Adding sugar or alanine to a protein drink doesn't make your muscles grow more than the protein drink alone in healthy young people.

A small protein shake makes your muscles start growing, but adding sugar or alanine doesn’t make it grow any faster or stronger.

Protein plus alanine keeps your muscles in 'build mode' a little longer than protein alone, but the total amount built is the same.

If you're a healthy young adult, drinking a supplement with 30 grams of broken-down amino acids won't help your muscles grow more than drinking the same amount from real milk protein—even though your body absorbs the amino acids faster.

In adult rats, how well their muscles use essential amino acids to build protein depends on whether they get their protein spread out through the day or all at once, and also on how much leucine is in the food they eat.

When you eat a big protein meal (100g) after working out, your muscles absorb more of that protein for building than when you eat a smaller meal (25g) - about 13% of the big meal gets used for muscle building.