joemktg posted:So about protein...
If you're unsure as to the role of protein in muscle building, please Google before continuing. And please Google the protein quantity in an egg, a piece of fish, steak, etc.
The player needs roughly 1 gram of protein for every pound, so if a player wants to hit 200 pounds, he'll have to take in 200 grams of protein a day. And anything over 25 grams of protein per serving gets eliminated from the body via urinating, and that's for a 2 hour period, i.e., the next 25 grams can be ingested no earlier than 2 hours from the previous serving.
The impact in our example? Eight servings of protein a day over a 14 hour period. Now that's doable when the player is sitting on his rear end during August, but come school time, how the hell can you get this done?
There are a variety of methods to take in extra protein beyond the servings of eggs, meat, poultry, and fish. This includes:
- whey protein shakes: plain ol' whey protein powder mixed in with smoothies, or just added to water and gatorade mix.
- bars: some are efficient (small size vs. protein count), some taste like crap, etc.
- gels: if you're not familiar, think of a juice packet that contains a protein based gel
- nuts: peanut butter, and even 17 cashews (gives you 25g of protein)
So let's go over a school day and how knucklehead can get in his protein:
- Wake up: eggs
- Snack #1 at school: a bar
- Lunch
- Snack #2 at school: gel
- Snack #3 at school: an 8oz bottle of water that contains whey protein and gatorade mix (premixed at home to take to school)
- Post workout: a gel
- Dinner
- Before bed: a shake
You get the idea. Quick word of caution: hydration is very important as he needs the water to properly process the protein.
This all sounds great, but there are obstacles:
- Mom or Dad have to keep the inventory and not run out.
- Mom or Dad has to prep this stuff for ding-a-ling in the morning.
- Stay away from sticking with only one source of protein. He'll get pretty sick of eating bars all the time. Mix it up every day.
- Ding-a-ling has to take this in, weekdays and weekends. It often falls apart on weekends, when he's running around doing this, that and the other. Discipline. We want him to do this on his own, so instruct and reinforce, not nag.
- And those weekend tourneys? Yeah: don't fall short on the intake. That's on you, Mom or Dad.
The key to proper protein intake: plan, preparation and execution. And don't run out of this stuff.
A lot of really good info in this thread so far.
Just wanted to add some additional thoughts on protein:
-Preparation is key. I'll echo what Joe said about Mom and Dad being key support figures. Put a couple pounds of chicken breast in the crockpot before bed, shred in the morning. Boom, protein for several meals. Put some hot sauce or taco seasoning for variety. Boil a dozen eggs and have them in the fridge to eliminate the "I-don't-have-time-for-breakfast" excuse - they can eat on the way to school/games/practice.
-The whey protein/Gatorade mix is AWESOME. Vanilla flavored whey mixed with any of the traditional Gatorade flavors (lemon lime, orange, fruit punch) is tasty stuff. If you're having trouble thinking how that could possibly be good, think orange Gatorade + vanilla whey = orange sherbet. One thought though - I would put more than 8 oz of water. A single serving of Gatorade has about 23 g of carbs, a scoop of whey has about 24 g of protein - I'd make it more like 20 oz of water.
-Again echoing Joe - CONSISTENCY IS KING. If you don't follow the routine on weekends, you're missing out on a lot of benefits. Think if you eat 4 meals a day - that's 28 meals a week. If you skip out on eating well on weekends, you are only eating 20/28 good meals (71% of your meals). Do you only want to get 71% of the results you could get?