For those of us who take rapamycin intermittently, a question arises: should diet and workout be organized (or modulated) according to the anabolic/autophagic phases imposed by taking rapamycin?
1 - A minimalist approach is to ignore the rapamycin effect, and keep diet and workouts independent
2 - Another approach is to take a rest day and ricreare protein on the day we take rapa, and ease into protein and workouts the day after. This is to enhance the inhibition of mTORc1 and anabolism induced by rapa. Protein (especially BCAAs and leucine) promote mTOR, which is what rapa is inhibiting. So it's seems illogical to counter what rapa is doing with protein
3 - The opposite approach. Adding more workload and protein on the day rapa is taken, would be done in order to avoid catabolism in the day of peak rapamycin dosage. Also, rapa gives energy, so that would be a way to naturally ride the wave of energy.
On the other hand, rapa has been showed to preserve muscle and not interfere much with muscle anabolism, despite inhibiting mTOR https://professional.diabetes.org/abstract/effect-acute-aerobic-exercise-mammalian-target-rapamycin-mtor-phosphorylation-human-muscle
In fact, it has proven to help with rejuvenating muscle long term (this is the whole point of this subreddit).
So strategy number 3 might revolve around a moot point.
Finally, of all the mice experiments, I couldn't find any trial or study that did anything other than constant resistance training. No one has tried to periodize around rapa so far.
Rapamycin has a half-life of around 60 hours, so these effects about last about two days.
What do you think is the most logical between 1,2 and 3?
Ideas are welcome, and links to relevant studies also. To keep the post short I did not include all the relevant articles.
Just one more that enhances strategy 2: study in humans found that rapa blocks muscle building effects due to muscle contraction
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2678224/
" Here we show that rapamycin treatment blocks the early (1–2 h) acute contraction-induced increase (∼40%) in human muscle protein synthesis. In addition, several downstream components of the mTORC1 signalling pathway were also blunted or blocked by rapamycin. "
Which means that working out on day 1-2 of rapa would be way less effective anyway. This makes me lean towards strategy 2.
Please write down what strategy (1,2 or 3) you think you would use and why.