How to Assess Muscle Building Potential

Training Bodybuilding
21

[quote]ElevenMag wrote:
I would agree that bodybuilding potential is in part having medium sized wrists knees and ankles (not small but small enough to accentuate muscle bellies are preferred). Good natural posture is a advantage but I wouldn’t call it a factor that determines you ability to build muscle. I think straight limbs are desirable as knock-knees or bow legs in combination with muscular legs look weird. How about a natural health and vitality along with the ability to recuperate from vigorous exercise? I would say the most important factors would be the muscle cell counts of the individual muscles and the amount of male hormone you naturally possess.

Taking this into account you also have to look at how some people inherit the potential to build a lot of muscle in one part of their body and not another. Many men and women, especially blacks, have the ability to build super impressive arms and shoulders while building calves seems almost impossible. Because of some genetic factor(s) the upper body has a huge count of muscle cells while the calves are little more then a knot of muscle that no training could significantly alter. Others have huge legs and calves from puberty and beyond without even training them.

Because of this, inheriting long muscle bellies with an abundance of cells would be incredibly desirable. You really can’t build much on that knot of a high inserted calf muscle if you’ve got them or perhaps abruptly cut off biceps that leave a large gap between the biceps and the elbow. You could have all the other factors that make you a genetic superior as far as muscle building potential but there is really not much you can change about those features you were given.

The great news as you guys said is that no person has ever utilized her or her raw potential to the fullest of its genetic limit. That’s where being OCD can help. The bad news is that your genetics are the limiting facotr in your training. [/quote]

Very thorough post. Another question I would like to pose, say you take someone with average or slightly above average genetics and build a large amount of muscle on them. Does anyone think that through some type of gene expression (I am really grasping here, genetics isn’t my area of expertise) it could improve the potential for their offspring to build muscle?

22

[quote]schanz_05 wrote:

Very thorough post. Another question I would like to pose, say you take someone with average or slightly above average genetics and build a large amount of muscle on them. Does anyone think that through some type of gene expression (I am really grasping here, genetics isn’t my area of expertise) it could improve the potential for their offspring to build muscle?
[/quote]
Try it and see! LOL

23

[quote]schanz_05 wrote:

[quote]howie424 wrote:

[quote]schanz_05 wrote:
So I thought maybe this could be a fun thread discussing what you feel is a good indicator of muscle building potential for people you see, or have known. I am sure everyone knows people that respond really well to lifting weights, and obviously physiological factors (specifically hormones and such) probably make the biggest impact.

But I think it would be interesting to see what, if any, are some of the common physical traits that people can see in individuals who seem to respond very well or easily to lifting weights.

I have a few that I have noticed:

A few of the bigger guys I know have just mammoth joints, specifically wrist, and ankles. One is personally the biggest guy I know, about 6’2 300 pounds and built just like a strong man. I literally cant get my hands half ways around his wrists.

Another is gingers, I know a few pretty well and they all seem to be pretty decent sized without trying real hard in the weight room.

Last one that I haven’t necessarily witnessed, but would make sense in my mind, is people that are fast. Speed is pretty heavily genetically based, and it seems that those people probably have a higher amount of fast twitch muscle fibers compared to average. So, with that they may have more muscle building potential.

Obviously this isn’t meant to be taken to seriously, but I think it would be interesting to see if there are any common characteristics that emerge.

[/quote]

What part of South Dakota are you from?
[/quote]

Around the Aberdeen area.[/quote]

No shit? I’m from the Groton area.

24

[quote]schanz_05 wrote:

[quote]ElevenMag wrote:
I would agree that bodybuilding potential is in part having medium sized wrists knees and ankles (not small but small enough to accentuate muscle bellies are preferred). Good natural posture is a advantage but I wouldn’t call it a factor that determines you ability to build muscle. I think straight limbs are desirable as knock-knees or bow legs in combination with muscular legs look weird. How about a natural health and vitality along with the ability to recuperate from vigorous exercise? I would say the most important factors would be the muscle cell counts of the individual muscles and the amount of male hormone you naturally possess.

Taking this into account you also have to look at how some people inherit the potential to build a lot of muscle in one part of their body and not another. Many men and women, especially blacks, have the ability to build super impressive arms and shoulders while building calves seems almost impossible. Because of some genetic factor(s) the upper body has a huge count of muscle cells while the calves are little more then a knot of muscle that no training could significantly alter. Others have huge legs and calves from puberty and beyond without even training them.

Because of this, inheriting long muscle bellies with an abundance of cells would be incredibly desirable. You really can’t build much on that knot of a high inserted calf muscle if you’ve got them or perhaps abruptly cut off biceps that leave a large gap between the biceps and the elbow. You could have all the other factors that make you a genetic superior as far as muscle building potential but there is really not much you can change about those features you were given.

The great news as you guys said is that no person has ever utilized her or her raw potential to the fullest of its genetic limit. That’s where being OCD can help. The bad news is that your genetics are the limiting facotr in your training. [/quote]

Very thorough post. Another question I would like to pose, say you take someone with average or slightly above average genetics and build a large amount of muscle on them. Does anyone think that through some type of gene expression (I am really grasping here, genetics isn’t my area of expertise) it could improve the potential for their offspring to build muscle?
[/quote]

This is a really interesting concept. I remember my old biology textbook used weightlifters as an example, and said that in theory no amount of training would alter the genetics of your offspring.

But since then, there has been more attention towards the field of epigenetics, which addresses the adaptability of the genome. This can be accomplished with DNA methylation, histone modifications, and RNA interference/splicing (other mechanisms are out there but these are the big ones). So, if pregnant mothers are over- or under-nourished, this can cause epigenetic changes in the developing offspring. These changes can manifest in long-term health outcomes
(From “Effect of maternal diet on the epigenome: implications for human metabolic disease”. Lillycrop 2011. Proc. Nutr. Soc.)

Your question got me thinking and I found one review article on epigenetics and muscle cells, which (IMO) covers a lot of the concepts in greater depth. One great point they make is that for a certain type of myosin, there appears to be more complexity in the expression of the gene than “just” the primary DNA sequence.
(From “Epigenetic control of skeletal muscle fibre type”. Baar 2010. Acta Physiol)

So, this is a young field of research, especially with attention to muscle cells, but epigenetics could be the mechanism by which your work in the gym might be passed on to your children. (Sorry for the long post).

25

There are certain somatotypes that are going to naturally be more masculine, athletic and have a greater potential for putting on muscle mass.