I started the pre academy with a PD on Monday and right from the start they have us doing some intense ( to me ) workouts in the mornings for an hour. After one week of PT, I am dealing with t rex arms and doms badly right now. I am eating well and drinking a lot of water over the course of the day but I am looking at some protein shakes/ drinks that I can use post workout and prior to bedtime that will help me rebuild and heal. My only source of protein besides food currently is a Muscle Milk thats 32 grams of protein and I drink it directly after my workout.

Any suggestions on things to try? I found Cellucor Whey performance power for $20 and picked it up to give it a try. Any suggestions would be great, I will be doing this type of PT for the next six to eight months. I have no need for a pre workout type mix but simply something to help my muscles out.

Chocolate milk. I fooled around with those gallons sized bottles of koolaid and never felt a thing. My buds were all going over how much better they felt when they drank that stuff. I am THE skeptic. I drank with chocolate milk and had results as similar as similar can get between 2 unrelated people.

Myprotein.com

Drink 3 scoops.

another +1 for myprotein. They're the cheapest and highest quality. Just fyi though if you see the protein per scoop as 18 or 20g or whatever and think "that's lower than others, i must be getting ripped off"... that would be wrong. Myprotein doesn't spike their shit with a ton of glutamine like most companies so you might only get 18g of actual protein compared to the label saying 20 or 21, but other companies say 25g and you actually get like 5g. Just something to be aware of. Seriously, just get that stuff, everything else is a waste of money for the most part. If you have to get something from a brick and mortar I'd go with optimum nutrition (can be found at most costcos).

If pre academy is kicking your ass just know that usually when your body is sore it is lying to you, soreness generally has no impact on work capacity or performance. Now, if there is sharp pain that is a different story, but soreness generally isn't anything to worry about. Also, CARBS. Post workout carbs with your protein bud. Everybody always concentrates on the protein right after a workout but carbs are a huge part of post workout recovery (I'd argue more so than protein).

This.

I have 22 lbs of it in my cupboard from a sale I caught.

Whole milk, peanut butter, chocolate syrup, as many scoops of protein as you want (I stick to one or two, but I eat a lot of other sources)

Blend it up, and slam it.

I do a scoop of vanilla Gold Standard and a scoop of orange Gatorade in a 2 liter Nalgene bottle.  It tastes like an orange dreamsicle.  I need the Gatorade cause I sweat like a buffalo.  

anyone have a myprotien referal code?

arfcom costing me money again. 

They do a sale every other month or so. Usually a significant chunk off too.

Last time I got 11 lbs for 55ish shipped.

https://us.myprotein.com/referrals.list?applyCode=MICHAEL-R70Q&li
or
MICHAEL-R70Q

Got 25% off as anew customer, but only ordered a half dozen items to try them out.

Any recomendations aside from thier whey? I bought the preworkout, some oats, and some cookies.

Low fat chocolate milk. If you want to buy some sort of supplement I'd go with Collegiate Muscle Milk simply because of the carbs ratio.

The ratio boils down to this, 2:1:1 calories from carbs, protein, and fat. 2 grams of carbs: 1 gram of protein: 1/2 gram of fat.

I usually stick to their whey. Their multi was meh. I've found that all their basics are solid and cheap. The whey, creatine, fish oil, d3, etc etc are all priced very well and are what they say they are. Their preworkout, bcaa mix, and other blended products aren't bad, but they're no longer the cheapest or the greatest. Generally pre mixed preworkout is a waste unless you're spending big money on pre jym, cannibal ferox, etc. I mix my own up and end up with a much higher dosed product at a lower price. If you're not going to go that route I'd personally just stick to coffee/caffeine pills with some citrulline or beta alanine since most preworkouts are just flavored caffeine water spiked with beta alanine so you feel like you're cracked out and on something that must be working (all placebo).

I like the Optimum Whey Isolate from Costco. 5lbs for $50 and easy on the stomach.

I do a scoop of muscle pharm combat protein on cookies and cream in a glass of whole milk. Absolutely delicious.

Noticed myprotein.com has 30% off right now - hard to pass up 11 pounds of whey protein for $63 bucks

I saved a 3 lb Isopure jug and transfer it into that for daily use.

I roll up the bag and put it in the cupboard with a heavy duty clip on it and just get it out when I need a refill.

Looks like a lot of people like the myprotein.com stuff.  Would you guys recommend their pre-workout or is there something better?

Thank you for the suggestions, I will be trying out what was listed soon! For now, I am sticking to high protein meals and drinking a muscle milk directly after my workout in the morning and eating some small meal.

You have to clean the powder out if the zip lock.  Then they work perfect.

Their pre-workout is awful.

I've only tried the ones available at Wal Mart and beginning to think that there isn't a good tasting one in existence. 

Take this with a grain of salt but I've noticed that it appears that they're switching bags. I got a 5lb back of chocolate with the usual ziplock setup, my wife got 2x 2.2lb bags with my order too. Her bags have a new sealing mechanism that I haven't seen, it's basically like a scaled up Velcro attachment that doesn't get clogged. So it seems as though they're making a switch to a much nicer bag, ymmv.

C4 has some good flavors.

The optimum nutrition pre-workout flavor fruit punch is really good.

Lol @ "anabolic window" and "postworkout shake for the PROTEINSSZZZ."


Just meet your protein goals for the day, stop worrying so much about when you get it. If you like having a shake after a workout, do it, but it is so not necessary. I don't even have my first meal until 3-4 hours after my workouts.

Bro, you have (and I'm being generous here) about 98 seconds after your last set to slam your protein shake or you'll go catabolic and lose your gainz.

In reality though. I slam a shake after working out because I'm usually starving for the hour afterwards. It fills a nice gap between working out and the next meal time.

Not to hijack this thread, but what other pre-workouts are you guys using besides C4?

I started using it about a year and a half ago.  Was great at first, lots of energy and I knew it was working when I felt itchy on my forehead and scalp.

Am stopping it for awhile because I no longer feel the effects, I might have a tolerance to it.  Also, my hair started thinning not long after I started getting that itchy feeling on my scalp from it.

but... it blows.
Get some MTS Clash, take half the dose so it isn't super expensive. Better yet, get some Citrulline, beta alanine, caffeine pills, and creatine off of amazon in bulk. Add some koolaid, hawaiin punch, mio, or whatever and you have a preworkout that tastes good, is easy on the wallet, and isn't a scam since it will have proper doses and isn't just flavored caffeine water.
If nothing else c4 will get you moving if you go that route, literally just a ton of caffeine. Sometimes Costco has the optimum nutrition preworkout, it isn't bad and the pineapple is pretty tasty.

Also, OP, like everyone is saying, the anabolic window thing is MOSTLY bullshit. I still drink mine after my workout since I'm usually hungry but can't stomach a lot of solid food right after. I've fasted most of the day before, or after, and during a workout window and honestly never noticed a difference.

I just stick to coffee.

My friend has something he bought that is the equivalent of a few cups of coffee, some amino acids and I think some type of NO booster. It is bright blue and tastes like ass, doesn't seem very natural to me and he said he gets shaky from it. Not something I feel like taking.

Making your own is a great route. That is what I do. My wife uses the store bought stuff. It really just depends on your level of commitment and what works for your schedule. But yeah, if you want real doses you ought to be making your own. I like the flexibility of using koolaid for its insulin spiking abilities or sugar free water flavor packets depending on current goals.

Nutrition timing is not bullshit but it isn't magic either. Having protein after you lift isn't going to slam on an extra slab of muscle, but having the correct building blocks available in your blood to repair your muscles and restore glycogen will help you recover faster. Which means you can get bigger/stronger faster than if you didn't since you can recover from a higher intensity workout and/or train more often. Like with all things, you need to asses your personal goals and go from there. If you are trying to maintain a lean physique you are not going to eat/supplement like a guy looking at losing his gut and adding muscle who isn't going to eat/supplement like a guy who is lean trying to add lean mass who isn't going to eat/supplement like a massive freak beast bodybuilder. Some people will inherently benefit from nutrient timing more than others. Not a big deal, but it doesn't make it bullshit.

Nutrient timing does more than just time when you have fresh nutrients. It helps control/manipulate hormone levels(insulin, cortisol, etc.) which again, some people will respond to differently than others. So if you are trying to lose fat and maybe even retain/gain lean body mass during the process keeping insulin down can be very beneficial and is very achievable.  

So when a guy that weighs well under 200 lbs and has been at that weight since he was 20 tells me I don't need to eat so much protein I can tell him he is full of shit because if I replace those calories with carbs I'll stagnate or add fat, if I replace those calories with fat I'll feel like shit and probably puke(btdt), and if I don't eat them I'll lose muscle. The awesome thing is we would both be able to find studies that prove both our points, which means you need to find what works for you via research/intuition/trial and error.

I have been using this https://www.bareperformancenutrition.com/products/flight.

I think they have recently changed the sliders too though -- they definitely work a lot better than they used to.



I DIY my preworkout. Buy caffeine, l-citrulline, beta alanine, creatine, and BCAA in powdered/bulk form online. Mix it up, add some flavor (kool-aid powder if you eat carbs, find some 0 calorie sweetener stuff if you're low carb), and slam it down.

Comes out to like $0.52 per serving, which is basically half price of C4. Plus you can tune it to your liking -- more or less caffeine/beta alanine, etc..

I have been taking ON Gold Standard Preworkout. Tastes good and works good. I trust ON. $30 for 60 servings at Costco, hard to go wrong for that price.

Also, I have found the Walmart version of C4 to be OK,  watermelon >>>> blue raspberry

I'm a fan of the MyProtein products. I've been using the Hurricane Extreme as a post workout shake and also as a meal supplement shake. I also have their regular whey protein that I'll mix with oatmeal or add to the Hurricane mix.

I used to use C4 for preworkout, but didn't care for it. Switched over to MyPre from MyProtein and I like it much better than the C4.

I also use their BCAA powder.

MyProtein is always running sales, so checking it every couple days can get you real good deals. The only issue is that sometimes their products stay "sold out" for a while.

As always, YMMV, but I've been happy dealing with them and their products.