Discussion
The present study showed that pre-sleep protein ingestion stimulates myofibrillar and mitochondrial protein synthesis during overnight recovery from endurance-type exercise. Furthermore, we demonstrate that casein protein ingestion prior to sleep does not provide a greater anabolic response during overnight sleep when compared to the ingestion of whey protein.It has been well established that micellar casein is a slowly digestible protein source and that its ingestion results in a more sustained release of protein-derived amino acids in the circulation [To study the impact of the overnight increase in plasma amino acid availability on overnight muscle protein synthesis rates, we applied In addition to the impact of pre-sleep protein ingestion on overnight myofibrillar protein synthesis rates, we also assessed the impact on mitochondrial protein synthesis rates. Previous work has failed to detect an impact of post-exercise protein ingestion on mitochondrial protein synthesis rates [Our observations suggest that pre-sleep protein ingestion represents an effective strategy to support muscle tissue repair and facilitate the skeletal muscle adaptive response to endurance training. The observed increase in both myofibrillar as well as mitochondrial protein synthesis rates provides the rationale for the observation that protein supplementation can improve gains in aerobic capacity and lean mass during endurance training [