Nutrition For Hypertrophy

In the last blog we took a dive into muscle hypertrophy. We looked at what it was, why we care and how to stimulate it! The key takeaways in terms of achieving muscle hypertrophy were that we need to train to provide a stimulus of either mechanical tension, metabolic stress and muscle damage (or a combination of the 3) and that we need to fuel both this training and to provide the building blocks for muscle protein synthesis and maximising gains!

Here we’re going to be tackling the nutrition side of things and how to best fuel for muscle hypertrophy. We’re going to be following the classic pyramid of nutritional importance, so starting with energy balance then working up all the way to supplements. Stop with the bicep curls, grab yourselves a whey shake and let’s do it.

The Fundamentals Of Nutrition For Hypertrophy

So kicking things off with energy balance, it’s nice and simple here! Muscle building is an energetic process, so that means we have to be in a caloric surplus. We want to be consuming more energy than we expend to help build muscle. In terms of numbers, these recommendations can be as little as 10-15%,.

In fact, to maximise the percentage of muscle gain compared to fat gain, you probably don’t want to be going too far over this (except in certain scenarios).

To put this into context, by measuring my resting metabolic rate using gas analysis, I have an estimated total daily energy expenditure of around 3000 kcals. I’m currently looking to put on muscle mass and thus I'm aiming to hit a window of 3300-3500kcals/day. There are some situations where a surplus of more than 10-15% could be useful.

One of those is the classic scenario of beginner gains! Turns out our bodies responses to resistance training are significantly larger if we have never trained before, and so beginners are able to pack on lean mass quite effectively without necessarily ballooning.

This doesn’t mean that beginners can eat whatever they want and put on muscle mass but it does mean the surplus can be a little bigger.

Below is a pyramid highlighting the importance when trying to change body composition and improve performance. As you can see, energy balance is at the base. This is why it is key to get this boxed off first.

Macronutrients For Hypertrophy

Time to look at the macro picture with protein carbs and fats. We’ll get everyone's favourite protein dealt with first as there’s a little more to dive into here. Protein provides the building blocks for muscle protein synthesis to occur and thus is widely regarded as the most important macronutrient when it comes to hypertrophy.

You’ll find a number of recommendations for protein intake online but the one I use the most is from the International society of sports nutrition’s position stand on the matter.

They recommend consuming between 1.4 and 2g of protein per kg bodyweight per day for positive muscle protein balance. They also suggest that there's emerging evidence saying more (3g/kg/day) could be useful but for the most part 2g/kg is likely the peak of the effectiveness graph!

We’ll quickly tackle protein quality and then later we’ll touch on the timing of it as we work up that pyramid.

When talking about protein quality, most of the time we are referring to its amino acid profile. With a high quality protein source containing most/all of the essential amino acids (the amino acids we cannot produce in our body and must obtain from food). For the most part, dairy and animal protein sources contain a higher percentage of these amino acids compared to plant sources.

So if looking to build muscle on a plant based guidance, a little more thought and planning is needed, Coach Tom is incredible at this...check out his article on plant based training here and aerobic bodybuilding here.

One amino acid in particular get’s a lot of attention when talking about muscle growth, it is of course Leucine. Leucine is an essential amino acid and is one of the branch chained amino acids.

Many studies have shown that leucine drives muscle protein synthesis so it’s definitely one you want to ensure you’re getting. There is thought to be a threshold, an amount of leucine in a serving that you should pass to achieve muscle protein synthesis. This amount is thought to be around 1-3g of leucine per serving which you should hit with any average sized portion of a complete protein source. Those on a plant based diet may benefit from supplementation of leucine by adding it to shakes.

Carbs and fats

Enough about protein (for now), let’s look at carbs and fats. Most recommendations for these around hypertrophy stem from fuelling the training that is being carried out. Because of this, the recommendations tend to skew more towards carbohydrates providing most of the energy! This does not mean that you should be going low fat.

To put some numbers on things, around 4-7g of carbohydrate/kg bodyweight has been proposed then around 1g of fat per kg bodyweight too. As with everything, this must be put into the context of your diet and they are not hard and fast numbers!

Let’s use myself as an example. As we said earlier, I'm currently aiming for 3300kcals/day. This is a relatively large amount for someone my size (75kgs) and so I adjust these targets a little to make for a more balanced diet that I can adhere to. I actually take my protein intake over 2g/kg/day as there is no real harm in doing this and because of the sheer kcals I need to consume it makes for a more balanced diet. So I aim for around 180g of protein/day.

Personally, I would struggle to consume 7g of carbs per kg as this would be over 500g of carbs per day, so Instead I aim for around 400-450g of carbs per day. Then I make up the rest of my intake with fats, this comes out to be around 90-100g of fats per day which is again over that 1g mark but is much more achievable. Adherence is 9/10ths of the battle!

Micronutrients

Ok but what about micronutrients?! Well, there are a few micronutrients that have been shown to positively affect muscle hypertrophy but for the most part it’s just about ensuring you’re consuming a nutrient dense diet.

The reason food quality is second on the hierarchy is simply down to the fact the better quality food you eat, the easier it is to stay on track and the better your performance and recovery is. Remember human nutrition before sports nutrition.

A very easy way to do this is to focus on the colours of the fruit and veg you’re consuming. The different colours correspond to different micronutrients so consuming a range of colours across the day ensures a complete micronutrient profile.

One specific micronutrient to consider is that of omega 3 fatty acids as increased consumption of these has been shown to increase muscle hypertrophy. If you don’t regularly consume oily fish then supplementation with omega 3s could be useful!

Around 1-3g of omega 3s per day is recommended. This translates to around 2-4 fish oil capsules depending on the strength of them. Our recommended fish oil you can buy here.

Other micronutrients that have been associated with hypertrophy include vitamin D, but recent evidence suggests it doesn’t have as large an effect as thought. It is more down to whether you are deficient or not. If you are - it could help.

While we’re on micronutrients it’s worth touching on antioxidants. For the most part we are told to consume plenty of antioxidants to aid recovery and reduce oxidative stress. This is true!

However, there is some evidence to suggest that high doses of antioxidants around training can blunt the adaptations we want to obtain. This makes some sense when you think about the idea of metabolic stress, something we want to put our muscles under to stimulate hypertrophy. Antioxidants may reduce this stress and thus reduce the adaptation.

With regards to practical recommendations here, still get plenty of colourful fruit and veg in throughout the day, just don’t hammer a load of vit C and other antioxidants straight after training.

Nutrient timing

Moving further still up the pyramid we get to the nutrient timing portion. We’re going to touch upon a couple of things here. The first is the idea of spacing protein intake across the day to promote more muscle protein synthesis.

This is one that works! When thinking about protein intake across the day, the goldilocks method is the one to go for. So not all in one go in one meal, but also not split across 6 or 7 meals 3-5 solid portions of protein across the day is what is recommended. The size of these portions should be around 0.4g of protein per kg bodyweight.

So for me, at 75kgs, around 30g of protein per portion. The idea is that muscle protein breakdown and stimulus is occurring throughout the day, these regular protein feeds cause peaks in protein synthesis that ensure the total daily balance is positive!

Remember that you need to be training correctly for hypertrophy as this can stimulate protein synthesis also!

The next thing to tackle with nutrient timing is the anabolic window! Well known to bro’s around the country, there is a belief that after training you must consume protein as soon as possible otherwise you lose all your gains. Thankfully, this is not the case, however it does stem from some truth. There is a period after training where your body is ultimately most “greedy” for nutrients and protein.

However the window itself is more like 3 hours as opposed to the 15 minutes that has been cited before. For untrained individuals, this window is again a little larger! So you can get away with being a little less on it.

Supplements

Finally we have reached the peak and we are on supplements. Firstly, protein shakes. These can be very useful in simply hitting your protein intake and spacing it throughout the day, they tend to be created to be of high quality and have plenty of leucine in! Some may not so make sure to check.

The next one, and possibly my favourite supplement on the list is Creatine. It has regularly been shown to improve muscle mass and strength adaptations in training along with a whole host of other benefits. The key with creatine is to be consistent with it!

Taking 3-5g/day consistently will be enough to see the benefits. You can load with 4 servings of 5g across the day for 5-7 days to increase levels quicker but it isn’t necessary.

Other supplements that may be of use are HMB which has been shown to reduce muscle protein breakdown but the body of evidence is significantly smaller than that of creatine! Another is beta alanine, this may indirectly improve muscle hypertrophy simply by making your training sessions more effective as it can reduce time to fatigue and allow for more intensity and volume.

Final thoughts

Remember that you have to be training correctly to elicit the right stimulus for growth. No one got jacked walking on a treadmill.

Do the fundamentals first. Get your calories and protein sorted before worrying about nutrient timing.

As you become more advanced with your training you need to work your way up the pyramid.