I’ve been weight training consistently for more than a decade, keep up to date on the science, and I don’t find this that surprising. mTOR is stimulated by a r

I’ve been weight training consistently for more than a decade, keep up to date on the science, and I don’t find this that surprising. mTOR is stimulated by a rising plasma concentration of leucine. It can only be stimulated to a certain extent at a given time (known as the “muscle full” effect), but if the leucine level remains chronically elevated until after the refractory period, it makes sense that another bout would trigger. You can even see in their results that the smaller protein feeding produced a larger percentage-wise incorporation of that protein into muscle protein (17% vs 13%). If the subjects consumed that 25g four times across the 12 hours, I imagine they would have produced a larger net accumulation of muscle protein than the 100g group. This is because each discrete feeding could produce other anabolic effects, such as stimulating the release of insulin. You can also see that the 25g dosing was insufficient to saturate even short-term muscle protein synthesis rates from figure 6C. Based on that graph, I’d guess that about a 40g bolus would have been sufficient. So, no groundbreaking practical implications, IMO. Single bolus is still suboptimal, just maybe less suboptimal than the researchers thought. When evaluating practical implications, it is also worth noting that most humans do not fast after consuming a single protein shake, or after consuming four protein shakes. Our diets are typically a little more complex and varied than that.