Research

Hormonal

Ingesting 25g of whey protein immediately following a concurrent bout of resistance and endurance exercise selectively upregulates specific skeletal muscle microRNAs (miR-23a, miR-23b, miR-133b, miR-181, miR-378) compared to placebo, potentially prioritizing anabolic signaling pathways over oxidative adaptations.

If you do both weightlifting and cardio in the same session, drink 25g of whey protein immediately after you finish. This specific timing and dose appears to trigger molecular signals (miRNAs) in your muscles that favor muscle building over pure endurance adaptation, helping to counteract the 'interference' effect of doing both exercises together.

ModerateSupportsMEDIUM confidence
Protein ingestion following concurrent exercise can modulate the expression of miRNAs implicated in exercise adaptations compared to placebo. The selective modulation of miRNAs with target proteins that may prioritize myogenic compared to oxidative/metabolic adaptive responses indicate that miRNAs can play a regulatory role in the molecular machinery enhancing muscle protein synthesis responses with protein ingestion following concurrent exercise.
Donny M. Camera et al. · Frontiers in Physiology · 2016

Why this rating

Small sample size (n=7), acute single bout design, no change in target protein levels observed.

Source

Selective Modulation of MicroRNA Expression with Protein Ingestion Following Concurrent Resistance and Endurance Exercise in Human Skeletal Muscle

Donny M. Camera et al. · Frontiers in Physiology · 2016

DOI 10.3389/fphys.2016.00087

crossover · n=7Cited 50×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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