[quote]krazykoukides wrote:
Going along with everybody’s posts:
Isn’t recovery ability also a genetic ‘factor’?
[/quote]
Aside from metabolism, it is probably one of the most important. I can train 6 or 7 days a week because of my recovery ability.
This is one reason I cringe when I see people telling newbs that they will overtrain so easily. They won’t know one way or the other until they spend some time actually training so hard they ever get close to it.
In fact, to be honest, I don’t think any guy who has trouble training more than 3 days a week without “overtraining” will ever get that big to start with.
[quote]DaBeard wrote:
I’ll give a good real world example of my friend of middle eastern descent. The guy would walk around in college at a leanness where you could see all of his abs, arms were slightly less than 17" and he would workout about once every two weeks. I mean, it was really disheartening to me and my workout partner as all three of us were friends but this guy did jack shit in the gym and ate horrible.
When I think of genetics I always refer to him because he literally ate no protein for days in a row and would seem to make more progress with 1/10th the amount of training time and effort.
I always used to try and push him to become consistent and eat well, too bad he didn’t really care about training. [/quote]
I dont think it is like you say it is that he has an impressive physique by training 1 in 2 weeks. There’s lots of issues that might affect this.
For example,
1)He has done shit tons of sports/training in his youth, and his merely maintaining his muscles.
2)He does chinups/abs/pushups at home
3)He uses steroids and doesnt tell you
4)He still trains in other sports, and gym is just assistance.
Also eventhough you say he doesnt eat protein, vegetarian food still has protein in it. It’s quite difficult to not eat protein.[/quote]
He has done a lot of sports in his youth, none of them involved lifting weights ever.
He never did anything at home because he was my roomate for 4 years.
He definitely doesn’t use steroids, this guy is a very very close friend of mine. he didn’t even know what steroids are let alone use them.
The only training he ever did in other sports while I knew him was playing soccer on the weekends.
Also, you think you can maintain a significant amount of muscle by eating some protein from vegetables? He wasn’t even a vegetarian, it’s just that he had to eat halal meat (muslim version of kosher, same thing really) and where we went to college that was ridiculously rare. Clearly he got protein but i’d be damned if it was more than 50grams a day, tops.
[/quote]
Exactly, alot of sports in the youth is the keyword. Years between youth and college life is quite small and it’s easy to maintain fast metabolism, unless you mess it up by going into an anorexia diet. 16inch hands and abs visible doesnt exactly define “significant amount of muscle” and I think it’s quite possible.
Obviously he was getting enough protein from his diet, otherwise he would lose muscle. It’s not some genetic magic that you dont need to eat protein, but you get aminoacids from nowhere for protein synthesis.
[quote]krazykoukides wrote:
Going along with everybody’s posts:
Isn’t recovery ability also a genetic ‘factor’?
[/quote]
Aside from metabolism, it is probably one of the most important. I can train 6 or 7 days a week because of my recovery ability.
This is one reason I cringe when I see people telling newbs that they will overtrain so easily. They won’t know one way or the other until they spend some time actually training so hard they ever get close to it.
In fact, to be honest, I don’t think any guy who has trouble training more than 3 days a week without “overtraining” will ever get that big to start with.[/quote]
“Recovery ability” is affected alot by your hormonal levels, diet and training experience, though.
[quote]krazykoukides wrote:
Going along with everybody’s posts:
Isn’t recovery ability also a genetic ‘factor’?
[/quote]
Aside from metabolism, it is probably one of the most important. I can train 6 or 7 days a week because of my recovery ability.
This is one reason I cringe when I see people telling newbs that they will overtrain so easily. They won’t know one way or the other until they spend some time actually training so hard they ever get close to it.
In fact, to be honest, I don’t think any guy who has trouble training more than 3 days a week without “overtraining” will ever get that big to start with.[/quote]
“Recovery ability” is affected alot by your hormonal levels, diet and training experience, though.[/quote]
This is why it is useless to try to pigeon hole these qualities. Genetics is much to complex of a topic IMO.
Anyone here ever read into how individuals change their genomes over time and things like genetic memory and such?
Fascinating stuff. Genetics is really much different than it was originally thought to be. I find “genetic memory” especially fascinating. Someone who may not have been genetically predisposed to building strong muscle can work his ass off and literally “change” his genes. If he has a child after transforming his body into badassitude, his child will now start life with better “bodybuilding genes” than if his father hadn’t lifted.
Of course what’s even crazier than that is gene therapy. For now such science is purely focused on curing disease, but actually there have been talks of what you could do with the technology for things like physical enhancement. Genetic engineering isn’t really that farfetched anymore, and it doesn’t even have to take place from an early age or in vitro. It’s something that could potentially one day render steroids nearly obsolete.
You could literally just change your genes such that they would “command” your body to build more muscle around your legs or your arms or your chest or whatever. Or you could even change your genes to make existing muscles much stronger. Theoretically you could just go to a lab and they could turn you into Stan Efferding without you ever having to lift a weight.
It all sounds very sci-fi, and who knows how long it will be before any of this becomes an actual social issue, but the actual science and technology of it is surprisingly achievable even today.
[quote]DaBeard wrote:
I’ll give a good real world example of my friend of middle eastern descent. The guy would walk around in college at a leanness where you could see all of his abs, arms were slightly less than 17" and he would workout about once every two weeks. I mean, it was really disheartening to me and my workout partner as all three of us were friends but this guy did jack shit in the gym and ate horrible.
When I think of genetics I always refer to him because he literally ate no protein for days in a row and would seem to make more progress with 1/10th the amount of training time and effort.
I always used to try and push him to become consistent and eat well, too bad he didn’t really care about training. [/quote]
I dont think it is like you say it is that he has an impressive physique by training 1 in 2 weeks. There’s lots of issues that might affect this.
For example,
1)He has done shit tons of sports/training in his youth, and his merely maintaining his muscles.
2)He does chinups/abs/pushups at home
3)He uses steroids and doesnt tell you
4)He still trains in other sports, and gym is just assistance.
Also eventhough you say he doesnt eat protein, vegetarian food still has protein in it. It’s quite difficult to not eat protein.[/quote]
He has done a lot of sports in his youth, none of them involved lifting weights ever.
He never did anything at home because he was my roomate for 4 years.
He definitely doesn’t use steroids, this guy is a very very close friend of mine. he didn’t even know what steroids are let alone use them.
The only training he ever did in other sports while I knew him was playing soccer on the weekends.
Also, you think you can maintain a significant amount of muscle by eating some protein from vegetables? He wasn’t even a vegetarian, it’s just that he had to eat halal meat (muslim version of kosher, same thing really) and where we went to college that was ridiculously rare. Clearly he got protein but i’d be damned if it was more than 50grams a day, tops.
[/quote]
Exactly, alot of sports in the youth is the keyword. Years between youth and college life is quite small and it’s easy to maintain fast metabolism, unless you mess it up by going into an anorexia diet. 16inch hands and abs visible doesnt exactly define “significant amount of muscle” and I think it’s quite possible.
Obviously he was getting enough protein from his diet, otherwise he would lose muscle. It’s not some genetic magic that you dont need to eat protein, but you get aminoacids from nowhere for protein synthesis.[/quote]
My main point was that if he was doing nothing “right” from a bodybuilding standpoint, imagine the possibility if the guy ate a proper diet and actually trained. 16" lean upper arms on someone who basically does nothing for them is pretty damn impressive. He was only 5’7".
I think it’s important to remember that what we are really trying to do in becoming ‘bigger, stronger, leaner’ people is change and emphasize which genes are turned on and expressed. Training, diet, supplementation, environment, etc. will all determine which genes are expressed. Genotype vs. phenotype.
Edit: so someone walking on the street who looks less impressive than you could have a ‘better genetic makeup’ than you, but they just haven’t turned on the right genes. they’ve turned on the wrong ones in fact.
[quote]csulli wrote:
Anyone here ever read into how individuals change their genomes over time and things like genetic memory and such?
Fascinating stuff. Genetics is really much different than it was originally thought to be. I find “genetic memory” especially fascinating. Someone who may not have been genetically predisposed to building strong muscle can work his ass off and literally “change” his genes. If he has a child after transforming his body into badassitude, his child will now start life with better “bodybuilding genes” than if his father hadn’t lifted.
Of course what’s even crazier than that is gene therapy. For now such science is purely focused on curing disease, but actually there have been talks of what you could do with the technology for things like physical enhancement. Genetic engineering isn’t really that farfetched anymore, and it doesn’t even have to take place from an early age or in vitro. It’s something that could potentially one day render steroids nearly obsolete.
You could literally just change your genes such that they would “command” your body to build more muscle around your legs or your arms or your chest or whatever. Or you could even change your genes to make existing muscles much stronger. Theoretically you could just go to a lab and they could turn you into Stan Efferding without you ever having to lift a weight.
It all sounds very sci-fi, and who knows how long it will be before any of this becomes an actual social issue, but the actual science and technology of it is surprisingly achievable even today.[/quote]
It isn’t sci-fi so much as an advancement of the idea that the human mind can control many things in the human body that we are simply not advanced enough to comprehend or take advantage of.
Is it a possibility? yes, it is. It is simply one more piece of evidence that we shouldn’t place humans in strict tiny boxes and then run around telling everyone that every human is bound by what we have seen so far.
Genetics’ role is overstated in most people’s current condition. I am not gaining because of my genetics. Most likely wrong. You just haven’t found out what works for you and/or applied it consistently. I got all my gains from hard work. That might be true, but your blueprint helped.
It’s an art, as much as a science. training volume, training type, training frequency, training intensity, nutrition, nutrition timing, lifestyle, other life commitments, etc.
This could be a very interesting thread. I’ll wait for the ad hominem attacks as well. Those are always fun
[quote]jp_dubya wrote:
Genetics’ role is overstated in most people’s current condition. I am not gaining because of my genetics. Most likely wrong. You just haven’t found out what works for you and/or applied it consistently. I got all my gains from hard work. That might be true, but your blueprint helped.
It’s an art, as much as a science. training volume, training type, training frequency, training intensity, nutrition, nutrition timing, lifestyle, other life commitments, etc.
This could be a very interesting thread. I’ll wait for the ad hominem attacks as well. Those are always fun[/quote]
You sonofabitch.
[quote]coolusername wrote:
yes, epigenetics is the term i believe. very interesting [/quote]
Here is some more detail about that. Fascinating that certain traits can be “changed” and inherited in one generation. Many theories such as Natural Selection and the Theory of Evolution can have extremely detailed genetic explanations with the advancement of epigenetics to validate it to a law(someday perhaps). I can’t wait for the day that they tie it all together, much like many laws of physics.
[quote]coolusername wrote:
yes, epigenetics is the term i believe. very interesting [/quote]
Here is some more detail about that. Fascinating that certain traits can be “changed” and inherited in one generation. Many theories such as Natural Selection and the Theory of Evolution can have extremely detailed genetic explanations with the advancement of epigenetics to validate it to a law(someday perhaps). I can’t wait for the day that they tie it all together, much like many laws of physics. [/quote]
I wonder how long before they’re creating 8 foot tall 500lb supersoldiers who have 2 hearts and 4 lungs and can deadlift a literal ton.
[quote]coolusername wrote:
yes, epigenetics is the term i believe. very interesting [/quote]
Here is some more detail about that. Fascinating that certain traits can be “changed” and inherited in one generation. Many theories such as Natural Selection and the Theory of Evolution can have extremely detailed genetic explanations with the advancement of epigenetics to validate it to a law(someday perhaps). I can’t wait for the day that they tie it all together, much like many laws of physics. [/quote]
I wonder how long before they’re creating 8 foot tall 500lb supersoldiers who have 2 hearts and 4 lungs and can deadlift a literal ton.[/quote]
Not likely, a soldier who is 8 feet tall and 500 is too big of a target. I would actually make them 3 feet tall, but fast as an antelope and strong as a gorilla… and with night vision.
[quote]coolusername wrote:
yes, epigenetics is the term i believe. very interesting [/quote]
Here is some more detail about that. Fascinating that certain traits can be “changed” and inherited in one generation. Many theories such as Natural Selection and the Theory of Evolution can have extremely detailed genetic explanations with the advancement of epigenetics to validate it to a law(someday perhaps). I can’t wait for the day that they tie it all together, much like many laws of physics. [/quote]
I wonder how long before they’re creating 8 foot tall 500lb supersoldiers who have 2 hearts and 4 lungs and can deadlift a literal ton.[/quote]
Not likely, a soldier who is 8 feet tall and 500 is too big of a target. I would actually make them 3 feet tall, but fast as an antelope and strong as a gorilla… and with night vision.[/quote]
Actually, have you guys heard about “giant people”? I havent had the opportunity to research it and validate if its true but apparently they were some bigger people… heres a youtube link: (skip to 2min part )
Yeah, I read some stuff about giants who supposedly dominant the earth. The theory about their extinction is not unlike that of dinosaurs… a meteorite hit the earth and changed it’s orbit and mass slightly, which increased gravitational force which would make the larger species more vulnerable… I’m not saying that it is true, but it’s something I heard and that might actually eventually become interesting.
[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
Yeah, I read some stuff about giants who supposedly dominant the earth. The theory about their extinction is not unlike that of dinosaurs… a meteorite hit the earth and changed it’s orbit and mass slightly, which increased gravitational force which would make the larger species more vulnerable… I’m not saying that it is true, but it’s something I heard and that might actually eventually become interesting.[/quote]
Well the size difference is quite interesting in my opinion atleast. If one thinks about how large the dinosaurs were at that era compared to animals today. Even dragonfly ancestors, meganeuras had a wingspan of 30inches.
This is a great topic that I always wondered about.
I do believe that many people use genetics as a cop out for their poor development, but in the end I think genetics is the biggest factor in what people look like.
For example I probably have some of the worst genetics I’ve ever seen on someone;
1)long limbs and short torso
2)narrow clavicles
3)trouble gaining strength or size
4)gain fat easy(basically skinny/fat naturally)
5)high attachments and short muscle bellies
6)and to use Thibs term I break easily, numerous injuries
My only positive attribute is my mind. I’m very determined, disciplined and tenacious, I never quit. That said I’ve been able to go from 145 lbs of skinny/fat to 200 lbs under 10% body fat and people wrongly think it’s my genes. I also realize that even if I took copious amounts of AAS I will never look or be as big and strong as guys like Prof X or Thibs or the other big guys on this site.
Now my younger brother on the other hand who was the leader of the pack in every sport he played growing up especially football (for which he got a scholarship to a Division I college) grows just looking at weights. As a high school senior he benched 375lbs and squatted 450 for reps. He even had great running speed breaking a 4.4 in the 40 yd. This was at a body weight of 210 with paper thin skin. He looked like a greek statue yet never put the effort in to training and diet like I did. I also have several close friends like this.
My brother inherited my fathers genetics who by the way is 85 with single digit body fat and still does manual labor daily. He can stay in the squat position changing breaks on a car forever and then pop up like a jack rabbit lol. I took after my mom who is “soft” at everything.
My mother in law who is in her 60’s lifts more weight then men half her age, and does landscaping at my house constantly just for enjoyment. It’s quite remarkable seeing her lift boulders and wheel barrels and cement vases and statues around.
Which brings me to another question. Both of them are immigrants from eastern Europe and grew up working difficult manual type labor on farms since young kids and had tough lives. Are they able to do these things because of their genetics or did they adapt over time. And if their bodies did adapt can this be passed down to generations?
Which brings me to another question. Both of them are immigrants from eastern Europe and grew up working difficult manual type labor on farms since young kids and had tough lives. Are they able to do these things because of their genetics or did they adapt over time. And if their bodies did adapt can this be passed down to generations?
[/quote]
Yes.
Your genetics are the byproduct of many generations of mutation and adaptation.
You are literally the combination of all of your ancestors…the ultimate end of thousands of years of evolutional change on a very small scale.
Yes, if my ancestors gradually developed the ability to run from lions fast because all of the slower people kept getting eaten, then yeah, that is why I can run like I do.
The same will happen to future generations who are raised on X-Box and never go outside. Their children’s children will look like stuffed roles of cotton candy.
