Health Claims

Protein supplements might give athletes a small boost in endurance, especially when taken with carbs—but it could just be because they're eating more calories overall.

If you eat enough protein during the day, it might not matter whether you drink your recovery shake right after a workout or wait a bit — you’ll still recover just as well.

Drinking a protein shake before bed might help young men build more muscle and get stronger when lifting weights regularly.

Older people or those who don’t usually eat much protein might get more out of having a protein and carb snack right after working out, compared to younger or high-protein eaters.

If you work out hard with weights or long cardio, eating the right nutrients right after helps you bounce back from tiredness more than if you do a quick or light workout.

If you eat protein and carbs right after working out, you might recover faster, feel less tired, and refill your energy stores better than if you wait more than 2 hours.

If athletes eat a meal a few hours before working out, drinking carbs with water afterward doesn’t help their recovery as much as it does when they hadn’t eaten beforehand.

Adding protein to carbs and water doesn’t really help or hurt your workout performance if you're already getting the same amount of energy.

Drinking a carb mix with water after a workout—especially if you haven’t eaten—can give you a 4% boost in power during your next workout, as long as it’s within 4 hours.

For guys who work out regularly, eating cricket protein doesn’t help with muscle soreness after tough exercise — it’s no better than whey or carbs when it comes to easing pain in the 3 days after a hard workout.

When active guys do tough workouts that cause muscle soreness, the more pain they feel, the weaker their muscles get — it’s like the soreness tells their body to slow down while healing.

Cricket protein doesn't help gym guys bounce back faster after tough leg workouts — it works no better than carbs or regular whey protein for getting explosive power back over three days.

If you're a guy who works out regularly, drinking a cricket protein shake might help your legs bounce back faster after a tough workout — showing improvement in just one day and full recovery in three days, better than just having carbs.

If you're a guy who works out regularly, eating cricket powder after doing a bunch of jump exercises might help your legs bounce back faster within a day or two — especially compared to just having carbs.

A special type of MRI scan can measure sugar stored in muscles and liver of fit male cyclists without needing to take tissue samples, and it gives results very close to the traditional biopsy method.

If elite male cyclists don't eat carbs after a hard workout that drains their energy stores, their muscle and liver won't refill those energy reserves for at least 12 hours.

If elite male cyclists eat a lot of carbs after a super tough ride, their liver fuel gets completely refilled—and even goes above normal—within 6 hours, but their muscle fuel only comes back about two-thirds of the way after 12 hours.

When young, active people eat more protein after working out, their bodies don’t just steadily build more muscle — instead, the way their body handles protein changes in a more complicated, up-and-down way involving both making and breaking down protein.

After working out, your body builds muscle best when you eat protein and carbs in a certain mix — about 1 part protein to 3.2 parts carbs. Eating more carbs beyond that might not help you build more muscle.

If you're a healthy, active young person working out, eating more protein helps your muscles recover — but only up to a point. After about 1.6 grams of protein per kilo of body weight each day, your body can't use any extra to build more muscle.

Athletes who eat more carbs after exercise have higher insulin levels after meals, which probably helps their muscles take in more sugar and rebuild energy stores faster.

Japanese male endurance runners tend to eat about 6.8 grams of carbs for every kilogram they weigh each day, which is more than what Western guidelines usually suggest for moderate training — and this might be because of their food culture.

If Japanese male endurance athletes don't eat enough carbs after tough exercise—like less than 7 grams per kilo of body weight—their muscles refill energy slower in the first half-day, especially between 4 to 12 hours after.

If Japanese male endurance athletes eat only 5 grams of carbs per kilo of body weight after tough exercise, their muscles don’t fully refill their energy stores in 24 hours. But if they eat 7 or 10 grams per kilo, their muscles do recover completely in that time.