Gainer: what it is, types, benefits, harms and difference from protein mixtures * Crossfit

The topic of our article is gainer, the most popular sports supplement after protein blends and BCCA. You will find out what a gainer consists of, for what purpose it is used, whether there is any benefit from a gainer and what is its possible harm.

Why do you need a gainer

What is a gainer? It's simple - this is a protein-carbohydrate mixture created for effective and fast mass gain. Its main task is to cover the calorie deficit in the diet, which occurs due to increased physical exertion.

What a gainer is used for:

to increase the glycogen depot;
to compensate for the deficit in calorie intake;
for mass gain.
to close the protein-carbohydrate window;
to stabilize metabolic processes in order to accelerate them.

The latter factor is often used by people with busy work schedules who do not always manage to eat well.

Who needs a gainer

Ectomorphs. Eating complex carbohydrates for a long time is the only way to break the massive barrier and start growing. Almost any type of gainer is suitable for them, since a pure ectomorph is not prone to gaining body fat, which means it is invulnerable to the side effects of an overdose of sports nutrition.
Hardgainers. These are people who, due to lack of nutrition or due to physique characteristics, cannot gain muscle mass.
People who have a busy schedule of the day. In this case, the gainer will replace a full meal, reduce catabolic processes, while maintaining a high level of anabolism.
People taking AAS. Due to the increased synthesis of the male sex hormone, the need for nutrition and protein increases significantly.
CrossFitters. The peculiarities of CrossFit training imply increased energy expenditure, including glycogen. To prevent rhabdomyliosis, it is important to maintain an excess of calories in the off-season and take up to 4 servings of the gainer per day.
Powerlifters. The source of energy is not important for them - a gainer allows you to easily and without stress on the digestive tract achieve a serious predominance of carbohydrates in the diet.

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Difference Between Gainer and Protein Blends

Often times, people cannot understand the difference between a protein shake and a gainer. Indeed, both mixtures contain protein.

Let's explain: a protein mixture is needed solely to maintain the amino acid balance in the body. The gainer is mainly carbohydrates. Protein is added solely to stabilize the digestion process. Without protein, the gainer will be absorbed into the blood at the rate of glucose, which means it will not differ from sugar. In addition, some of the protein is used to aid in the fermentation of carbohydrates, and some is used to replenish the protein balance after exercise.

The carbohydrate window appears first after training, and then the protein window. Receiving a gainer frees you from closing these windows in one fell swoop. While before taking protein, you still have to load up on bananas or other fruits in order to open up the cells of the body with insulin.

Bottom Line: A gainer is a high carbohydrate protein blend.

Gainer types

Despite the common name, the gainer does not have a universal composition. There are several main types of gainers. And depending on the whims of the manufacturer in their composition, these mixtures may not intersect with any component.

Consider the main types of protein-carbohydrate mixtures that are now sold in large quantities on the market.

Type / name	Carbohydrate to Protein Ratio	Characteristic
Maltose	90/10	As part of maltodextrin - an ultra-fast carbohydrate that dissolves almost instantly. It causes a quick set of adipose tissue. Has no practical value.
Starch	80/20	A complex and expensive gainer that guarantees a high increase in strength indicators and an intensive mass gain.
Cheap	70/30	It contains several types of fast protein. Differs in the presence of soy protein in the composition. Milk powder and malta are sometimes added.
Fifty-fifty	50/50	A rare combination - intended for mesomorphs. Usually not a cost effective option as the individual components will be cheaper.
Branded	60/40-75/25	Popular cheap gainer. A distinctive feature is a beautiful box and an advertisement about an endorser in the form of Levron or Pianna.
Creatine	Any	A clever gainer comes in large 5kg packs. Ensures stable weight gain.
Complex	65/35	It contains fast and slow carbohydrates, fast and slow proteins. No additional ingredients available. Expensive but effective.
Balanced	60/40	You can only cook it yourself from purchased protein and a well-selected starchy multi-composition.

Benefit

Depending on the type of gainer, its benefits, as well as the method of application, may differ:

Ectomorphs with a fast metabolism can compensate for their calorie needs with a huge amount of slow, balanced mixtures.
Fast and cheap maltose syrup based gainer - can be used to close the carbohydrate window. When properly combined with amino acids, it will increase anabolism levels by 300-350% during the post-workout period.
Complex Creatine Gainers are recommended to be taken one hour before training to saturate the body with creatine and energy to break down glycogen in the blood during the training process.
Fifty-fifty, ideal combination for mesomorphs. Allows you to gain the most dry muscle mass.

It is important to understand what a gainer is for: after all, this is not a substitute for nutrition, but just a supplement that increases the total calorie content and partially covers the body's needs for necessary nutrients.

If you cannot get the calorie intake, feel free to add a gainer to your diet. But eating only a gainer or only protein mixtures is a bad idea, harmful to the gastrointestinal tract and the endocrine system.

Harm

Are there any specific contraindications for taking a gainer? Can it harm your body? As regrettable as it is, but unlike protein mixtures, a gainer is more dangerous to health if taken uncontrolled.

Let's take a closer look:

The gainer is not recommended for use with a reduced metabolic rate. Since all substances are easier to digest and absorb, taking a gainer can lead to an increase in body fat.
It is not recommended to take maltose gainer. It raises blood pressure, spikes in insulin, and has many other unpleasant side effects.
People who have deviations in insulin production (pre-diabetic states) should be extremely careful about the composition of gainers. In this case, you can take the gainer only on starch or other complex carbohydrates.
A creatine gainer can cause changes in water-salt balance.
A creatine protein-carbohydrate blend can cause cramps during exercise.
A cheap gainer may contain bad protein, which will cause indigestion.
Excessive consumption of weight gainers, which contain vitamins and minerals, can cause hypervitaminosis or accelerate the appearance of kidney stones.

Otherwise, protein-carbohydrate mixtures have no contraindications, except for the regulation of blood sugar.

It is important to understand that other side effects and possible contraindications mainly relate to cheap carbohydrate mixtures, and even then with a significant excess of dosages.

Features of gainers for girls

And now a very sensitive question, to which you can find contradictory answers on the Internet. Should girls take a gainer? Instead of a clean answer, let's go back to biochemistry and composition.

Gainer – it is a high-calorie product with a high absorption rate. Girls who do not engage in heavy physical exercise do not need such an excess of calories.
Cheap gainers are deposited in the lipid depot almost immediately. This is due to the peculiarities of the female metabolism.
The creatine and sodium in the composition can temporarily hide the waist under liters of water.

At its core, the right gainer is porridge with milk, and a cheap gainer is a sweet cake. Therefore, when a girl is faced with the question of whether she needs a gainer, it is worth asking herself first if she needs an additional plate of porridge for nutrition. If she is in the mass-gaining phase (this applies not only to professional bodybuilders), then taking a small amount of gainer is quite acceptable. But if a girl came with the goal of pumping up her ass and losing weight, then any excess of calories will only slow down her progress. In this case, it is better to replace the gainer with protein cocktails with a complex effect with a large amount of casein.

How to use

How to take a gainer correctly? For best results, take a gainer according to the following guidelines:

Calculate the lack of calorie intake.
Calculate how many portions of the gainer this will make.
Don't count the proteins included in the composition.
Divide the calorie deficit in your main meal by the number of servings of weight gainer you can take per day.
Be sure to take a serving of the gainer 15-20 minutes after training.

This is enough to achieve optimal results without resorting to any tricks.

Outcome

Despite the active promotion of the use of carbohydrate mixtures for progress, it is important to understand that a gainer – it is not a panacea. In most cases, this is an unjustified and expensive pleasure, which speeds up progress by 3-5%.

Proper and balanced nutrition will cost significantly less, and most importantly, it will allow you to achieve a better balance. Indeed, in buckwheat porridge or potato starch there are many more useful microelements, each of which pushes you to new strength gains. Instead of consuming a cheap gainer, you can simply drink honey and milk. It will come out cheaper and in its effect will not differ from the use of a cheap molasses-maltose product.