Although endurance athletes often think of protein as being for bodybuilders, the latest sports fuel research highlights the importance of getting enough protein to support intense training and peak exercise performance. Understand your optimal protein intake with our protein Q&A, that will help you separate protein fact from protein fiction.
Why do endurance athletes need protein?
Protein is the key building block for optimal athletic performance. The body is constantly renewing damaged cells and tissue, meaning a rich supply of protein every few hours is essential for all athletes. Optimising protein will help you perform with more power and get you in peak condition for your next training session or event:
- Support muscle strength and power production
- Aid immune health
- Essential fuel to re-build damaged tissue, cells and muscles after exercise
How much protein do I need?
The UK Food Standards Agency recommends that adults take in around 55 grams of protein per day. However, the latest research confirms regular training increases optimal protein demands. Importantly, all forms of intense exercise increase protein needs dramatically – whether you jog for 3 hours a week, play football or are an elite marathon runner. Most experts recommend endurance athletes consume around 1.8g of protein per kilogram of bodyweight. However, if you’re an
athlete who needs more muscle strength and perform resistance training (for example, triathletes and footballers), you may get better results with around 2g per day, per kilogram of body mass.
80kg runner
= 1.8 x 80 = 144g of protein per day
90kg
triathlete = 2 x 90 = 180g of protein per day
What happens if I don’t eat enough protein?
We all have days when we don’t eat enough protein, but keep it up for too long and your exercise performance and recovery power will be severely affected:
- Reduced muscle tissue and a loss of strength and power
- Increased muscle soreness after exercise
- Impaired immune health and frequent common infections
What are the best sources of protein?
High quality protein is essential to fuel peak exercise performance. However, not all proteins offer the same level of nourishment. The key is to ensure you select proteins that contain a rich supply of complete proteins, which contain all the essential and non-essential amino acids.
High quality proteins: eggs, meat, poultry, fish, dairy, whey.
Lower quality proteins: nuts, beans, vegetables
What are the benefits of whey protein shakes?
High quality whey protein shakes (Protrient and Recovermax) are a convenient way to boost your protein intake, and offer endurance athletes some unique performance benefits:
After training
Whey protein has a very fast digestion speed, which is research proven to support muscle repair after exercise. Protrient and Recovermax are also rich in glutamine, aiding peak wellness in athletes.
Before bed/between meals
Protein shakes can be a convenient and nutritious drink to consume concentrated protein before sleep or between meals, for sustained recovery support after training.
Whey protein fact file:
Whey is one of the two major proteins found in milk, the other being casein. It’s one of the most popular and research supported proteins with athletes wanting to aid recovery and performance levels:
- A serving of whey protein like Protrient contains around the same amount of protein as a typical chicken breast, but is also very low in fat.
- A naturally complete protein, whey is often referred to as a "fast" protein for its ability to provide rapid nourishment to athletes.
- Whey protein has a higher biological value than many foods, including fish, beef and soya. This means that more of the protein is actually used by your body.
- Whey protein contains high levels of essential amino acids and BCAAs, both of which play a important roles in exercise performance, recovery and immune health.
- Whey protein is naturally high in the amino acids glutamine and leucine, which help with repair and recovery after intense endurance exercise.
Maxifuel high protein support with Biomax
Maxifuel offers you a range of high protein recovery products to support athletic performance – Protrient whey protein and Recovermax. Maxifuel protein is assured to be ultra-pure:
- Stringent independent quality tests – unlike many brands, our protein is screened for purity.
- Highest quality formulas – we only use the finest protein blends available.
- Money-back guarantee – we’re so confident that you’ll recover faster and aid your exercise performance, that we offer a unique 40-day money back guarantee. Once you’ve tried our protein shakes, you’ll see why we’re so confident that our products will work for you.
