Whey is naturally abundant in amino acids regardless - however, many supplement brands place a lot of emphasis on adding extra branched chain amino acids (BCAA's) into their whey products. There is a lot of peer reviewed articles on supplementing amino acids in conjunction with resistance training - some interesting stuff too. Check out the dosages they use and compare with what your whey products already have in them. You will be surprised.

To be honest it might still be cheaper to take more of one kind then to buy the crazy expensive kinds for only a bit more amino acids. But I can tell you as someone who trained for 25 years.. that its even debatable if you notice whey use .. now to see difference between different kind of wheys would be even more futile. The things that really help are not legal (or healthy by abuse) but nobody ever got huge from whey.

The research agrees with your experience. Supplementing with protein increases size marginally and strength not at all. The following charts are the cumulative results of 250 research studies.

So if anything, it's for people who prefer drinking a milkshake instead of eating a steak etc. Personally I do prefer it immediately after waking instead of spending time making breakfast.

I am not saying it won't do a thing Brad and it might help under certain circumstances. I still use it and like to use it. But then to think its a magic bullet or that it will help a lot. Must say this study makes a good case for creatine.. got a big tub of it here but havent been using it for a while.

I will still use whey but studies like this definitely show that its debatable how much it works and then its even more disputable how much the difference between brands would work. So going for something cheaper will probably be just as good.