Muscle Milk or no Muscle Milk

What is everyones opionion on Cytosports Muscle Milk and is it a good evening protein supplement?
Would a protein supplement with a better carb to protein ratio be better right after a workout?

I’d suggest using it as more of a meal replacement (breakfast perhaps?) and/or post workout drink due to the high amount of calories, carbs and fat. If you were looking to gain weight however it would be fine as an evening protein supplement.

a forumal1 needs high octane gas… but grandmother station-wagon need regualr gas…

ciao

LOL…I love reading this guys posts!! hahaha…but he is right! Top cars need top fuel…same with athletes…

I’m not too sure of the products mentioned above but I’ve had great success with post training drink thats 50/50 (carbs/protein).

I get the rest of my protein from my meal once i get in from training…and bump it up with bcaa tablets

I use the light version in oatmeal sometimes of i’m busy. It tastes great. I am very leary about cyto’s products though. They seem to add a bunch of extra crap to every product the have. That worries me.

they have good whey protein.

How’s the ingredient listings? Is it short and sweet, or do they have combinations not listed?

check this article out by Dave Barr at t-nation.com.

http://www.t-nation.com/readArticle.do?id=1231523

they are back…call c40 mushashi… they do the trick… i use to sell back in the mid 90s…

mushashi is second to none…

ciao

check out the ingredients list, there is no glycocyamine. also, i’m planning to get evopro as my night time shake. i used muscle milk for a while but i dont know, it doesn’t seem to good for a night time shake with all that fat.

Does everyone think that Muscle Milk Light would be a better fit for a pre bed shake? (only 6 grams of fat 195 calories and 10 carbs or so)

I’d say yes, it seems like a better fit versus the regular.

I think they dropped the glycocyamine when they reduced the fat from 18g per serving to 12g(along with a 50 cal. drop) and added some extra fiber-BTW, that particular product is not Muscle Milk light. There are still some of the old product out on the market but I think the regular Muscle Milk sold exclusively in the future will be the version featuring 12g of fat per serving.

complete garbage like 99% of what t-nation posts

they have a competing product, it is in their best interst to slag muscle milk and Barr rarely knows what he’s talking about

Lyle

Speaking of Barr…

Lyle, what is your opinion on the use of glutamine and/or arginine and its derivatives? These are two supplements which Barr has written negatively about.

what’s the context?

glutamine is completely and utterly overrated as either an anabolic or for fat loss. it does zilch at any dose

it does have immune effects that are positive and endurance athletes (who always overtrain with excess volume) may get something out of it. BCAA probably works better in this regards since BCAA intake protects glutamine levels in the body.

I wouldn’t bother with it for strength/power athletes UNLESS they were on the verge of getting sick. empirically, megadosing glutamine + vitamin c when you feel the first signs of a cold will stop it in its tracks

arginine is completely worthless for either GH or NO purposes unless you have heart disease

How important is any regular dosing of Glutamine for keeping the immune system operating an optimal level?

depends on habitual protein intake and what’s being eaten

an epic problem with most of the supplementation studies is that they are using subjects eating insufficient protein in the first place; I’ve seen some really silly study designs. 1.2 g/kg protein (about half of what an athlete needs) and yayy, leucine or whatever does nifty things.

take them to 2.5-3 g/kg and it ceases to matter

I have seen one study where endurance guys on suficient protein got additional immune benefits from extra BCAA but that was it. all the rest were giving insufficient protein in the first place.

adding 50 grams of whey to the diet would provide not only bCAA but pleny of cysteine (which improves performance), would have cost about the same or less and tastes better than nasty powders

as noticed, BCAA protects glutamine status in the body, and most proteins are 20-25% BCAA (whey is the highest near 25%, everything else is a touch lower around 20%).

at 3 g/kg protein, you’re getting at least 0.6 g/kg BCAA every day. if you’re getting some whey daily it’s a touch higher

most proteins don’t have scads of glutamine, wheat is the highest for some odd reason

if someone is in a high volume phase and prone to sickness or overtraining, I think adding 5-10 g glutamine (cheap as chips) can’t hurt but only if daily protein intake (amount and type) is already fixed.

it may not help but it certainly won’t hurt.

Thanks for the detailed response-very informative.

BCAA supplementation does seem to he advocated by many. I have wondered about the BCAA content in MM since I don’t believe it’s specified on the label. Might you know about BCAA levels contained in MM?

take the protein content and multiply by 0.2-0.25, it’ll be in that range unless they’ve added more (looking at the label, they haven’t). so it’ll be in the range of 22 grams protein * 0.2-0.25 = 4-5 grams of so

I’ve yet to see anything convincing me that extra BCAA has benefit IF the athlete is consuming sufficient protein

most of the work that gets cited is terribly stupid

either it’s providing BCAA to athletes consuming insufficient protein in the first place OR it’s doing something dumb like comparing BCAA around training to consuming nothing at all. of course BCAA ‘works’ under those conditions.

but what if an athlete is consuming 1 g/kg of protein around training. they are alreay getting 0.2-0.25 g/kg BCAA AND getting all of the essential amino acids AND all of hte inessential aminos

chocolae whey protein tastes better than bCAA powder

as noted, an athlete consuming 3 g/kg protein is already getting 0.6 g/kg higher. more if they are consuming whey. adding extra BCAA is unlikely, IMO, do do jack squat