A recent retrospective analysis showed a ‘breakpoint’ for the stimulation of MPS when ingesting an isolated protein source at 0.24 g protein/kg and 0.40 g protein/kg in younger and older participants, respectively.14 Given the observation of a dose-responsive relationship between protein intake and MPS82–85 and the fact that MPS is aligned with muscle hypertrophy,13 we elected to use an identical two-segment regression approach between total daily protein intake and changes in FFM (figure 5) as has been done for changes in protein dose and MPS.14 Here we provide significant insight (using 42 study arms including 723 young and old participants with protein intakes ranging from 0.9 g protein/kg/day to 2.4 g protein/kg/day) by reporting an unadjusted plateau in RET-induced gains in FFM at 1.62 g protein/kg/day (95% CI: 1.03 to 2.20). These results are largely in congruence with previous narrative reviews that comment on the optimal nutritional strategies to augment skeletal muscle adaptation during RET.3 86 Given that the CI of this estimate spanned from 1.03 to 2.20, it may be prudent to recommend ~2.2 g protein/kg/d for those seeking to maximise resistance training-induced gains in FFM. Though we acknowledge that there are limitations to this approach, we propose that these findings are based on reasonable evidence and theory and provide a pragmatic estimate with an incumbent error that the reader could take into consideration.
