Here are the studies that show pro + carbs increasing GH post workout:
-Journal of Applied Physiology; 85 (4), 1544-1555, 1998.
-Journal of Applied Physiology; 76 (2), 839-845, 1994.

Hope that helps.

-S

I thought remembered reading about #2 before, but a (very quick) search didn’t find the study.

I do remember reading about a number of other beneficial hormones (test and the like) being elevated by having protein and carbs post workout, but I wasn’t sure about growth hormone.

As you pointed out, the effects of GH are fairly small – certainly not enough to justify NOT replenishing muscle glycogen in my opinion.

But telling people that it’s not a magic pill apparently isn’t trendy.

I think my ideal would be to take a college sports team in the off season (say during their hypertrophy or strength phase). After randomizing the groups train half one way and half the other.

Of course, to do this you need to convince a team coach to let you experiment on his athletes.

I’m not anti low carb by any means. I’ll even venture that for the right set of circumstances low carb diets can be ideal. But a lot of people seem to think that they’re a fix all.

Lyle McDonald said something I really, really liked on the subject of low carb diets. To paraphrase –

I upset everyone when I talk about these, because I don’t think they’re evil, but I also don’t think they’re magic.

As far as the fasted cardio:

In general I don’t think morning fasted cardio will do any HARM, but I question how much (if any) benefit it has over just doing the cardio any other time. I do take issue with the recommendation of high intensity training while going very low carb though.

If the training volume is low enough that muscle glycogen is not depleted this could be fine, but it’ll put a pretty serious limitation on your athletic development if you have to stop there.

As for the term “HGH flush” that people seem to be pushing around the internet lately, I have yet to see a single piece of scientific evidence showing a connection between the flushed hot feeling of a HIIT workout and the subsequent release in growth hormone.

I am always open to being proven wrong though, and will be happy to print it/link to it here if someone can provide the evidence.

I’d love to do a study where two groups of identical training status (untrained, recreational athletes, etc) performed an identical training regime. One group could do the GH optimizing hoopla, workout fasted, not refuel post workout, etc…

the other would not worry about fasting and get a good carb/protein meal after a workout.

Also [I got into this in response to a comment of yours on Rusty's site recently], I think the scientific benefits of morning fasted cardio and HGH boost etc might be exaggerated and invented to make logical sense of the effects, but the effects seem to be there, especially for those who are a bit less out of shape. Once you get closer to a more optimal body comp and try to push even further, your body is smart enough to be stubborn and give you a pretty hard time getting really ripped and like you said, a lot of these things do become minor minutiae.

-Yash

PS – “this is only my opinion, and is not the new one true gospel 8-weeks-to-a-body-that-will-make-supermodels-rip-your-clothes-off-or-your-money-back approach”
… Well in that case screw your opinion, give me that second one!