it is well digested and well absorbed. Digested for most people, unless you are lactose intolerant, in which case you can go with a weight isolate, which has the lactose removed. And hopefully Okay. Some people simply just do not do well. Their stomachs do not do well with milk proteins period.

And so that’s a little bit different than what than a lactose intolerance. They think they are lactose intolerant when really they are milk protein intolerant. But if it’s truly a lactose issue, then you can move from a weight concentrate. which is the more common inexpensive form of whey used to a whey isolate, which is a bit more expensive, but also a higher protein by weight.

So the macros are a bit better and the lactose is removed. Now whey is also cool because it contains special forms of proteins that have been shown to reduce blood pressure and reduce cholesterol levels. And also due to the fact that it moves slower through your digestive tract than other forms of protein, it can result in less Appetite.

So it can be more filling, more satiating, other forms of protein, which is particularly nice when you are cutting. Now, in terms of specific whey protein supplements, I use and recommend my own, which is a 100 percent whey isolate that is naturally sweetened, naturally flavored, doesn’t contain any artificial junk fillers, GMOs, MSG, or any of the other chemical stuff that is in many other protein supplements out there.

And it’s also special because it’s made from milk that comes from small dairy farms in Ireland, which are known for their high quality dairy research shows that Ireland produces some of the best dairy in the world. And this is something you can immediately taste and feel in your mouth when you drink it for the first time, especially if you are used to lower quality whey supplements.

Mine tastes so much better. And has such a creamier, nicer mouthfeel while still having basically no fat than most everything else on the market. And if you want to learn more about it, go check it out at legionathletics. com forward slash weight.

Hey, quickly, before we carry on, if you are liking my podcast, would you please help spread the word about it? Because no amount of marketing or advertising gimmicks can match the power of word of mouth. If you are enjoying this episode and you think of someone else who might enjoy it as well, please do tell them about it.

It really helps me. And if you are going to post about it on social media, definitely tag me so I can say, Thank you. You can find me on Instagram at muscle for life fitness, Twitter at muscle for life and Facebook at muscle for life fitness. Okay, so the second best protein powder for building muscle is casein.

Like whey, casein also comes from milk. It is a protein in milk that gives it its gel forming properties. And if you want to test this out, put a scoop of casein in a bowl and just start stirring it with some water until you have protein pudding. Now because of that, casein is digested slower than whey.

Whey is a very rapidly digested protein which quickly spikes amino acid levels in your blood, whereas casein is digested more slowly. So it’s more of a sustained release over time, which is one of the reasons why I particularly like casein protein for eating before you go to bed. To bed, which can help you build muscle faster.

And if you want to learn more about that, click the link to the article down in the description below. And if you are listening, then head over to musclefullife. com and search for protein before bed and check out the article I wrote on it. Now, I’m ranking way above casein for muscle building purposes, but there’s probably not that much of a difference.

Some studies suggest that there’s really no difference that from a muscle building perspective, they are very comparable while other studies show that way probably is slightly better. If we look at the evidence on the whole and we say, okay, Sometimes casein ties whey and other times whey wins, but really casein never wins.

I think it’s fair to give whey the slight edge, but you can make protein pudding very easily with casein. So it does have that. I also like casein more for having before you go to bed because again, studies show that this can increase muscle growth over time and that you want a slower digesting protein in this case, because you’re going to go six to eight hours.

without food. And what you really want is you want to have amino acids in your bloodstream for as many of those hours as possible. And casein is better for that than whey. Okay. So number three on my list of the best protein powders for building muscle is a rice pea protein blend, which is often called The vegan’s whey protein, because both rice and pea protein are well digested, absorbed, rich in essential amino acids, and especially when you combine them, they produce an amino acid profile very similar to whey’s.

And that’s why studies have shown that both rice protein and pea protein are highly effective for gaining muscle, comparable to whey over the short term, and are even better when combined. Now, I’m not a vegan, but I do have one serving of rice and pea protein every day, around 3pm, 3. 30pm, I’ll have 25 30g of a rice pea blend.

And the reason why I have the rice pea there instead of whey, which I have before and after my workouts, is simply because I like it. I like how the rice pea protein tastes. I like the mouthfeel and I like how my body feels after I eat it. I get the sense that my body likes it for what it’s worth. And in terms of specific products, I use my own, I have a 100 percent naturally sweetened and naturally flavored vegan protein called Thrive.

It contains rice. protein, pea protein, quinoa protein, hemp protein, along with several vital nutrients that vegan and vegetarian diets tend to be low in. And if you want to learn more about it, just head over to legionathletics. com slash thrive. Okay. So now let’s talk about my three least favorite protein powders for muscle building.

And the first one is soy protein. You’re probably expecting that. And I hate to be another person to pile on to soy protein, but I really just don’t recommend it for most people. And the reason is, while research does show that it’s actually pretty good for muscle growth, whey protein probably beats it out over time, and especially when timing is involved.

So if we’re talking pre or post workout, especially post workout, whey is going to win. But if we look at simply the amino acid profile of soy protein and we look at the digestibility and the absorption, it’s pretty good. The problem is most soy protein powders and especially soy isolates have large amounts of estrogen like chemicals, natural estrogen mimickers.

These are chemicals that occur naturally in the plants and then make their way into the protein powders. Now, while studies show that these chemicals can be beneficial to older women, as far as guys go, if we’re having small amounts of these chemicals here and there, not a big deal. But most guys that are into weightlifting are having anywhere from one to four servings of protein per day.

And I would say just based on my experience working with a lot of people, the average guy is probably having two or three scoops of protein powder per day. If that were all soy protein, That would not be ideal. And especially because there are genetic factors in play here. Studies show that some people are affected by these chemicals more than others.

And as a guy, if you want to be lean, muscular, and manly, you don’t want to be artificially raising your estrogen levels. And that’s why I just don’t see a place for soy protein in a guy’s diet. Diet. If you want a vegan protein powder, just go for a rice pea blend and you’ll get all the muscle building benefits.

In some ways, even, it’ll be even a little bit better in that regard without any of the potential unwanted side effects. Okay, so number two on my list of the worst protein powders for building muscle is hemp protein, simply because it’s. So it’s just mediocre. It’s middling. It’s blah. It’s amino acid profile is nothing special.

It’s not rich in branch chain amino acids, which is of course what we want for muscle building. And we want leucine in particular, and it is not very rich in leucine and it favors amino acids that don’t have any interaction with exercise whatsoever. And studies show it’s also rather poorly digested and absorbed, which is of course just as important as the amino acid profile.

If a protein. Supplement has a fantastic amino acid profile, but you can’t really digest or absorb it all that well. That of course knocks it down a notch or two, whereas a protein powder with a decent amino acid profile that is very well digested and absorbed would be better for muscle building purposes.

Then, of course, there is the worry that many people have that hemp protein contains cannabinoids like THC that are going to cause them to fail drug tests, which is not true. The hemp that is used to produce protein powder is processed to remove basically all of those chemicals, but many people don’t know that.

And I know that firsthand because, as I mentioned earlier, my Vegan Protein Supplement Thrive contains hemp protein. Why? Mainly for mouthfeel. The vast majority of the protein in it is rice and pea for the reasons already discussed, but we found that adding some hemp and some quinoa makes for a better mouthfeel.

However, we have heard from so many people have written in to ask us about hemp protein and failing drug tests. And in many cases, people have chosen not to buy it because they’re so worried about it that we are just going to remove it altogether. And we’re probably gonna remove the quinoa as well and see if we can get the mouthfeel that we want with pure rice and pea.

Okay. My third least favorite protein powder for muscle building is a twofer and it is collagen and gelatin proteins, which are good. gaining popularity these days, especially collagen protein. You maybe have heard of these collagen peptide protein supplements that claim to do amazing things for your body, not just your body composition, but your hair and skin and nails and so forth.

And the reason why I really do not like these protein powders for muscle building is their amino acid profiles suck for muscle building. They are not rich in the amino acids that we want for building muscle. first and foremost being branched chain amino acids. They are rich in glycine, but that is not going to benefit our body composition whatsoever.

And the primary reason why these forms of protein are being hyped up is they are cheap. The margins are really good. Whey is quite expensive, especially high quality whey. Very expensive. And that the price of whey has gone up a lot over the last five years or so. Whereas collagen and gelatin proteins, inexpensive.

And so they’re being used to spike protein powders. So some companies will have some whey protein, maybe even a whey isolate, something high quality that people have heard of and know is high quality. And then include some collagen or gelatin protein with it. That To bump those protein numbers up without having to spend the money it would take to get to an acceptable amount of protein per serving with pure whey.

And some companies are more brazen about it. They’re selling collagen and gelatin protein powders as standalone products. And usually marketing them in a way that makes them sound special, that they’re, again, they’re going to benefit your skin, your hair, your nails. They’re going to do things for your body that other forms of protein won’t do, which is mostly fake news.

It’s just not true. There’s no good research to back any of that stuff up. Hey there, it is Mike again. I hope you enjoyed this episode and found it interesting and helpful. And if you did, and don’t mind doing me a favor and want to help me make this the most popular health and fitness podcast on the internet, then please leave a quick review of it on iTunes or wherever you’re listening from.

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Lastly, if you didn’t like something about the show, then definitely shoot me an email at mike at muscle for life. com and share your thoughts on how you think it could be better. I read everything myself and I’m always looking for constructive feedback, so please do reach out. All right, that’s it. Thanks again for listening to this episode and I hope to hear from you soon.

And lastly, this episode is brought to you by, seriously though, I’m not big on promoting stuff that I don’t personally use and believe in. So instead I’m going to just quickly tell you about something of mine, specifically my one on one coaching service. So the long story short here is this is the personal coaching service that I wish I had when I started in the gym many years ago.

Every diet and training program that we create for clients is 100 percent custom. We provide daily workout logs and do weekly accountability calls. Our clients get priority email service and discounts on supplements and the list goes on and on. Furthermore, my team and I have also worked with hundreds of people of all ages, circumstances and needs and goals.

So no matter how tricky you might think your situation is, I promise you, we can figure out how to get you results. If I have Pete, your interest and you want to learn more than head on over to www. muscleforlife. com forward slash coaching and schedule your free consultation call. Now I’ll tell you, there’s usually a wait list and new slots fill up very quickly.

So if you’re interested at all, don’t wait, go schedule your call now.