Building a significant amount of muscle mass requires not only years of consistent resistance training, however it also depends heavily on the intricacies of nutrition. Apart from total daily energy intake, this includes meal timing, protein intake, quality & distribution, as well as peri-workout carbohydrate consumption.
Those in the pursuit to build muscle mass would understand and appreciate that it is a slow and tedious process. Therefore, given the physical effort invested to receive a (slow) rate of gain in return, we recommend that you don’t shortchange your progress and make the process even more difficult by fasting pre or post-workout.
The infographic above illustrates three scenarios, two of which we would deem to be suboptimal for maximising muscle hypertrophy and supporting training performance and recovery. The reason for this stems back to the notion of “fuelling and recovering for the work required”.
Current sport literature guidelines suggest that trainees engaging in resistance exercise which exceeds >45 minutes (e.g. a morning gym session) will benefit from being in a fed, rather than fasted, state. For instance, this could translate into consuming 1-1.5g/kg/bw of carbohydrates pre and/or intra workout, or a sufficient amount to stave off hunger.
Also, to maximally stimulate muscle hypertrophy throughout the day it is recommended to evenly distribute your protein intake between ~4 meals, aiming for 0.4-0.55g/kg/bw of protein from an HBV source for each bolus.
Let us know, do you train fasted? Why/why not?