You finish a set of swings out of breath, put the kettlebell down, and the session is over in twenty minutes. Whether that needs any thought about protein, and how much, is a question worth answering properly, because the number most articles give you is the wrong one for anyone who trains.
If you’ve paid a visit to the fitness side of the internet in recent years, you’ve probably noticed how protein’s popularity seems to have skyrocketed over a short period of time. What was once an optional supplement for people looking to maximize their gains in the gym, protein is now being pushed even to the average Joe, not just as a part of a balanced diet, but as a macro that needs to be meticulously measured and watched.
With all the pressure to keep a close eye on your protein intake, it’s natural to ask – how important is protein? Is it necessary to take a protein supplement even if your fitness goals don’t necessarily involve growing muscle? And how do you know if you’re getting enough? Find out here.
What is Protein and What is It For?
Protein is one of three macronutrients, the other two being carbohydrates and fats. All three can be used for energy, but that is not what protein is mainly for. Carbohydrates and fats are your body’s working fuels. Protein is broken down into amino acids that get used as building material for muscle, connective tissue, enzymes, hormones and immune cells.
Your body has no protein store to draw on the way it stores carbohydrate as glycogen or energy as fat. Every gram of protein in you is already doing a job. So when you go short, your body takes amino acids from working tissue, which is why prolonged low intake shows up as lost muscle rather than as a depleted reserve. Protein is only used as fuel in any quantity during severe carbohydrate restriction, prolonged calorie deficit, or long endurance efforts.
Because of its function in the building up and repair of existing tissues, especially muscle tissue, consuming enough protein in a day combined with resistance training helps to grow muscle mass, promote a more toned appearance, and improve strength overall.
Who Needs Protein?
Back in simpler times, ‘protein goals’ was something you would only hear from bodybuilders and heavy lifters who wanted to grow their muscles as big as they could. But these days, the fitness side of the internet pushes increased protein intake on virtually everyone, including stay-at-home moms and 9-to-5 office bros.
So, who actually needs protein? The simple answer is that we all do, because it is a necessary macronutrient. How much you need is where most articles go wrong.
You will see 0.8 g per kilogram of body weight quoted as what the average person needs. That figure is the RDA, and the RDA is a floor. It is the amount set to prevent deficiency in a sedentary adult, not a target for anyone who trains.
If you do resistance training of any kind, the number is roughly double. A meta-analysis of 49 trials and 1,863 participants found gains in muscle and strength continued up to about 1.6 g per kilogram per day, with the confidence interval running to 2.2.¹ A separate dose-response analysis found strength increasing by about 0.72% for every extra 0.1 g per kilogram, up to around 1.5 g per kilogram.²
For a 60 kg person, that is the difference between 48 g a day and something closer to 96 g. For a 90 kg person, 72 g against roughly 145 g.
Age moves it up rather than down. Older adults absorb and use dietary protein less efficiently, so an international expert group recommends at least 1.0 to 1.2 g per kilogram per day for people over 65, and more for those who are training or dealing with illness.³ Anyone over 65 following the 0.8 g figure is likely eating too little.
If your training is mostly kettlebells, there’s a good chance you’re underestimating this. High-rep swings, cleans and snatches leave you breathless, so they get filed under cardio, and then the session doesn’t get counted when working out how much protein you need. The repair demand tracks the mechanical work you did, not how hard you were breathing while you did it. A session of kettlebells for conditioning is still resistance training as far as your protein is concerned.
Protein isn’t just some fancy fitness buzzword or trend – it’s a real, necessary component of a healthy diet. And while eating less protein than your body needs in a day every now and then probably isn’t a cause for alarm, consistently consuming too little can result in:
- Increased hunger
- Decreased energy levels
- Slower recovery from workouts, exercise, and injury
- Changes in hair, skin, and nail condition
- Weakened immune response
- Loss of muscle mass and strength over time
More Than Muscle Mass – The Other Benefits of Protein
If you’re not exactly too invested in fine-tuning your diet to reach certain fitness goals, it’s still important to recognize that protein does more than just help you grow your muscles.
Some of these include:
- Longer periods of satiety after meals — Because our bodies take longer to digest protein, eating a meal with a substantial amount of protein can make you feel fuller for longer, preventing frequent snacking.
- Blood sugar regulation — Eating protein together with carbs (instead of eating carbs alone) can blunt the subsequent blood sugar spike, allowing people to regulate their blood glucose levels by simply altering the food on their plate.
- Repairing skin, organs, and tissues — Protein is a raw material that our bodies use to repair damage to various parts of the body. Amino acids from protein provide building blocks for worn-out cells that need to be replaced.
- Regulate hormones — Proteins are used to make certain hormones, and they also function as enzymes and receptors which act as the body’s messengers and receivers.
And then of course, there’s the muscle-building part, which is what most people use protein for.
Resistance training disturbs muscle tissue, and your body responds by rebuilding it, using amino acids from the protein you eat. That is the adaptation you are training for, and it happens whether you are working for size, strength, power, or conditioning. A hard session of swings, cleans and presses creates the same repair demand as a session on a barbell.
Soreness is worth separating from that. Sore muscles are commonly explained as micro-tears, but the mechanism behind delayed onset muscle soreness is not settled. Current work points at the connective tissue and fascia surrounding the muscle rather than the muscle fibres themselves,⁴ and other researchers argue for a nerve-related explanation. What is reasonably clear is that soreness is a poor guide to how much you adapted. You can be very sore from a session that built nothing, and build well from a session that left you fine.
One objection comes up often enough to be worth answering. Plenty of people training for strength, power or work capacity keep their protein low because they don’t want to get bigger. Eating enough protein does not make you bigger. Size comes from a training stimulus aimed at size and enough total calories to support it. Without those, extra protein supports the repair you’re already asking for. Under-eating protein doesn’t keep you lean and small, it just leaves you recovering worse.
Now, it pays to note that not everyone wants to grow muscle. We all have our own, unique fitness goals, whether it’s simply maintaining what physical ability we have, improving endurance and stamina, or just moving our bodies to support overall wellness.
Whatever your fitness goals might be, however, protein is a non-negotiable dietary requirement that you shouldn’t overlook. Responsible for more than just muscle growth, protein plays a role in organ and tissue repair, blood sugar regulation, and even hormone function. The problem, however, is that the standard diet can make it easy for us to fall short of our daily protein intake requirements without us noticing.
Are You Getting Enough Protein?
Being mindful of what you pick up at the grocery store can make it possible to achieve your daily protein intake requirements just by the food you eat. Options like:
- Eggs
- Fish
- Chicken
- Beef
- Tofu
- Turkey
- Greek yogurt
- Chickpeas
- Nuts and seeds
- Cheese
…can be great options. But buying protein-packed food and preparing protein-packed meals are two entirely different stories, and that’s often where the struggle lies. While it’s easy to find food in the grocery store that contains enough protein for your diet, preparing meals can be a challenge, especially for people with busy schedules, limited culinary capability, or who simply get paralyzed by all the mental workload involved in meal planning and prepping.
Kettlebell training also tends to run at a higher frequency than a barbell split. Four to six short sessions a week is common, particularly when training at home, which leaves less time between sessions for recovery. That makes what you eat across the whole day matter more than hitting any particular window after training.
That’s why people with protein gaps in their diet often turn to a protein supplement. Designed to help you meet your protein goals by bridging gaps or adding to your dietary intake, protein supplements provide an easy and practical workaround for people who struggle to meet their protein needs by food alone.
At True North, we provide a variety of protein supplement options that cater to people of all fitness levels and goals. Whether you’re hoping to grow muscle, maintain your current level of fitness, or just want to make sure your body gets the protein it needs, our supplements are third-party lab-tested and come in a variety of flavors.
Before you buy anything, divide the protein per serving by the scoop size. That number is what you are actually paying for. True North’s whey protein powder page sets out the three types and puts concentrate at 80% protein by weight, which matches their unflavored version at 25 g in a 31 g scoop. The flavored versions come in at 24 g in a 32 g scoop, or 75%, because flavoring and sweetener take up part of every scoop. Both figures are ordinary for a concentrate. That same page also says whole food should stay your main protein source and a powder is for closing a gap, which is the right order to think about it in.
References
- Morton RW, Murphy KT, McKellar SR, Schoenfeld BJ, Henselmans M, Helms E, et al. A systematic review, meta-analysis and meta-regression of the effect of protein supplementation on resistance training-induced gains in muscle mass and strength in healthy adults. Br J Sports Med. 2018;52(6):376–384. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2017-097608
- Synergistic Effect of Increased Total Protein Intake and Strength Training on Muscle Strength: A Dose-Response Meta-analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials. Sports Med Open. 2022;8:110. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40798-022-00508-w
- Bauer J, Biolo G, Cederholm T, et al. Evidence-based recommendations for optimal dietary protein intake in older people: a position paper from the PROT-AGE Study Group. J Am Med Dir Assoc. 2013;14(8):542–559. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jamda.2013.05.021
- Wilke J, Behringer M. Is “Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness” a False Friend? The Potential Implication of the Fascial Connective Tissue in Post-Exercise Discomfort. Int J Mol Sci. 2021;22(17):9482. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms22179482
