Your quad can't rebuild on an empty tank. Enter your details and phase to get daily calorie, protein, carb and fat targets, how to spread your protein, and which supplements are worth it right now.
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Even doses every 3–4 hours build more muscle than one or two big meals. Times are examples. Move them around your schedule.
Food first. These fill gaps. They don't replace the plan above.
Skip: HMB, standalone leucine or BCAAs, glucosamine, and high-dose vitamin C/E. None have held up in ACL rehab research, and high-dose antioxidants may work against your training.
More than you think. Aim for 0.8–1.0 grams per pound of body weight per day (about 1.8–2.2 g/kg), and push toward 1.1 g/lb in the first 3 months when muscle loss is fastest.
How you spread it matters too. After surgery your quad becomes less responsive to protein, a problem called anabolic resistance. Split your protein into 4–5 even doses of about 20–40 g every 3–4 hours, plus 30–40 g before bed. One big protein dinner won't do the same job.
No. This is the most common mistake I see.
Your quad can lose muscle at up to about 0.5% a day in the first couple of weeks. Research shows that even a 20% calorie deficit can cut your muscle-building rate by around 16%. Meanwhile, healing tissue costs energy, and walking on crutches can burn up to three times more than normal walking.
Eat around maintenance. Not a surplus, since extra food just adds fat. Not a diet. This is the worst time in your recovery to try to lose weight.
Yes, but it's worth being clear about where it helps. The strongest evidence shows creatine helps you rebuild muscle and strength faster once you're training again. The research on preventing muscle loss during the first few weeks after surgery is mixed.
It's cheap, safe and well studied, so I recommend 5 g daily, starting before surgery if you can. No loading phase needed. Expect 1–2 lb of water weight. That isn't fat.
Treat the weeks before surgery like a training block. The more muscle you walk in with, the more you have to protect afterward.
Hit your protein target every day, eat enough to fuel your prehab sessions, and start creatine. If you're considering fish oil, ask your surgeon first. And follow your surgical team's fasting instructions exactly, including any carb drink they give you for the morning of surgery.
You need food first. Supplements fill gaps. They don't replace a plan.
The ones worth considering: creatine, whey protein to make your protein doses easier, and optionally omega-3 fish oil early on. Skip HMB, standalone leucine or BCAAs, glucosamine and high-dose vitamin C or E. None of them have held up in ACL research, and high-dose antioxidants may even work against your training.
Nutrition is part of it, but usually not the main reason.
The biggest drivers are quad inhibition, where your nervous system won't fully switch the muscle on after injury, and not enough load. A lot of rehab never gets heavy enough to actually rebuild muscle.
Good nutrition makes your training work better. It can't replace it. If your quad has stalled, the fix is almost always in the program: better activation work, progressive heavy loading, and testing to know where you actually stand.