Protein powder is a very popular dietary supplement these days. For people who are not that familiar with it yet, it can be very enlightening to know what the actual purpose is of taking protein powder; what’s the benefit? That’s exactly what we’re going to explain in this article!
Table of Contents
- What is the purpose of protein powder?
- #1 – Taking protein powder to gain more muscle mass
- #2 – Taking protein powder to increase sports performance
- #3 – Taking protein powder to gain weight
- #4 – Taking protein powder to lose weight
- #5 – Taking protein powder to look more muscular
What is the purpose of protein powder?
Protein powder, as the name suggests, consists for the most part of proteins. Protein powder, therefore, aims to increase the number of proteins in your body. Proteins are also included in your daily diet, which means that protein powder is an addition to your daily diet.
Proteins are the most important ‘building material’ for your body and this is the reason that proteins contribute to the maintenance and growth of muscle mass. In short, there are 5 reasons people take protein powder:
- To gain more muscle mass
- To increase sports performance
- To gain weight
- To lose weight
- To look more muscular.
We will discuss these 5 reasons in detail in the following sections.
#1 – Taking protein powder to gain more muscle mass
This is the most common reason for taking protein powder; gain more muscle mass. But do you gain more muscle mass from taking protein powder?
To find out, we look at a study[1] by D. G. Candow and colleagues. This study showed that taking protein powder had a positive effect on lean tissue mass. Lean tissue mass can be seen as the weight of your body from which everything that is fat has been subtracted.
The lean tissue mass of the group that had received protein powder increased more than that of the group that had not; indicating that protein powder can cause an increase in muscle mass. Be aware that the difference found was quite minimal.
As an indication; both groups followed the same resistance training and the group that received protein powder received a dose of 1.2 g/kg body mass every day.
#2 – Taking protein powder to increase sports performance
The research[1] we just discussed didn’t just look at lean tissue mass. It also looked at the effect of protein powder intake on sports performance. To determine the sports performance, the maximum 1 rep bench press and the maximum 1 rep hack squat were examined.
Here too, it turned out that the group that had received protein powder made more progress in the maximum force they could deliver during the bench press and hack squat. Again, the effects were minimal.
So taking protein powder seems to offer minimal improvement for the maximum power you can deliver during 1 repetition, but what about strength training with more repetitions or endurance training?
For this we look at a study[2] by S. C. Forbes and G. J. Bell. They conducted a similar study to the study discussed above, but looked at other outcome variables. They looked at cardiorespiratory fitness, upper body strength, lower body strength and 2000m rowing performance. After 6 weeks, there was no difference between the group that had received protein powder and the group that had not.
In summary, it therefore appears that taking protein powder cannot improve endurance performance and strength training performance in which multiple repetitions per set are performed. Only the maximum power that can be delivered within 1 repetition seems to be minimally improved by taking protein powder.
#3 – Taking protein powder to gain weight
There are also plenty of people who indicate that they use protein powder to gain weight. But why would you want to gain weight? What most actually mean by this is that they want to build more muscle mass. So this actually comes down to point 1 that we discussed.
Because protein powder can cause an increase in lean tissue mass, protein powder can contribute to weight gain. Be aware that gaining or losing weight always revolves around 2 simple data. (1) Your calorie intake and (2) the amount of calories you burn.
If your calorie intake is greater than the amount of calories you burn, you will gain weight. Protein powder can contribute to this because protein powder, mainly in the form of a shake, is often an easy way to get extra calories. If you are wondering how to use protein powder, click here.
#4 – Taking protein powder to lose weight
This may sound a bit contradictory; we just discussed how protein powder can contribute to weight gain, how come protein powder can also cause weight loss? To repeat, we just saw that losing or gaining weight consists purely of 2 factors: your calorie intake and the amount of calories you burn. If you burn more calories than you take in, you will lose weight.
Various studies have shown that increasing the percentage of proteins in a daily diet increases the feeling of satiety. This can of course be achieved with the aid of protein powder. The increased feeling of satiety will lead to less food intake and thus can lead to weight loss.
In summary, protein powder can indirectly lead to weight loss. It increases the feeling of satiety, so you will generally consume fewer calories. This leads to weight loss.
#5 – Taking protein powder to look more muscular
This reason could not be omitted; many people take protein powder to look fitter/more muscular because this is their goal. The dangerous thing about this reason is that you start comparing yourself a lot with others. Note that you mainly try to improve yourself and not try to become more muscular than others for example. There is always someone more muscular or fitter. Comparing to others can lead to a feeling that it is never good enough and you don’t want this!
Know that taking protein powder will have minimal effect on your appearance. It may slightly increase your muscle mass as we’ve seen before, but because this effect is so small, you probably won’t see any noticeable difference in your body.
Lifestyle coach [5+ years of fitness experience]