Muscle Fitness Muscle & Fitness UK - April 2018 | Page 138

UNDER THE
M I C RO S C O P E
By Dean Connor
USN MUSCLE FUEL ANABOLIC BAR
For quick snacks on the go when we are trying to build
as much muscle as possible, protein bars can be just the
tool. These handy packages of tasty goodness can pack
a great dose of the all-important good stuff, helping
with energy and recovery and putting the hours of
pumping weights to good use when seeking to build
your physique.
PROTEIN (20 grams per bar)
It’s no surprise that the first place we look when we pick
up a bar is how much of the muscle building nutrient is
actually in it. At 20 grams per bar it provides a great dose
to help initiate muscle protein synthesis, this is the repair
process that causes your muscles to become stronger
and bigger as a response to the stimulus. When the goal
is building muscle, maintaining a positive nitrogen
balance is key with both the overall protein amount
over the day along with the number of servings per day
impacting how successful you are at maximising this
process. Having snacks to hand such as this can be both
time saving and practical when life gets in the way and
situations seem impossible to eat a meal. The bar
contains a blend of protein sources that include
whey protein isolate, whey protein concentrate, milk
protein and soya protein isolate which will all have
differing digestive rates to help you be a 24-hour muscle
building machine.
CARBOHYDRATES (30 grams per bar)
For maximum energy and performance when hitting the
iron to build muscle, optimal carbohydrate levels are a
key nutrient. Their effect can be seen as two-fold in the
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pursuit of growth, from both an energy perspective to
help grind out the repetitions needed to overload the
muscles and also as a protective nature against muscle
loss. Having enough fuel, in the form of muscle glycogen
in your body before you train will maximise your results
in the gym. These stores will be replenished throughout
the day when you are consuming carbohydrates so as a
post-workout snack or just something later on in the day
when you’re feeling peckish, these are an ideal addition
to your daily carbohydrate intake.
At the same time, it is also useful to note that the
amount of carbohydrates in the bar is not excessive so
those who are following a lower carbohydrate approach
could still easily use them as part of their diet.
FAT (4.6 grams per bar)
How you can only manage to include 4.6 grams of fat into
a bar with the flavour chocolate peanut butter is fascinat-
ing. This is hugely important as fat will go a long way to
give something its flavour, but when it packs 9 Calories
per gram, something that contains a high fat content can
easily rack up high Calorie numbers. A bar like this means
that you still have a tonne of room to get fat from the rest
of the food in your diet, extremely important for anabolic
hormone functions so it really does make a perfect
addition to your cupboards.
Finely tuning this balance, this bar delivers just
231 kcal in return for providing you with both flavour
and quality to ensure your muscle building efforts
don’t go to waste.