So in bodybuilding circles everyone talks about protein of course and the craze the last few years is to talk about leucine and keeping the body in a state of protein synthesis, etc.
When we get as detailed as talking about particular amino acids what other things should we be talking about in regards to nutrients for muscle growth and bodybuilding/strength?
Bonus points for the stuff that gets overlooked
https://www.nutritiontactics.com/measure-muscle-protein-synthesis - this is one of the best, up-to-date guides on MPS written by a researcher in the field. Section 7 goes over the nutrition side of things. Overall, unless you are vegan specific amino acids don’t matter as much. Leucine is important, but animal products have enough leucine to not matter as long as you are meeting your daily protein requirements and spreading your protein evenly in 3-5 meals through the day. Other amino acids sort themselves out if you eat animal protein. Carbs and fat also don’t play a direct role in MPS, their role is only to support energy for training, and hormonal regulation/fat soluble vitamine absorbing. Jorn Trommelen (the author of the article) has 2 interviews on the Jeff nippard podcast on YT, there he discusses more tangential topics to MPS not mentioned in the article, you might find it interesting.
As a general rule of thumb, the more amino acids you consume, the better it is for muscle growth. Leucine is one amino acid. Leucine alone will always be inferior to consuming a food or supplement that contains all amino acids.
It should be noted that it’s probably not wise to try to keep your body in a constant state of protein synthesis with leucine. Once you spike muscle protein synthesis, there appears to be a refractory period.