Excess Protein?

last week i wasnt able to do 185 pound bench press and this week i tried it and i did it twice. ( was sore too since i did upperbody yesterday) the past week and a half ive been lifting and eating alot of protein. I weigh around 196 now compared to the 191 around a week and a half ago.

do you guys think ive had excess protein and some has turned into fat? or do u think ive gained muscle since ive been able to do more weight? can increase in fat help u bench more? im just curious to see if what i gained is fat or muscle (sorry i get real paranoid)

Hard to say without knowing the rest of your diet. That being said, the most muscle a natural bodybuilder can gain per week is .25 to .5 lbs. About 2 lbs of muscle a month if you are working out and dieting pretty well.
How much excess protein are we talking about? More than likely you did not gain all that weight from just the “protein”.

but since i did gain weight AND my bench went up, most likely its muscle right?

could fat make my bench go up as well?

You are sweating the small details.

Fix your diet. Stop eating fast food (if you have not already).

Your strength gains are most likely the result of recruiting more muscle fibers rather than added muscle.

Just keep plugging away.

I think if you’re only benching 185 at 190+ bodyweight, too much protein should be the last thing on your mind.

When it comes to protein, less is better than more.

please explain that to me

[quote]jlesk68 wrote:
When it comes to protein, less is better than more.[/quote]

Could you elaborate?

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
You are sweating the small details.

Fix your diet. Stop eating fast food (if you have not already).

Your strength gains are most likely the result of recruiting more muscle fibers rather than added muscle.

Just keep plugging away.[/quote]

What he said. It’s not at all uncommon to have good and bad days in the gym just like you do in other aspects of life. Your body comp hasn’t changed that quickly, you just had a good neural drive day. Worry about month long trends, ignore daily fluctuations.

[quote]jlesk68 wrote:
When it comes to protein, less is better than more.[/quote]

Soooo… Is NO protein the best?

TSB???

[quote]jlesk68 wrote:
When it comes to protein, less is better than more.[/quote]

I hope your not serious

[quote]playmaker08 wrote:
jlesk68 wrote:
When it comes to protein, less is better than more.

I hope your not serious[/quote]

as do I.,

On the OP id guess its more a matter of now being properly fed. Your getting the intake required for the activity you do which gave a big boost in performance. MANY MANY atheletes are under feed and under rested. your gained weight from more than likely hydration filling of glycogen stores etc.

Phill;

The best advice you could follow now: Shut Up and Lift.

[quote]conorh wrote:
I think if you’re only benching 185 at 190+ bodyweight, too much protein should be the last thing on your mind.[/quote]

QFT. Word to that. 2 grams per pound is maybe where we can start talking about too much

For example if you weigh 250 lbs, you’re better off consuming 200 grams a day than 300 grams.

If you “think” you are getting an excess amount of protein (whatever that means), you aren’t. You’re not benching your own bodyweight yet, so I’m going to assume that most of your gains are going to be neurological from getting used to the movement.

Don’t be so concerned with the scale. Judge yourself by the mirror. It’s far more accurate and won’t create the negativity that comes with the fluctuating numbers game. If you really are that worried about fat gains you should get a tape measure and record your measurements for waist, neck, chest, arms, and quads. Not many people know how to properly perform a caliper test on themselves.

You cannot gain 5 pounds of fat or muscle in a week and a half. the majority of that weight difference is probably water-related. Maybe you had a lot of sodium in your diet over the past few days. Aside from that, it is not very likely that you’re turning excess protein into fat. Protein is the last thing that gets turned into fat in your body, after fats and sugars.

If you are eating a lot of animal protein, there will be more fat in that. But if you are just using more protein drinks/mixes with not much fat in them, then its very unlikely that you’re turning any of it to fat. Some researchers say that athletes may need up 2.2g of protein per kg of bodyweight to maintain an anabolic protein state. In your case, that’s almost 200g of protein per day.

Just to give you an idea, an 8oz steak filet has about 70g of protein, and one 3-scoop serving of Grow! (now Metabolic Drive) has about 40g of protein. So you can see how much protein you’d have to eat to get too much protein. And from your other posts, it doesn’t sound like you’re sitting around doing nothing. With all the catabolic, aerobic activity you get through basketball, you’re probably getting too little protein if anything, unless you really are eating 3 steaks a day or drinking 5 protein drinks a day.

Don’t worry about such weight fluxuations over a short period of time. To really tell if your weight is significantly going up or down, you’ve got to get on a consistent diet, and you have to weigh yourself regularly at the same time of day and note a trend over a few weeks.

This way, you will know that your weight changes are not from water weight fluxations due to sodium intake, or from different amounts of food intake on a daily basis. For myself, for example, I know just one fast food burger and fries will add 2 pounds for me by the next day, but its gone a day or two later. Just water weight from the sodium.

As far as the strength increase goes, it could have been anything from better sleep the night before, better diet, better energy, etc. As others have said, in a week and a half you probably haven’t gained all the muscle necessary to translate directly to that kind of a strength gain. Its probably a combination of neural adaptation and better energy that day.

To really know for sure if you’ve got a strength increase, you have to have a consistent weighttraining program, and you also have to log and keep track of your progress. From week to week, you may have fluxuations of a few pounds here and there. The important thing is to notice an upward trend over a month or two of training.

[quote]jlesk68 wrote:
For example if you weigh 250 lbs, you’re better off consuming 200 grams a day than 300 grams.[/quote]

Um…no?

[quote]Ghost22 wrote:
jlesk68 wrote:
For example if you weigh 250 lbs, you’re better off consuming 200 grams a day than 300 grams.

Um…no?[/quote]

exactly

as asked prior can you expand on why you feel that less is more??

Phill