Natural Muscle Building Potential

Lonnie123 · November 14, 2013, 4:00pm

^ Exactly.

Polygraphs are worse than useless. They have a no-better-than-chance accuracy rate with the added bonus of potential false positives and negatives… I cant believe people still use these things. I guess for some even the threat of getting black listed is enough for them not to do a natty show though.

The urine test is another next to worthless one. Although with the cost of drug testing done the right way I can very easily see why they have to go with this as the “gold” standard

Do your thing and don’t worry about what others are on or not on.

flch95 · November 14, 2013, 4:30pm

[quote]LoRez wrote:
Ran across this guy the other day, Anton Antipov. IFBB Physique guy. 5’11, 180-190.

The story is he joined the NPC because of its popularity, but before knowing it was untested. He claims lifetime natural.

I would venture a guess that he’s actually telling the truth, and that his physique is actually attainable naturally. Everything seems to fit right in line with the “pre-steroid” lifters, height, weight at '60s bodybuilding contest lean, and his build.

I think it’s a good look, personally.[/quote]
Do those “physique” dudes ever show up on stage in anything other than shorts? I hope dudes don’t think they can get away with not training legs by joining this division, lol.

iDrDan · November 14, 2013, 5:28pm

Great article. Thanks for posting it, Stu. More than anything, articles like this put things back into perspective for me. I say “back” because I have this rational perspective for a while then gradually lose it over time when my gains are minimal and I’m not looking any closer to these other natural yet genetically abnormal guys or guys I falsely believe are natural.

Brian Whitacre, who is natural, is one of the bodybuilders whom I aspire to be like. Natural guys should look up to guys like Brian for realistic physique goals and healthy expectations.

Two things resonate from this article:

The Bottom Line
60 years hasn’t changed much. Ignoring slight statistically unimportant variances, modern lifters are not bigger. Arm size hasn’t changed either.
We hear a lot about modern advancements, and there is a much greater emphasis placed upon science in modern bodybuilding, but despite these perceived advancements a physiological reality emerges: natural bodybuilders are no bigger now than they were 60 years ago.
But to be fair, this analysis is statistically insignificant. While it hints at truth, we must take a more detailed and scientific look at natural muscle building expectations.
Focus On What You Can Control
Let’s end this article with some practical advice:
Focus on what you CAN control.
You have the ability to train smart and hard. You have the ability to control and modify your diet to seek out better results. Regardless of your genetics, each of us still has no choice but to focus on the things we can control.
Standing in the mirror analyzing your physique isn’t going to help you. Even reading articles (like this) isn’t going to help you.

Not a single one of us knows what we can accomplish until we try.
Use the expectations and standards in this guide as reasonable goals, but don’t get caught up in numbers. As long as you are trying to improve each day, and making intelligent diet and training changes, you are doing all you can.
Stay on that course and remember one important thing: your mental strength and will to succeed are your greatest assets, not your genetics.

pwolves17 · November 14, 2013, 6:32pm

[quote]iDrDan wrote:
Great article. Thanks for posting it, Stu. More than anything, articles like this put things back into perspective for me. I say “back” because I have this rational perspective for a while then gradually lose it over time when my gains are minimal and I’m not looking any closer to these other natural yet genetically abnormal guys or guys I falsely believe are natural.

Brian Whitacre, who is natural, is one of the bodybuilders whom I aspire to be like. Natural guys should look up to guys like Brian for realistic physique goals and healthy expectations.

Two things resonate from this article:

The Bottom Line
60 years hasn’t changed much. Ignoring slight statistically unimportant variances, modern lifters are not bigger. Arm size hasn’t changed either.
We hear a lot about modern advancements, and there is a much greater emphasis placed upon science in modern bodybuilding, but despite these perceived advancements a physiological reality emerges: natural bodybuilders are no bigger now than they were 60 years ago.
But to be fair, this analysis is statistically insignificant. While it hints at truth, we must take a more detailed and scientific look at natural muscle building expectations.
Focus On What You Can Control
Let’s end this article with some practical advice:
Focus on what you CAN control.
You have the ability to train smart and hard. You have the ability to control and modify your diet to seek out better results. Regardless of your genetics, each of us still has no choice but to focus on the things we can control.
Standing in the mirror analyzing your physique isn’t going to help you. Even reading articles (like this) isn’t going to help you.

Not a single one of us knows what we can accomplish until we try.
Use the expectations and standards in this guide as reasonable goals, but don’t get caught up in numbers. As long as you are trying to improve each day, and making intelligent diet and training changes, you are doing all you can.
Stay on that course and remember one important thing: your mental strength and will to succeed are your greatest assets, not your genetics.[/quote]

Good post Dan

ZJStrope · November 14, 2013, 7:17pm

[quote]pwolves17 wrote:

Good post Dan[/quote]

seconded.

The_Mighty_Stu · November 14, 2013, 9:48pm

Yes, nice summary of your thoughts Dan. People seem to get all caught up in arguing over things they either can’t control at all, or have no business focusing on anyway. Still, taking the article for what it is (and again, I do feel it’s a very well written piece), I think it’s definitely in most people’s best interests to give it a read through, especially if they get most of their training advice from internet experts, or even (heaven forbid!) muscle magazines -lol.

S

pwolves17 · November 15, 2013, 12:16am

[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:
Yes, nice summary of your thoughts Dan. People seem to get all caught up in arguing over things they either can’t control at all, or have no business focusing on anyway. Still, taking the article for what it is (and again, I do feel it’s a very well written piece), I think it’s definitely in most people’s best interests to give it a read through, especially if they get most of their training advice from internet experts, or even (heaven forbid!) muscle magazines -lol.

S[/quote]

Stu, did you happen to see my post asking for your thoughts on the 7 year drug free policy? If that’s an issue you don’t want to touch on as a WNBF pro and a judge, completely understand!

The_Mighty_Stu · November 15, 2013, 1:46pm

[quote]pwolves17 wrote:
Stu, did you happen to see my post asking for your thoughts on the 7 year drug free policy? If that’s an issue you don’t want to touch on as a WNBF pro and a judge, completely understand![/quote]

Sorry, I sometimes miss things

[quote]pwolves17 wrote:
Stu, can you comment regarding your thoughts on the 7 year drug free period in the stricter federations? I’m not quite sure how I feel about the rule…on the one hand, it would be pretty harsh to ban a guy from ever competing in a natural federation if he did a cycle or two when he was a young lifter and stopped using after a relatively short time. However, I hate the fact that there are without a doubt guys who have likely used for years and built such a solid base of size, and now have been “natural” for 7 years.
[/quote]

Well, as a few others have pointed out, we’ve only got the available tests to truly check the situation in regard to each athlete. If substances used 7+ years ago have well cleared the system, AND we all know that Polys are fallible to a certain degree, then what else can you truly go by? I’ve heard old stories of judges going by the “eye test”, which is just laughable because there are always going to be those true freaks out there who do stand out in a line up simply due to genetic advantages (to a certain degree of course).

There has to be a line in the sand, where either any possible advantage has current little, if any, effect, or where so much time has passed that the disadvantage of aging will counter any slight residual benefit.

I completely understand your concern about building a base relying on some amount of PED usage, and then deciding to be ‘clean’ or ‘natural’ for 7 years, but like you said, there can be very different situations. On one hand, you may have a guy who juices all through his 20’s and builds a very impressive physique, possibly even competing at a couple of NPC shows and doing well. Then he takes time away, gets married, raises a family, still trains, but can’t justify the added expense of gear, supplements etc. One morning, on his 40th birthday he wakes up, and gets the itch to compete. He’s still a brick shit house by any non-Ifbb Pro’s standards. He hasn’t touched a pin in a decade.

At the other extreme, you’ve got guys who tried running a cycle for a few weeks, possibly even tried one of those fairly questionable (and powerful) pro-hormones in the late 90’s, only to decide that they were too scary (painful lower back pumps from superdrol?!) and stopped. A couple of years later they decide they want to step onstage. Obviously they’re not sporting any miraculous musculature to give anyone pause simply from several weeks of funnyname-drol.

Now which of the above situations is worse? Which should get a pass? More importantly, how common is either situation?

I always hear about how one of my closest friends is full of gear. “I know for a fact that he’s juiced” is a constant quote from some guy, who knows a guy who trained at his old gym a few times. I’ll be the first dude to tell you that he’s a damn imposing looking dude, and if I didn’t know what I know, I’d probably buy into it too. He’s gone a very large bone structure, hands like friggin oven mitts, and just strong as a damn ox. He’s also only a few inches taller than me, and despite carrying his offseason weight of ~220-230 lbs very well (this is why I assume everyone knows ‘for a fact’ that he’s assisted -lol), he competes at about 183-185 lbs. That’s about 5-8 lbs heavier than my contest weight. What this tells me is thus:

1- Average gym rats (and even most people purporting to be experts online) don’t know crap about what lean muscle really looks like in unassisted trainers. Either we’ve been too deluded from following the IFBB (I follow it too), buying into bogus bf% measurements done by ‘expert’ technicians working at our local Planet Fitness, or listening to our buddies when they tell us how shredded we look and what we’d “definitely” weigh in contest shape.

2- You can’t really assess what someone will weigh in very lean shape based on “how well” they carry weight in the off season.

Hope I made some sense with that (I can ramble at times), because I’ve gotta go run off to a meeting! -lol

S

csulli · November 15, 2013, 1:58pm

[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:
you may have a guy who juices all through his 20’s and builds a very impressive physique, possibly even competing at a couple of NPC shows and doing well. Then he takes time away, gets married, raises a family, still trains, but can’t justify the added expense of gear, supplements etc. One morning, on his 40th birthday he wakes up, and gets the itch to compete. He’s still a brick shit house by any non-Ifbb Pro’s standards. He hasn’t touched a pin in a decade.[/quote]
This is broaching a different topic really, but do you think after 7 or 10 years or whatever of being totally off that he’s still got any benefits at all left from his pincushion days? You’re only as big as your dose right? I mean I’m sure this hypothetical guy could still be way jacked, but wouldn’t he have lost 100% of his gains above and beyond his natural potential?

Hell most of the stuff I’ve read says that after you come off your natural levels never actually get back quite as high as they were before. If anything I think he’d be slightly worse off. But I don’t know a ton about the topic really.

NotaQuitta · November 15, 2013, 6:08pm

[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:
Also, while I’m not sure of Shevon’s particular height, Brian Whitacre (Second from the left in the image, usually~165 lbs contest weight) is 5’9 for certain. Keep the image of these two men in your head the next time some guy on an online forum is making predictions about how much he’ll weigh in contest condition if he were to ever decide to compete.
(Obviously, Whitacre and Cunningham are two of the very best in the world, but I’m sure you get my point)

S[/quote]

Stu, I usually appreciate your posts very much, but I think the contest weight issue is hugely understated from this post.

A contestant may be 165lbs at weigh-in on the big day, but the contest prep usually involves significant dehydration of water weight - usually up to 10-15lbs or so of water weight.

Taking Brian Whitacre as an example, his non-dehydrated weight (lbm at perhaps ~5-6% BF) would probably stand around 175-180lbs at a minimum.

Now, assuming in the offseason Brian retains the same LBM but trains at a reasonable (compared to assisted lifters) but still relatively lean BF of about 13+% (enough to cut relatively quickly for a photoshoot on short notice).

This would put Brian at an offseason “smooth” (although at 12-13% BF still probably rocking abs) at about 200lbs give or take 10lbs.

Obviously “some guy on a forum” would not have anywhere near as much LBM as Brian - I definitely agree with that. But would it be farfetched to say random “full-house poster”, if he was similarly 5’9", at a standing “trained” weight of about 210-220lbs claiming they would pretty imposing IF they ever cut down to contest weight?

In my humble opinion - probably not…

GrindOverMatter · November 15, 2013, 6:44pm

[quote]NotaQuitta wrote:

[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:
Also, while I’m not sure of Shevon’s particular height, Brian Whitacre (Second from the left in the image, usually~165 lbs contest weight) is 5’9 for certain. Keep the image of these two men in your head the next time some guy on an online forum is making predictions about how much he’ll weigh in contest condition if he were to ever decide to compete.
(Obviously, Whitacre and Cunningham are two of the very best in the world, but I’m sure you get my point)

S[/quote]

Stu, I usually appreciate your posts very much, but I think the contest weight issue is hugely understated from this post.

A contestant may be 165lbs at weigh-in on the big day, but the contest prep usually involves significant dehydration of water weight - usually up to 10-15lbs or so of water weight.

Taking Brian Whitacre as an example, his non-dehydrated weight (lbm at perhaps ~5-6% BF) would probably stand around 175-180lbs at a minimum.

Now, assuming in the offseason Brian retains the same LBM but trains at a reasonable (compared to assisted lifters) but still relatively lean BF of about 13+% (enough to cut relatively quickly for a photoshoot on short notice).

This would put Brian at an offseason “smooth” (although at 12-13% BF still probably rocking abs) at about 200lbs give or take 10lbs.

Obviously “some guy on a forum” would not have anywhere near as much LBM as Brian - I definitely agree with that. But would it be farfetched to say random “full-house poster”, if he was similarly 5’9", at a standing “trained” weight of about 210-220lbs claiming they would pretty imposing IF they ever cut down to contest weight?

In my humble opinion - probably not…[/quote]
if i remember correctly, whitacre doesnt fuck with water at all,

that dry look that you think is from “drying out” or whatever is actually because he is 3 percent bodyfat.

VTPower · November 15, 2013, 9:11pm

[quote]GrindOverMatter wrote:
if i remember correctly, whitacre doesnt fuck with water at all,

that dry look that you think is from “drying out” or whatever is actually because he is 3 percent bodyfat.[/quote]

How can you tell the difference between 3, 4, or 5% bodyfat? Does someone holding a little water at 3% look better or different than someone at 5% who is more dehydrated? I have no idea how to tell myself.

The_Mighty_Stu · November 15, 2013, 10:14pm

I’ve always heard that the human body can’t go under 4% without basically being dead. Obviously I’m no doctor here, but I imagine there’s a point where it’s so dangerous to oneself that the body would rather sacrifice other areas instead.

As to Whitacre, he’s never been one to cut water. The guy simply does get that ridiculously shredded. Lots of top level natural guys don’t screw with water at all, and of those that play around a bit, they do not lose anywhere close to “10 - 15 lbs” of water weight. The only reason the average trainer believes that this is a common practice is because the ‘enhanced’ competitors we all grow up wanting to look like and reading about in muscle rags, talk about doing so, and it’s necessary due to the retention caused by certain types of PEDs.

I certainly can’t speak for every natty competitor out there, but no one I know who does try to lose a bit of water weight, providing they’re damn lean to begin with, is only capable of losing a couple of lbs at most, and in the process, they walk a fine line with actually ruining their conditioning on game day. Unless someone is seriously going to fall right on the border between two weight classes, no “normal” contest prep (non-enhanced) tries to create “significant dehydration of water weight” because fuller muscles (glycogen and water) will actually make you appear leaner.

As to the whole ‘dehydrated muscle’ and lbm argum-uh-I mean discussions that always spring up when people mention bf%, I think it just gets silly after a point. Anything that can possibly make a muscle look smaller, or your condition possibly appear worse will never be undertaken by any serious competitor. Besides, even if you do throw out the random single digit value when someone who knows nothing about training asks who lean you are, most bodybuilders couldn’t care less. The mirror is all they need.

And yes, I’ve personally watched Brian toss down a gallon of BCAAs while waiting around for going onstage at a contest.

S

mbdix · November 15, 2013, 11:44pm

[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:
I’ve always heard that the human body can’t go under 4% without basically being dead. Obviously I’m no doctor here, but I imagine there’s a point where it’s so dangerous to oneself that the body would rather sacrifice other areas instead.

As to Whitacre, he’s never been one to cut water. The guy simply does get that ridiculously shredded. Lots of top level natural guys don’t screw with water at all, and of those that play around a bit, they do not lose anywhere close to “10 - 15 lbs” of water weight. The only reason the average trainer believes that this is a common practice is because the ‘enhanced’ competitors we all grow up wanting to look like and reading about in muscle rags, talk about doing so, and it’s necessary due to the retention caused by certain types of PEDs.

I certainly can’t speak for every natty competitor out there, but no one I know who does try to lose a bit of water weight, providing they’re damn lean to begin with, is only capable of losing a couple of lbs at most, and in the process, they walk a fine line with actually ruining their conditioning on game day. Unless someone is seriously going to fall right on the border between two weight classes, no “normal” contest prep (non-enhanced) tries to create “significant dehydration of water weight” because fuller muscles (glycogen and water) will actually make you appear leaner.

As to the whole ‘dehydrated muscle’ and lbm argum-uh-I mean discussions that always spring up when people mention bf%, I think it just gets silly after a point. Anything that can possibly make a muscle look smaller, or your condition possibly appear worse will never be undertaken by any serious competitor. Besides, even if you do throw out the random single digit value when someone who knows nothing about training asks who lean you are, most bodybuilders couldn’t care less. The mirror is all they need.

And yes, I’ve personally watched Brian toss down a gallon of BCAAs while waiting around for going onstage at a contest.

S[/quote]

Maybe I missed where this was discussed? Learn me. What would be the benefit of ingesting a large amount BCAAa before going on stage? Is it that muscles are made of these and they are trying to ‘fill’ the muscle up?

VTPower · November 15, 2013, 11:59pm

[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:
I’ve always heard that the human body can’t go under 4% without basically being dead. Obviously I’m no doctor here, but I imagine there’s a point where it’s so dangerous to oneself that the body would rather sacrifice other areas instead.

As to Whitacre, he’s never been one to cut water. The guy simply does get that ridiculously shredded. Lots of top level natural guys don’t screw with water at all, and of those that play around a bit, they do not lose anywhere close to “10 - 15 lbs” of water weight. The only reason the average trainer believes that this is a common practice is because the ‘enhanced’ competitors we all grow up wanting to look like and reading about in muscle rags, talk about doing so, and it’s necessary due to the retention caused by certain types of PEDs.

[. . .]

S[/quote]

Thank you for the input, Stu. I was under the impression that 4% is pretty much rock-bottom for any competitor, the remaining fat levels being necessary for organ function. I typically assume that top pros are all around 5% and the less-ready ones are maybe a couple percentage points higher (more like the 1970s look).

It makes a lot of sense that water manipulation is a bigger part of the game for IFBB pros who are looking to retroactively deal with the increased water retention caused by their “supplements.” When those aren’t in the picture, there just isn’t as much of a point to mess with it I guess.

NotaQuitta · November 16, 2013, 4:51pm

[quote]GrindOverMatter wrote: