When you are working out and trying to build muscle, or if you are a professional bodybuilder and want more lean muscle mass, then a macronutrient like protein powder is essential for your body composition over the next few months or years. Protein is considered a critical component for muscle growth, repair, and maintenance of muscle tissues. Also, it greatly helps with your conditioning, performance, and overall strength. So many people wonder how the right protein type can impact your body.

How Protein is Categorised

You need to understand that protein can be classified into three main things; each one is different in its own way, with its compound mixes of other nutrients and the percentage of pure protein inside it. The processing of the powder forms can provide different compositions that are suitable for different types of people’s bodies. Below is an overview of all three:

1. Isolates:
   • These have a lot of non-protein components removed.
   • It is composed of 90% protein with the rest being just dry weight, different flavouring sweeteners, and random nutrients.
2. Concentrates:
   • This composition has about 70 to 80% of protein, having the remaining percent as a mix of minerals, water, fats, and carbohydrates.
   • It has less protein but more of the other beneficial components.
3. Hydrolysates/Hydrolysed:
   • This one has a considerable amount of polypeptides and peptides.
   • They are considered as a partially digested protein, which is very beneficial for the body, providing a lot of amino acids as building blocks for muscle tissues and actions for the body.

How To Determine The Best One For You

Every person is different and has a specific body type that would need a specific mixture of protein compounds that can help them get the results they desire. You can figure this out in one of three ways:

1. PDCAAS:
   • This stands for Protein Digestibility Corrected Amino Acid Score, which is your way of measuring how much protein your body is flushing out, giving you a clear overview of how much your body uses and how much it would need for your body transformation results.
   • This method is a lot better than it was 20 or 30 years ago, where the only way to figure it out was through outdated methods like efficiency ratios that compare the protein needs of rats as our reference point, which was never accurate.
2. Biological Value:
   • This method helps you determine how much of the ingested protein remains in your body.
   • It measures the amount of nitrogen in your food, urine, and faeces (disgusting but helpful!).
   • This value can be represented on a scale of 0 to 100, where 100 is the highest bioavailability amount in your body.

3. Amino Acid Profile:
   • This is important because the body cannot get its full potential of amino acids from dietary sources – what you eat – so you would need that boost from the powders you will take.
   • This complete profile can help you only if the acids link up and synthesise the proteins with the right associate components in your body.
   • When you see that one of the essential amino acids in your body is low, then it will limit the amount of protein to synthesise; you will know what to take to balance out the proportions.

The Different Types of Powders

Protein has evolved over the years, and its popularity has grown immensely, making different nutritionists and experts develop new compositions for products that can benefit each person, depending on their needs. For example, you might go for Whey, which is the most popular supplement, famous for burning fat and building muscle mass, and it is digested and absorbed faster than its counterparts.

Or, you could go for Milk based supplements that can greatly improve and speed up your recovery time when your muscles tear up after a good workout. Another kind is Egg-based supplements that contain mostly egg whites, a decent alternative for people allergic to milk.   

Vegans and Vegetarians can rejoice because there is a compound that is made specifically for them, which is the Pea-based composition powder. They are perfect for people that cannot or struggle to digest dairy products or have diary allergies/intolerance; it is very high in Branched Chain Amino Acids (BCAAs), and it boasts around 98% of your digestion rate. So your body can process a huge bulk of the amino acids in your servings.

Figure It Out Based on Your Needs

Choosing the right one is not the only factor, as other factors that can impact your search and decision include:

• You should think about your budget and how capable you are in affording these products. Remember to double-check the ingredients and the quality of the powder if you find something cheap.
• You need to consider getting the perfect ones for muscle growth if you want to build bigger muscle mass, so you should go for the ones with high biological values.
• If you are trying to lose weight, then you should avoid getting ones with sugar, sweeteners, or high dosage of BCAAs because they promote weight gain with the muscle mass.
• If you are vegan or vegetarian, then you should get the products that are plant/herb-based, so avoid any powders with eggs or milk.
• When you are diabetic, it does not mean you should not take protein powders; just pick ones that have no sugar at all and have low carbohydrates too.
• Some people have irritable bowel syndromes, or they are lactose intolerant, so you should choose powders that have no percentages of dairy, dextrins/maltodextrins, and other artificial flavours and sugar-based sweeteners.

Summary

People have so many supplement choices when it comes to protein, but only a select few can make a positive impact on your body type. Depending on how much you work out each day, your protein intake may need to be more than the recommended daily allowance for your body. Shop around, read the reviews, and really do the research when it comes to the benefits of each one. Then figure out which product is good for your muscles and body.