For those of you that are new to training and have just started out in the gym, you may have noticed a lot of the guys drink protein shakes before or after their workouts.

The reason behind this is because when you work your muscles they break down and need to repair themselves. Protein is known as the building block of the body so by supplementing your body with protein you can help to recover faster and increase your lean muscle tissue.

You may be thinking you get a lot of protein from food already; well the recommended protein intake for someone who wants to gain muscle is between 1.1-1.5 g protein per lb. For example a guy weighing 165lbs will need to consume around 205+ grams of protein per day to gain anymore muscle (as well as working out at the gym obviously) Now a large chicken breast may only contain 40g of protein, a pint of milk only contains 19g of protein, a steak may contain less than 14grams of protein so unless you spend all day eating chicken and fish and drinking milk (don’t forget you need carbohydrates too) you will struggle to reach your daily target.

With a protein shake you can easily and quickly consume 35-40gram of high quality, easily digestible protein. Protein shakes are simply a drink made from a scoop or two of protein powder which is then mixed with either water or milk to create a shake.