One of the biggest things I regret about my younger bodybuilder days is when I used to take upwards of 150 grams of glucose after every workout.
Not just carbs..150 grams of straight dextrose.
At the time, I thought that more insulin meant more muscle.
Turns out…this was a mistake.
Insulin may be an important factor for muscle growth in young rodents and possibly in human children, but studies have shown convincingly that insulin is not required for protein synthesis in adult human beings.
In fact, according to a research paper published in the American Journal of Physiology, you need to get your insulin levels up to about 10,000 times normal levels to get an anabolic response.
10,000 times higher – There is not a post-workout shake in existence that can do this!
To make matters worse, having chronic high levels of insulin has been linked to the development of colorectal and pancreatic cancers.
The bottom line is, you don’t need high insulin to build muscle, and purposefully jacking up your insulin seems to have more negative health implications that it does positive.
So you can forget about forcing yourself to drink those crazy high carbohydrate post workout meals – It’s your workouts (not your post workout carbs) that dictate the size of your muscles.
BP
About Allen Elliott