Get in More Protein

It’s clear that your protein intake plays an important role for muscle growth. The most important factor when it comes to protein intake is your total daily consumption [1]. If you don’t consume enough protein per day, you’re simply not providing all the building blocks your body needs to support muscle growth.
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Luckily, you don’t need to have a ridiculously high-protein intake to support muscle growth. A 2018 research review on protein & muscle growth found that a protein intake of at least 0.7g/lb. total BW (that’s 1.6g/kg) is enough to optimize muscle growth [2]. That means someone who is 175 lbs. (80kg) needs ~125g of protein per day to maximize muscle growth. If someone is overweight/obese, use lean body mass (LBM) instead of BW to calculate protein needs.
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Although this is less important than consuming enough protein in a day, you can also benefit from spreading your protein intake [3]. Most pople can do this by just having a protein source with most of the meals you consume. A good general recommendation is to spread your protein intake into 3-6 servings per day [4]. That’s a pretty big range, so feel free to be flexible with your protein frequency.
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If you struggle with consuming enough protein in a day for any reason, you can turn to a protein supplement. But remember that there’s nothing magical about a whey or casein protein shake. It’s just protein. So only take the supplement if needed.
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References:
1. https://jissn.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1550-2783-10-53
2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5867436/
3. https://jissn.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12970-018-0215-1
4. https://jissn.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1550-2783-11-20