On Friday I had my leg day where I tried out quite tough resistance training. After the session I felt that I really had challenged my leg muscles and I felt it also during the night. The muscles were sore the day after and usually I take rapamycin during the morning but I decided to not take it this time. It is sad that we don’t have any research data around this but the reason why I did not take rapamycin was because I felt my body needed recovery and not to stimulate even more catabolic processes. Curious question, how would you act in a similar situation and why would you act in that way?
By the way, now it’s Sunday and I still feel a quite big soreness in my muscle. I’m very curious to try to do a really heavy leg session day again after around 3 weeks and after that take rapamycin and see what the effect will be. My guess is that the anti-inflammatory effect will decrease the soreness and “hide” the need for recovery. Any thoughts? Does there exist any data on other interventions on the effects of what happens when we decrease the soreness after one day? I know there exists data on for example that cold exposure (which can improve recovery) directly after resistance training seems to have a decrease effect in muscle growth (pubmed: 26174323). But the big difference here is that I’m not taking rapamycin directly after the resistance training session.
Hi Krister,
once I took Rapa one day after a resistance training session. I needed several additional days to recover and will never do that again. I think you made a good decision to be patient and not take Rapa!
Big thanks for sharing this! Do you experience this even on resistance training sessions that your body is used to? Because I usually practice resistance training the day before I take rapamycin but this was the first time I tried out a new tough leg day session. My guess is that because it was a new tough workout my body needs extra recovery time.
Yes, that was a normal full body workout that I was used to. However, I have to say that I even have trouble with recovery when going jogging (about 3-4 times a week). I try not to do intervalls or long runs around 2 days around Rapamycin. It appears I am one of those who are sensitive to recovery problems with Rapa. I normally take Rapamycin during autumn/winter to have the rest of the year for pushing VO2max and some muscle
I also have the experience that I can push myselve with leg workouts very hard but also get very sore legs afterwards. Everytime I get angry to myselve that I did it again. I don´t like to be sore…
I agree. I avoid Rapa in the 24 hours after resistance training. Aside from the thought that I’d lose the benefit of the training session, I have previously experienced much worse muscle soreness and extended recovery time. I also fast while taking Rapa; it seems silly to pair fasting with post resistance training recovery. In fact 24 hours isn’t enough of a gap but that is my rule to get the best of both in the time I have.
When I first started rapa there was one time I felt much sorer and took an additional day to recover after lifting. It’s not something I’ve noticed much since despite there probably being a number of days where it overlapped with resistance training, as I was lifting 5-6 days/week for the past year.
@John_Hemming: Yes, sounds reasonable. This makes me also think that it is probably good to not workout the same muscle group the day before rapamycin. Usually I train my arms on Friday and take rapamycin on Saturday but I think I will start mixing my workout sessions up. I think this approach of mixing the days may also be beneficial for my Monday workout session because rapamycin blood levels are higher during the beginning of the week than later on.
@Joseph_Lavelle: Yes, the 24 hour approach may be a quite good one. If we look at the below image most of the effects seem to come quite early when it comes to muscle growth. But I think a muscle gets a bit more aligned with an untrained level in the beginning when a workout is changed. Like when I did the new tough leg training day on Friday. So in such cases it may be good to take a rapamycin pause because the body needs more recovery.
I had a similar (N1) experience with spermidine. I took spermidine in the evening. When I did high-intensity workouts the next morning, then I had much more delayed onset of muscle soreness. I do not take spermidine anymore. I speculate that it could have been becuase of increased autophagy
I do think Rapamycin timing matters after a workout. The potent anti-inflammatory effect makes me feel better; however, I noticed that I seem to get greater gains in strength and muscle mass if at least 4 days have passed since a Rapamycin dose. After mucking about for a couple of years trying to time dosages and workouts, I now keep it simple. I perform a whole body workout every other day, and take Rapamycin weekly. I no longer worry about timing.
@Curious: This was an interesting sharing which is that you take a catabolic activator before a workout session instead of after it. How do you do with your rapamycin dosing? How close before and after do you exercise?
@Ray1: Thanks for sharing this and I think it points towards that whole body workout as you point out may be one solution or to mix the workout days so that same muscle group is not trained on specific days. Curious question, what dose regime did you use when you experienced the effect of Rapamycin on your workout?
My fasting around rapa is designed to have an empty stomach plus aid in the transition to autophagy. Usually I will eat nothing after dinner the day before and nothing that day except for grapefruit to boost the mid morning Rapa dose. However, if my last resistance training workout was <24 hours prior (the morning before), then I will have a high protein breakfast but then nothing else that day except grapefruit before my late afternoon rapa dose.
When I took spermidine I took it every evening for a few weeks, and then I had a few weeks off. I did a few rounds of that protocol. I did not expect that spermidine would cause me extra muscle soreness. But it did.
When it comes to rapamycin, the logic tells us that when we have high levels of rapamycin in our bodies, rapamycin will inhibit or slow down the rebuilding of muscle cells. I agree with that. Most people see that as a negative thing.
But will exercise with high levels of rapamycin in our bodies also increase the autophagy of dysfunctional cells/cell components? Can the potentially increased breakdown of dysfunctional cells through a combination of exercise+rapamycin be seen as similar to the more established thought that combined fasting and rapamycin might decrease mTOR further and by that increase autophagy?
I am speculating here and I think that Dr Brad Stanfield has an interesting take on the question of the combination of exercise, muscle building and rapamycin.
Have I taken rapamycin immidiately efter HiT training or a hard gym session? Yes I have, but only a few times. So my n(1) is not done yet. I need to do it a couple of more times.
I have noticed an effect from Rapamycin that seems to last at least 72 hours regardless of dosing regimine. I am 61, so I have some aches and pains. Rapamycin makes the post workout aches much more tolerable.
@Joseph_Lavelle: You combine it with more than a 24 hour fast? It may be an interesting combo to boost the effect of autophagy and activate other catabolic processes which Rapamycin does not. The only concern and frustration that I have is that we don’t know how to dose the combo in an optimal way.
@Curious: Really great questions and something that should be researched! This type of experiment should be quite easy to do in a mice experiment. Big thumbs up for highlighting this! I wonder which researcher may be interested in conducting such an experiment.
But will exercise with high levels of rapamycin in our bodies also increase the autophagy of dysfunctional cells/cell components? Can the potentially increased breakdown of dysfunctional cells through a combination of exercise+rapamycin be seen as similar to the more established thought that combined fasting and rapamycin might decrease mTOR further and by that increase autophagy?
@Ray1: The rapamycin effects on post workout aches may be due to the anti-inflammatory properties of rapamycin.
@MAC & @Agetron: Do you two have any experiences in the topic? I know that you resistance train quite much.
@Krister_Kauppi I doubt the 24 hour+ fast is doing much to augment the rapa driven autophagy, but I’ll take it. I do it to force a fast into my schedule and to get an empty stomach for my rapa (except for grapefruit). I want a fast absorption and clearance. Maybe I’m wasting some money but I don’t want a bigger effect (it kicks my butt now).
A 5-day FMD would be a big effect I’ll bet. Even without the Rapa FMD had a big beneficial effect on my immune system. It’s time for another one.
How close to the workout do you take Rapamycin? Because if we look at the diagram then around 4-5 hours after the workout the muscle protein synthesis peak and after 15 hours it flattens out. If I would guess then it seems better to skip the gym on rapa day and instead of skiping the gym the day after. My approach is that I skip the gym both on the rapa day and the day after. But this may be to just try to overoptimize things.
@Joseph_Lavelle Thanks for the great detail around your protocol!
@Boldi Can you share how you do it when it comes to workout and rapamycin intake? Below is for example one post on X which you wrote but could you go a bit more in deepth. LIke how long between workout and rapamycin intake you have etc.
