Muscle Growth: Pet Theory

Training Bodybuilding
1

Okay, I’m no heavyweight in terms of the science of muscle growth, but nonetheless I’ve been coming up with a pet theory cercerning the importance of various factors for natural muscle growth for those of us who aren’t genetic freaks.

If anyone has some opinions or some pointers as to where to look, that would be great. Anywhere, here is my ordering of criteria as well as some reasoning.

  1. Exercise: I don’t care what you eat or how much you rest, I don’t expect you to gain muscle without work. Some type of varying stimulation that says more muscle is required must be presented in order to pack on muscle.

  2. Testosterone: This might be an over simplification, but the level of growth factors you generally have present in your blood will limit how much muscle you can grow or even successfully maintain due to breakdown and turnover. There are certainly other growth factors present, but I certainly can’t enumerate them all.

  3. Nutrition: I may be out on a limb, but though lack of sleep will not help you, the body will find a way. If the nutrients are present, the free testosterone is present and the muscles have been worked, then a healthy body almost has no choice but to grow.

  4. Rest: I think rest is an accelerator. It lets you work more often or rebuild quicker, but I don’t think it is a large impediment in terms of at least maintaining progress except perhaps if you build up high levels of stress which compete with or deplete growth factors.

Of course, on top of these basic items you have factors such as your goals in terms of rate of growth, strength, endurance, function and form. These will have a large impact on how you shape the above factors.

So, like I say, I’m no scientist, but for me this appears to hold true. For example, even with switching around workouts, my progress was pretty flat for a while.

However, I recently have been taking an aromatase inhibitor and suddenly I am progressing better. Given my age and body fat levels this makes sense.

You may be able to argue that growth factors are more important than exercise, but I don’t see people in the steriod forums voicing an ability to pack on mass without still having to work hard for it.

Of course, supplements won’t help you with item #1, the workout. However, as we all know, this site will give you all the ammo you could ever need to come up with varied and productive methods of stimulating muscle growth. All you have to do is drag your ass to the gym and follow the advice.

However, items #2 and #3 can certainly be influenced greatly by supplementation. Testosterone support, estrogen combat and direct growth factor supplements are all available.

Other supplements are available for issues such as fat loss and metabolism as well. These aren’t directly growth factors but can be related to the speed of action of growth factors due to nutrient partitioning or simply faster and more energetic repair and recovery processes.

Anyway, like I said, this is my current pet theory on the process. It is very simple and in laymans terms, but may at least serve as a bit of a roadmap if your progress is stalled beyond the easier beginner gains.

You might have some control of fat levels without working out via nutrition and metabolism, but working out will certainly help a lot. Besides, I don’t think many people are here just to find out how to get skinny and wimpy.

What do you think? Is this a useful way to view the process?

2

Eating too much can be anabolic. You could lay on your couch all day and eat donuts and ice cream and gain muscle. You’d gain fat, too, of course. I don’t really think it’s possible to number exercise or nutrition in terms of importance. They are so interrelated. CW says that gaining muscle is mainly a function of caloric intake. If you want to gain muscle, eat more. If you want to lose fat, eat less.

I do think, however, that all the points you listed are very true. I just don’t like the numbering

Just my opinions.

3

So that’s what you’ve been thinking about! And we just thought it was boobs.

I like your map, except for one thing. It seems that #2 is the product of all the other things combined, and can’t be controlled without at least one of the other activities being present.

You can exercise without paying attention to nutrition and rest. You can control nutrition without paying attention to exercise or rest. Obviously, you can control rest(aside from life interference) without exercise or proper nutrition. But, I can’t see how you can control growth factors without manipulating the other factors. So, I wouldn’t include #2 as an adjustable factor when considering muscle growth.

This was hard to explain, so maybe I’m not making my point clear, or maybe I’m just crazy or wrong. I like the list otherwise though, especially when you say “the body will find a way”. I think it’s a good attitude to have when life starts screwing with your sleep patterns, because if you believe you’re body will find a way, it will. But, if you think you might be screwed, you already are.

4

I agree with much of what you’ve said, but I also don’t agree with #2 as a variable that you can easily manipulate. While you can affect testosterone levels by altering your diet the effect is probably quite small. Of course, you can also grow muscle with only very small amounts of testosterone (i.e., women).

5

Hmm, I understand not liking item number two, becuase I think it really drives home your genetic limitations. The way I’m stating it you can hold on to only so much mass without doing something to adjust this second item.

Granted, nutrition, rest and exercise can affect the level of growth factors circulating in your system, so it should take a long time to reach your limit. A good way to look at is that if you haven’t reached your genetic limit you are primed for growth with proper exercise and nutrition!

I think most people would be very happy simply maximizing their growth potential. Especially when you are younger and have large amounts of testosterone readily available.

I would like to address the “eating is anabolic” comment. Look at the obesity problem in North America and tell me again that eating Krispy Kreme donuts is in itself going to help people gain muscle.

My contention is that you will only gain enough muscle under sedentary conditions to support your own weight. I don’t think this is in disagreement with the experts describing that packing on mass is generally an eating problem.

If you have the exercise nailed and the growth factors available and you do not provide the needed nutrition and calories you will not grow. I suspect that eating a lot without the presence of these conditions is not going to be very beneficial.

Sound reasonable?

6

[quote]vroom wrote:

I would like to address the “eating is anabolic” comment. Look at the obesity problem in North America and tell me again that eating Krispy Kreme donuts is in itself going to help people gain muscle.

Sound reasonable?[/quote]

Totally. And from personal experience, I can get FAT as hell by just eating a shitload. Or I can get BIG from eating a shitload and training.

It is the strength of the link between test (natural ability), nutrition, and rest that appears [to me] to be what makes us all different. It’s the “genetics”. As the experts here say, there really are not that many “hardgainers” out there - some just have to use a lot more effort. It’s why I have to bust my ass to make progress while some guys can drink four days per week, eat Jack-In-The-Box three times a day, and still bench twice as much as me.

My $.02,
Bastard F*ck Guy