Research
Micronutrients & recovery
Protein ingestion during prolonged endurance exercise (>1h) may attenuate muscle protein breakdown and improve whole-body net protein balance, though its ergogenic value for performance is limited.
For events longer than 1 hour, consider adding a small amount of protein to your carbohydrate intake during exercise. This may help reduce muscle breakdown and improve your net protein balance, although it likely won't directly make you faster.
ModerateQualifiesMEDIUM confidence
protein/CHO co-ingestion may attenuate the typical exercise-induced increase muscle protein breakdown... Collectively these data suggest that athletes performing prolonged, strenuous training could benefit from the co-ingestion of protein in their daily nutrition plan to limit the catabolic environment of exercise...
Why this rating
Based on studies showing metabolic benefits, but explicit performance benefits are noted as 'limited' or 'unclear'.
Source
Beyond muscle hypertrophy: why dietary protein is important for endurance athletes
Daniel R. Moore et al. · Applied Physiology Nutrition and Metabolism · 2014
DOI 10.1139/apnm-2013-0591
narrative_reviewCited 137×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Endurance athletes should consume approximately 20-25g of high-quality protein (specifically rapidly digested, leucine-enriched sources like whey) within the first 30-60 minutes post-exercise to maximize muscle protein synthesis and facilitate muscle remodelling.Good
- Endurance athletes should distribute their daily protein intake into multiple feedings of approximately 20g every 3-4 hours to maximize chronic muscle remodelling and net protein balance.Good
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