Research

Mixed

Resistance exercise increases the turnover (synthesis and degradation) of individual muscle proteins without necessarily increasing net protein abundance or synthesis rates, particularly when performed under a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet.

If you are doing resistance training, expect your muscles to remodel by breaking down and rebuilding proteins, even if you don't see immediate size gains. This is normal adaptation, not failure. Ensure you are recovering adequately, as this turnover process is energy-intensive.

GoodQualifiesHIGH confidence
The most common pattern of response was an increase in turnover, followed by an increase in abundance with no detectable increase in protein synthesis. We provide novel evidence demonstrating that the contribution of synthesis and breakdown to changes in protein abundance induced by REX differ on a protein-by-protein basis.
Donny M. Camera et al. · The FASEB Journal · 2017

Why this rating

High-quality experimental design with Dynamic Proteome Profiling (DPP) and D2O labeling in humans, though short duration (9 days).

Source

Dynamic proteome profiling of individual proteins in human skeletal muscle after a high‐fat diet and resistance exercise

Donny M. Camera et al. · The FASEB Journal · 2017

DOI 10.1096/fj.201700531r

rct · n=16Cited 71×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

This is one finding among thousands. Every one is graded and traced to its source, so you can see what the evidence actually supports. Browse the research →