Old-School Mass Builders

Old-School Mass Builders

Milk does muscle good

In the old days strongmen and bodybuilders would put on slabs of muscle by eating a lot of red meat and eggs and drinking plenty of milk. Despite the amazing advances in protein supplements, such as creatine and beta-alanine, it turns out that some old-school nutrition strategies may indeed do the job.

Researchers have examined the response of muscle protein to resistance exercise and nutrient intake but not to the intake of food protein. A recent study was designed to bridge that gap in terms of nutrients taken in as components of milk.

Scientists had three groups of volunteers drink one of three milk drinks: 237 grams of fat-free milk, 237 grams of whole milk or 393 grams of fat-free milk isocaloric with the whole milk. They drank the milk one hour after a leg workout.


Findings? Drinking milk following resistance exercise results in phenylalanine and threonine uptake, which indicates net muscle protein synthesis. In English that means, milk is anabolic! The study showed that perhaps whole milk is better than skim milk at increasing the uptake of available amino acids for protein synthesis.

What happens when you compare milk protein with the vegans’ favorite, soy? Scientists studied the effect of drinking isonitrogenous, isoenergetic and macronutrient-matched soy and milk beverages on protein kinetics and net muscle protein balance after resistance exercise in healthy young men. They hypothesized that the soy drink would result in larger but transient hyperaminoacidemia than milk (because soy is a faster protein).

Also, they believed that milk would have a better anabolic effect because of lower but prolonged hyperaminoacidemia (typically seen in slow proteins). Instead, they found that both the soy and milk caused a positive net protein balance—that is, both are anabolic.

If you’re a soy lover, you can wipe the sweat from your brow. When the researchers did what statisticians call an “analysis of area under the net balance curves,” however, there was a greater overall net balance after milk intake—meaning milk was more anabolic.

The scientists concluded that “milk-based proteins promote muscle protein accretion to a greater extent than do soy-based proteins when consumed after resistance exercise. The consumption of either milk or soy protein with resistance training promotes muscle mass maintenance and gains, but chronic consumption of milk proteins after resistance exercise likely supports a more rapid lean mass accrual.”

Here’s your take-home message: 1) Milk is anabolic whether it’s skim or whole; 2) whole milk is better than skim milk; 3) soy is anabolic; 4) milk is more anabolic than soy. Therefore, the winner is…whole milk.