Free delivery over R1 100 R2 000+ scores a free Alpha Tee
14 July 2026 · Team Brotein
The anabolic window, examined. What the meta-analyses say about when to drink your shake, and the one number that matters far more.
The "anabolic window" is the most profitable 30 minutes in fitness marketing: slam a shake immediately after training or the workout was wasted. Here is what the evidence actually supports.
The panic version of the anabolic window does not survive contact with the research. A meta-analysis by Schoenfeld, Aragon and Krieger looked at the protein timing studies directly and found that once total daily protein was accounted for, timing around the workout had little to no additional effect on muscle or strength gains.¹
In other words: the shake you have with lunch and the shake you have straight after training are doing basically the same job, as long as the day's total lands where it should.
That total is the real story. The research puts the effective daily range at about 1.6g to 2.2g of protein per kilogram of bodyweight for people who train, which we walk through properly in how much protein do you actually need.²
Hit that number most days and the timing details are rounding errors. Miss it, and no amount of window-sprinting saves the day.
Whenever it helps you hit the total. That is the honest answer. Useful patterns:
The best schedule is the one you repeat on a boring Tuesday in July.
One or two scoops of 100% Whey slotted wherever your day has a protein gap, real food for the rest, total on target. That is the entire strategy. If you are new to all of it, the Starter Stack covers the two supplements with actual evidence behind them, and everything else is training, food and sleep.
