There are the super-simple cup-and-mesh protein shakers, the cheap shakers, the expensive high-tech blending solutions, the stylish portable protein mixers… okay, maybe there aren’t any stylish ones. But there is still a wide variety you can choose from, for anyone who wants that mix-and-go convenience of a portable protein shaker.

First is the most popular type of protein shake mixer bottle, the one with the wire mesh ball inside: the most popular version is the Sundesa Blender Bottle, which we highly recommend. This style comes in many different colors from lots of different brands (many of which are all made in the same factory in China), and it offers a simple, elegant solution without too much cost or hassle. The plastic cups themselves are usually not dishwasher safe (though some are top-rack safe; check first), but there is nothing special about the cups to make them difficult to clean by hand.

The ingenious piece of this puzzle is the ball agitator, made of metal wire to break apart the pieces of protein powder as you shake the bottle, ensuring a homogeneous protein mix every time. The ball itself is more difficult to clean by hand, but can be put into the dishwasher instead. And the ball works. Five or ten shakes of the shaker bottle with the ball in it will give you a great, consistent whey protein shake.

Sometimes this style of protein shaker bottle uses two smaller balls, which can work even better, or a tornado-shaped swirl of metal or plastic, which works about as well as the large wire ball does. We recommend any from this family of shakers, but our specific favorite for using at home or taking to the gym is the Sundesa Blender Bottle.

Another low-tech choice for mixing whey protein powder with water or milk is the mesh-top style protein shaker. These have a grid of plastic at the top which often attaches to the lid like the straining top of a martini shaker. The grid has the same function as the wire ball in the other protein shakers does, but the grid is harder to clean (almost never dishwasher safe) and doesn’t work as well.

Our testers found that the grid-style protein shakers almost always ended up with chunks of protein powder stuck to the bottom, with no built-in apparatus to agitate the precious supplement away from the unreachable depths of the bottom of the cup.

The final main type of protein shaker bottle is the electronic blender bottle, which, while still portable, is somewhat heavy because it is fully motorized. It’s a cool design but a little over-the top, with its spinning blades at the bottom doing their protein-mixing job well but noisily — a plus for anyone who likes to draw attention at the gym.

The electronic protein shaker blender bottle is perfect for all you techie bodybuilders who can deadlift 600 pounds but can’t be bothered to lift more than a finger to mix your protein shakes. If your favorite protein shaker is an electronic protein blender bottle, you’re one step away from making your butler do your bent row presses for you. Buy a normal Blender Bottle and save yourself the embarrassment.

Athletes who are actively working to build up muscle should get about 1.6 grams of protein per day for every kilogram their bodies weigh. That translates into about .73 grams of protein per pound of weight you have, assuming you follow a rigorous exercise plan for building muscle.

However, most people don’t consistently follow such a rigorous workout routine, and the typical American already gets more than enough protein in his regular diet without even thinking about high protein foods. Even the typical American vegetarian gets too much protein, partly due to the fact that the typical American does not exercise enough.

Working out and physical fitness burns calories, and the right kinds of workouts eventually build up muscles. That’s true whether you’re a carnivore, omnivore, vegetarian or vegan.

What changes based on your diet is simply that — your diet. There are many high protein foods available to vegetarians, not to mention that most protein supplements are suitable for lacto-ovo vegetarians.

Whey protein powder is a good vegetarian protein supplement, and it’s the main active ingredient in most protein shakes. It is worth checking the ingredients on protein bars because some contain gelatin, as do many pill-form supplements. But usually any protein shake will be free from meat and fish, so dust off that protein shaker.

For vegans, the options are narrowed. Whey is a dairy product, and so is casein, another popular source for protein in supplements. Soy is a good option, but beware: protein shakes and bars which contain soy often also contain whey or casein, so be sure to check the ingredients.

Two other options for vegan protein supplements are flax- and almond- or peanut-based proteins. The problem with these is that they just don’t have as much protein in them as whey, casein and soy options do, because flax, almonds and peanuts naturally contain less protein per gram. They do have other health benefits, though: all three contain very healthy fats that will boost your health.

But it’s possible to fill a muscle building diet for vegetarians or vegans without using a single protein supplement. Following the philosophy of supplements, nutrition-conscious raw-food enthusiasts do a great job of absorbing the proteins their bodies need without crossing the boundary into processed or manufactured food, using simple options such as peanuts and grains.

Any lacto-ovo vegetarian will have an easy time getting enough protein by including these foods in his diet: eggs, 2% milk, nuts, beans, lentils, quinoa, tofu, and cheese. And for vegans to do the same, removing the eggs and dairy in favor of additional legumes and grains will do the trick every time.

There is even a benefit to being a vegetarian bodybuilder, or a strength-building vegan. What some vegetarian foods lack in the macronutrient of protein, they almost always make up for in micronutrients such as vitamins and minerals. At the top of the ANDI (Aggregate Nutrient Density Index) charts, there are no meats or fish. Only vegetarian foods are so rich in vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals and antioxidants that they can claim the top spots on the ANDI chart.

Protein Absorption and Digestion – the Basic Science

The absorption of proteins takes place in the human body through a process of digestions using enzymes called proteases. Protein is broken down into amino acids and absorbed using these enzymes, which make it possible to use the proteins from your food for the things your body needs them for. Common sources of protein in your meals can include dairy products, eggs, meat, nuts, grains, and legumes.

You can maximize protein absorption in a muscle building diet by combining these sources of protein, so you aren’t always getting the same single type in every meal. Absorption rates vary, so another benefit of eating different protein types is that your body will be absorbing protein now and later, instead of just one or the other. That will help you build muscle up effectively as well.

All proteins contain amino acids, which your body needs; however not every food source will contain a full collection of the nine essential amino acids. This is what people mean when they talk about absorbing complete proteins and protein combination – they mean the processes of making sure you absorb proteins from various sources to be sure you get all nine essential amino acids to stay healthy.

How Much Protein Do I Need?

Your body’s protein absorption abilities will vary depending on the type of protein consumed, and your body’s requirements in amount of protein depend on variety of factors. However, here are the basic guidelines:

• Adult men: Minimum 56 grams per day or 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight, or double to 1.6 grams per kilogram if athletically active and building muscle.
• Adult women: Minimum 46 grams per day or 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight, or double to 1.6 grams per kilogram if athletically active and building muscle.

What’s the Point of Protein Supplements?

Protein supplements, for example shakes and bars, are designed to give your body an immediate dose of the all-important substance. Many people use protein shakes and protein bars to simply round out their existing diets, but a more specialized use is to take them right after working out to aid building muscle. For those interested in body sculpting, then, it’s important to either buy pre-made protein shakes, bars, or protein powders to mix your own and pump protein directly to your muscles after resistance training, and to understand the absorption of proteins as well as you can.

By keeping all the nutritional factors of how the body absorbs protein in mind, and using a fitness program designed around how to build muscle, you’ll be well on your way to sculpting the body you want. So fill up your protein shaker and get going!

Expert Knowledge About Protein Absorption

Whether you want to drop fat or build muscle, work out or simply understand your body better, it’s extremely important to know the basics of human biology with regard to the absorption of protein. When you are able to say honestly that you know how your diet will affect your body and vice versa, you will have much more control over both how you feel and the results you get from making lifestyle changes.

Everyone knows that crash diets don’t work because people don’t stay on their plans or else don’t get enough physical exercise to back it up. But do you know why people have such trouble staying on even diets that work? Part of the answer lies in the processes of nutrient digestion, particularly protein absorption.

If you give your body the right amount of the right types of protein, you can boost muscle growth up to 100% without destroying your kidneys in the process. Following the guidelines above will help you see results, as long as you’re careful and consult a physician before making any changes to your diet and exercise habits.

During the paleolithic era, our ancestors lived as foragers and hunters, finding protein and nutrition based on wild fruits and vegetables, seeds, nuts, and wild animals. Our ancestors got plenty of exercise, which came in short bursts with long resting periods in between — they would wait for an animal, then chase it down, attack it and haul the meat back).

These bouts of aerobic activity and strength training would not come consistently each morning before working at the office; they would occur primarily before eating, and in short, intense bursts (note the similarity to High Intensity Training).

A lot has changed in 12,000 years. Technology has given us an abundance of food that has allowed for a larger human population on the planet than ever before. Each year we invent new technologies and agricultural practices to allow for larger yields of food, even changing the genetic structure of plants and animals to suit our new production and consumption needs.

The problem is, our new diets aren’t necessarily good for us. Some nutritional experts suggest that the incorporation of such large amounts of grain into our diets has led directly to all kinds of new diseases, from serious digestive ailments such as Crohn’s disease to neurological disorders including multiple sclerosis. And many of our foods in the western world are unnaturally processed, stripping them of nutrients and sometimes adding poisonous pesticides and herbicides to the mix.

The Paleo Diet represents a reversal of all the negative effects of our leaps in technology, which have drastically changed our diets in an extremely short amount of time.

Evolutionarily speaking, the changes to our high protein diets have happened in practically no time at all, in the space of mere centuries. Compare that with the millennia that it took for our digestive systems to co-evolve with our environment, and you can begin to understand why there might be a lot of truth to the Paleo Diet’s claims, and how its abilities to help you build muscle up could only the beginning.

The first thing that a Paleo-based muscle building diet plan would change in your lifestyle, whether you’re interested in fast weight loss or building muscle, is the grain you eat. Wheat is the biggest offender and should be avoided completely, but even some supergrains like quinoa are contraindicated in the Paleo Diet. Stay tuned to Human Body Knowledge for more information about the Paleo Diet, including sample meal plans and workout routines.

Of course, most of their workout routines will be nearly identical. Personal trainers’ homegrown workout routines to build muscle usually all stem from the same basic things that the personal trainers learned in school and sometimes through post-graduate research, and the information given to all of them was pretty much the same.
They recommend the same weight training plans to every customer, though sometimes they change them drastically between men and women, and occasionally depending on the specific customer’s body sculpting goals. But there is something most of them don’t give enough attention to: stretching.

If you are serious about wanting to build muscle mass fast, you should be stretching before and after your workouts. To build muscle up is a complex process, requiring a lot of things from you. Strength-training exercise, a high protein diet, and self-discipline are all prerequisites to succeed in body sculpting. And so is stretching.

Stretching before using your muscles gives them more flexibility, making them easier to move in a full range of motion (which is very important for High Intensity Training and creating useful strength). It prepares them in the same way that stretching a rubber band prepares it for further stretching. You can even feel a similar heat given off by a stretched rubber like the heat given off by warming up your muscles through stretching, which is why they call it “warming up”.

That pre-workout stretching helps your muscles stretch and expand farther in all directions during weight lifting, and it decreases your chances of injury by preparing them for the workout. Exercise without preparation is an accident waiting to happen, so if you value safety you should definitely stretch before working out.

Stretching after exercise is important as well, because it keeps your muscles from contracting and reducing your range of motion. It helps to keep you flexible for the next workout and for real life, so that the muscle mass you gain will be worth more than just looking good.

Most advice about bodybuilding is incorrect, which makes it much harder to build up muscles than it needs to be. The first place where standard advice goes wrong is the diet. A good muscle building diet is a balanced one, one that consists of more than high protein foods and expensive supplements. A lot of the protein shakes that “experts” recommend are high in sugar (or even worse, high in artificial sweeteners), causing a rapid increase in the bodyfat percentage of the very people who are trying to become more lean and muscular.

Protein bars are even worse. The average protein bar is just a Snickers with different packaging and a little whey protein powder mixed into it, leading to the same problems that the average protein shake brings with it and more. The sugar, fat, and carbohydrate content of the typical protein bar far outweigh the benefits gained from its protein, making the entire product a waste of time.

The second place that most bodybuilding advisors go wrong is in their advice about working out. Good workout routines for building muscle do not require you to wake up at 5:00am every day to go to the gym for two hours before work. If that’s what you’re used to doing, then adopting a High Intensity Training program will make a huge difference in how fast and easily you build muscle up.

While we can’t say we know the absolute best way how to build up muscles, we can tell you that High Intensity Training is one of the best ways we know of. It is beloved by those in the know for its effectiveness as well as its ease of use — it is one of the easiest workout programs to stick with over long periods of time, because its philosophy calls for less time in the gym than most personal trainers recommend.

High Intensity Training teaches that there is such a thing as working out too much, and that muscles react poorly to overstimulation and overstress. To work out the same muscles every day, or every other day but with too many repetitions each time, is to stunt your own progress. The key to building up muscles faster is in putting just enough weight on them to break them down but allow for a quick recovery, and then give them plenty of time to hypertrophy (get bigger).

With High Intensity Training, you only work out with strength training two or three times per week, and you only do one set of each exercise. You do that one set with extreme intensity, because your goal is to fatigue the muscles involved to such a degree that they cannot do any more work, but because of the large amount of weight you use, you usually only do about 8 – 12 reps of any given exercise.

And then you wait 2- 5 minutes before moving to the next exercise, giving your core muscles and central nervous system enough time to recover before giving them the next challenge. That makes High Intensity Training one of the best, and easiest, ways to build up muscles faster than ever.

And so accordingly, men and women often concentrate on different types of exercise plans. Typical workout routines for men focus more on building muscle mass than on losing weight, even though fat loss will often make a bigger difference in the man’s appearance than muscle gain will at first.

Workout routines for women are typically based around a foundation of aerobic exercise such as spin classes, or a low-impact training such as yoga, designed more for its stretching, breathing, and mental benefits than for any physical body sculpting impact. The standard choice for women who want to lose fat and build muscle up is an aerobic-heavy workout routine with a diet for quick weight loss thrown in on top of it.

However important dieting can be for the figure, body sculpting and fast weight loss don’t come exclusively from aerobic exercise and counting calories. Sculpting your figure can also be achieved through anaerobic exercise, such as weight lifting and other strength training workouts. In fact, although most fitness programs offer different workout routines for men and women, most of the time both sexes can accomplish their different goals through the same exercises.

To speak about averages, women actually have under ten percent of the testosterone that men have. Testosterone is a vital component of building muscle mass that this fact alone means that most women will have a lot of difficulty acquiring bulging, ripped muscles. Which is great news, because most women don’t want the look of a veiny bodybuilder.

What that means is that women who want to lose weight quickly can do exactly what men do to build up muscle, because those exercises actually burn calories better than aerobic exercises do. They can lift weights. They can do calisthenic resistance training. They can use those big complicated machines at the gym that are usually monopolized by big hulking men. And they can do all of this with impunity, because their ratio of testosterone to estrogen won’t allow them to bulk up the way many men would.

Some people will read this article and point out that women have more slow-twitch muscle fibers than men do, and because slow-twitch muscle fibers are what grow the most during strength-training exercise, women will indeed build muscle just as quickly as men, if not faster. But there is a fatal flaw in this logic. The amount of slow-twitch muscle fiber in your body is not determined purely by genetics. It is also determined by the exercise you do and the diet you have.

Muscle fibers naturally change with exercise and diet, and if you’re a woman interested in building lean muscle and losing fat, your goals are actually quite similar to those of most men after all. You will still look much different from them when you come out of the gym, even if you use the same machines.

What the Aggregate Nutrient Density Index provides is a score of the nutritional qualities of different foods, on a scale of 1 to 1,000. The higher the score, the more nutritionally dense the food is – as measured by ANDI according to micronutrients such as vitamins and minerals, antioxidant power and phytochemicals. This is all very useful information for body sculpting for anyone who wants to improve his or her physique, and can be very beneficial in designing diets that work for losing weight.

The score of each food is based on comparing its nutrient content versus its overall caloric content; in other words, foods high in nutrients but low in calories will score very high, while foods low in nutrients but high in calories will score low.

Accordingly, the highest scoring foods are all vegetables, because many veggies are relatively low in calories but high in micronutrients like vitamins and minerals. Kale, watercress, and spring greens all top out the chart at 1,000 each, for example, while the highest scoring fish is tuna at only 46. Meats and dairy don’t fare much better, with chicken breast scoring a 27 while whole milk gets a 20.

You can’t rely on an ANDI score alone to determine everything you should be eating, though. You would have to eat a lot of watercress to get the same number of calories as a single chicken breast, and tofu with its score of 37 is still a much better source of protein than swiss chard, despite its hefty 670.

However, you can use the ANDI as a guide for your vitamin needs and consider getting more of your vitamins from natural foods instead of nutritional supplements. You can also use it to compare foods with similar protein profiles to get the most bang for your buck in using one food to meet multiple needs, for example lentils (104) for both protein and vitamins instead of an egg (27) dish for protein and a side of kale for vitamins.

Unfortunately, supplements such as protein shakes aren’t given ANDI scores because they are not whole foods. But most protein supplements aren’t nutrient-rich anyway, except for the protein and sugars they provide, and so it’s best to assume they won’t fill any of your other needs like regular foods will.

So while protein bars, shakes and meat can be great foods to build muscle, you will be much healthier if you adopt several different foods with high ANDI scores and eat them regularly.

The reason why is that what successful athletes do for exercise may work, but that doesn’t mean they know why it works, or exactly which parts of their plans work the best. Therefore it is impossible for most athletes to honestly claim that you can do A, B, and C in order to get result D.

Another reason why it’s difficult to understand what the best way to build muscle is is that the way your body will react to one exercise and one diet plan is probably different from how someone else’s might react. It might even be vastly different, depending on your particular genetics and constitution type.

Constitution type refers to the different classification options for categorizing the human form. One of the most popular systems of classification is that of somatotypes, based on William Herbert Sheldon’s constitutional psychology.

Though Sheldon’s work dates back to the 1940s and should not be taken as a complete set of scientific rules (much of his work in psychology is no longer believed by the psychiatric community), many people still consider the physical constitution types based on his work to be useful for defining their own body types.

Since someone’s body type will largely determine how his or her body responds to exercise, people often site their constitution type as a reason for why they can’t lose weight and fail at body sculpting. Some even take it farther than that, believing that nothing they do will bring them any physical positive benefit.

They may believe that because drinking protein shakes has not automatically made them build muscle up, they must not be physically able to do so. Or that they can’t lose weight fast because of something passed down genetically; that they are the wrong body type to ever be fit.

But anyone can be fit. Your biggest mistake would be in asking the question, “How can I build up muscle when my genes won’t allow it?” Because your genes can’t prevent you. Only your thoughts can.

In building muscle, working out and sculpting you body (as well as most other things in the world), when it gets very difficult to do so, the most important thing you can do is simply work harder. Stick with your workout routine and your muscle building diet plan, and you will do well in the end.

The reason whey protein isolate is such a popular choice when it comes to building muscle is that bodybuilders know they need something that absorbs quickly into their musculature. Among all of the normal options for mainstream protein supplements, the rate of protein absorption is fastest for whey. That allows for the biggest dose of protein to be pumped into the muscles right after working out, which theoretically is the best protein supplement for athletes who want the biggest muscle gains.

The problem with this mode of thinking, with this theory, is that when your body digests whey protein that quickly it can lead to a negative nitrogen balance if taken alone without something else to slow down its absorption rate. And if you do that, what’s the point in taking something so fast-absorbing anyway?

A better option for most users, whether just starting out or serious professionals, is a slower-absorbing casein protein supplement such as Micellean micellar casein protein. By taking casein protein supplements instead of whey, you’ll be giving your body a better chance at building muscle quickly. And you’re if in this game to build up muscle, that’s exactly what you want.

But even if you really want to build muscle up fast, you probably aren’t willing to give up on sustainability simply for short-term results. Or at least, you shouldn’t be willing to do so. And that’s another one of the benefits to casein protein supplements: you can take them at night time, before bed, to make that muscle growth more sustainable.

Because the absorption rate of casein protein is so much slower with casein than with whey, it is less likely to keep you awake when you’re trying to get to sleep. And it will continue absorbing into your muscles throughout the night, during the cellular repair processes that occur at that time, including the process of building muscles up. What’s more, you can use casein-based protein powder supplements the same way you’re already using whey ones: toss the powder into your favorite protein shaker, add milk or water and presto! You’ll be building muscle up in no time.