13. Bitter: A Better Build for Bowling Ball Biceps
Those sickeningly sweet protein powders are lying. It’s not the sweet that creates muscle growth, bitterness is behind the brawn building badassery
Like trying to get a kitty in a bath, your body fights tooth and tail against creating fresh muscle. You’re built to be an energy Scrooge and muscle building is calorically expensive. It’s an even costlier to upkeep. A physique endowed with superfluous brawn, demands more calories to do everything. Want to brush the dog fur off your black jacket? A jacked person uses far more energy to look sharp compared to someone, of an equivalent bodyweight, who has never come to grips with a dumbbell.
To spark new muscle growth, you have to slave drive your joints into lifting progressively larger volumes of weight. Your nervous system gets more efficient. The weights get heavier. You eat more protein. Finally, your dream guns enjoys a debut when the suns out. It’s a progression. However, to understand why bitter foods are integral to this process, you need to appreciate the delicate intricacies of hulking out of your favorite set of sleeves.
Step 1: Muscle Is a Commitment Thing
If you’re truly committed, you’ve done your homework and googled the best way to build muscle. Deciphering that info avalanche can be like trying to get a drink from a burst fire hydrant. Thousands of clicked-up beefcakes promise their system is God particle of brawn. What is the clearest truth metric? The size of a trainer’s vested guns? The volume of their before and after photos? Can they all be right? Yes! And yes, suggests a paper in Sports Medicine.
They all work, as long you follow one key variable. Consistency. The researchers merged the results of 24 different resistant training studies that involved 1000 people over an average of 15 weeks. The singular element in control of how much strength and muscle gains was always workout frequency. That means discipline and consistency with your desires and actions. The more you commit, the more of you there is to commit.
Step 2: Experts Support Frequency
Follow the muscle-bound elites, from Mike Tyson to Dwayne Johnson, and they’ll tell you discipline is the line in sand between progress and failure. Do the thing you hate, as if you love it, even when you don’t want to, and you’ll grow. To this end, exercise frequency is how many days a week you’re able to train at a reasonably high intensity. The research found the next most influential variables were the number of reps and sets you do but they pale in comparison to stubborn ox perseverance.
Okay, so advice to keep slogging away until you’ll see results is about as obvious as asking why Fox News doesn’t feature much news about foxes (they’re just not that interesting). This means no muscle building technique is vastly superior to the next. The experts agree that what makes the difference is consistency, especially in the face of adversity. And this is precisely how bitter foods lend their expertise.
Step 3: Consistency + Recovery = Growth
Exercise frequency might be the Steven Spielberg, directing your muscle growth but he still needs his Indiana Jones to be well rested to create blockbuster growth. For an everyday Indi, like you, this means recovery. Burning out your resources will put less crack in the whip of your training. If you’ve exercised intensely for three days straight, you’ll often feel as if you’ve booby trapped your body into feeling flat and burnt out.
Whether it’s running miles or bench-pressing dumbbells, your body demands down time. Every single body works the same. Only once your battery is fully recharged and the exercise-induced muscle damage repaired, can you maximize your training intensity and consistency. Whether you’re an elite athlete or just a guy trying to look good at the beach, everyone needs to balance self-care and self-destruction. If you can consistently maximize exercise intensity, you’ll optimizing your conditions for muscle growth. And this sweet spot is where everyday people start to make A-list gains.
Step 4: Recovery Is a Scarce Nutrient
Fortunately, if you regularly taste a hint of bitterness then you’ll get the oomph to train hard and recover like a boss. To understand why, take stock of the highest positions on the recuperation’s totem pole. These are occupied by your balance of macro nutrients: fats, carbs, and protein. Of those three, it’s impossible to deny the importance of protein. Your muscles are literally made of it. Without it, you will not perform, grow, or live without the nickname Skeletor.
What makes protein so crucial is its rich concentration of branched chain amino acids (BCAAs). Alongside essential amino acids (EAAs), BCAAs are a non-negotiable element for accelerating your recovery after exercise. The three biggest players in BCAAs are leucine, isoleucine, and valine. Of these, leucine is the Goat of GOATs. It, along with all the other BCAA’s, has a flavor bitter enough to make you spit. Leucine is so powerful that a paper in Sports Medicine found it was by far the most anabolic of all amino acids. It even helped people maintain a high level of athletic performance while losing fat. If you’re looking a nutrient with all the qualities of a heroic He-Man, leucine has that power. It isn’t the most common nutrient, so grab it where you can get it.
Step 5: Everyone Loves Leucine
BCAAs hog tie nourishment to your hungry muscles without the calorie count that you get from solid food. These are the building blocks of muscle and when supplemented with, are particularly useful to take before, during and after every workout. How can they possibly factor into your growth equation when the BCAA supplement flavors taste like a cocktail with a mini umbrella poking out of it?
They’re formulated to throw shade on their naturally bitter flavor that repulses everyone. If you were to buy a tub of unflavored BCAA’s, you’d quickly realize exactly what the building blocks of protein taste like in their truest form. Bitter. They’re no pina colada. Protein and BCAA are among the world’s most popular sports supplements for good reason. They work. Over. And Over.
Step 6: Reciprocate with Aminos
Okay, so nobody expects you gobble teaspoons of suss tasting white powder. However, it is important to realize that despite the supplement industry’s fancy flavor options, all your favorite protein sources have an undercurrent of bitterness to their taste profile. This is thanks to their high leucine content. It’s the hardest working amino in every weight room. Without it, you’d never recover. You’d never be able to make consistent muscle gains, run faster or get fitter.
Unless you’re eating liver, you usually can’t detect the bitterness. Why? Well, most proteins have additional taste profiles that counterbalance the palate sensation. You need to eat this bitter amino acid because it’s what you’re made of so to make more of yourself, biceps included, you need to eat like for like. That’s how your muscles are made. And leucine’s bitterness is a valentine to their ability to grow. Give them what they need.
A Bitter Bottom Line
Who are the leucine A-listers? Chicken. Beef. Pork. Tuna. Beans. Milk. Eggs. The same muscle building foods recommended by just every nutritionist, dietitian, and trainer. Well, those who aren’t vegan. Whey protein does lead the rankings because it’s a processed and concentrated milk product. You can’t taste the bitterness because it’s hidden by their accompanying sweet, sour, umami and salty flavors. It’s also why you love them because they have a richness of taste that ticks all the boxes.
Bitterness is present in all these foods thanks to their high leucine content. It’s why they offer the deep taste profiles we love. They’re all high in BCAAs and these help you train consistently because you can recover faster. Eat. Sleep. Train. Repeat. Do this often enough and your muscle have no choice but to grow to accommodate the biggest of ambitions.
Bittersweet Tip 15: Quinoa: say it right
Quinoa isn’t the kind of thing that rolls of your tongue. Figuratively speaking. It literally would. It’s hard to order without wondering if you’re saying it right and it’s even hard to eat without wondering if you’re doing that right. Your biceps don’t care if you are, they just want you to eat it, mostly as a counterbalance to your meat-eating ways. Sure, you need animal protein to build more muscle, but you also need the leucine in plant protein to live long so you can enjoy your brawn. Quinoa may be bitter, but it offers a lot, namely:
1. A well balance nutrient profile
2. Rich in anti-inflammatory compounds
3. Loads of fiber for better digestion
4. High in protein (8g per cooked cup)
5. Full of zinc used to increase testosterone levels
Quinoa is bitter thanks to its saponins that stop predators from eating it in the wild. Don’t let that deter you from eating it because while bitter, you can easily add a cup a day without feeling like you’re even eating it.
1. Lob a cup into any salad to bump up the protein
2. Use as a substitute for oatmeal
3. Chuck some cooked quinoa into your smoothies
4. Add some cooked quinoa to pancake, cookie of cupcake mixes
5. Make a bread free breakfast by adding quinoa to scrambled eggs, spinach and tomatoes
Quinoa is worth prepping as a batch at the start of the week in your rice cooker. Store it in the fridge and scoop some into just about everything you cook for a healthy carb that’s also high in protein that’ll help you build more muscle on the daily.