Believe it or not we still don’t have a complete picture of how muscles grow. Brad Pilon has recently put together some research on a new theory that might help explain how muscles grow and why we can’t continue to grow indefinitely.

In general the theory is about chronic vs acute inflammation. Namely, acute intermittent inflammation from working out is good and helps stimulate muscle growth…but chronic inflammation from stress, infection, or overeating and obesity can destroy your ability to develop muscle.

Working out with weights produces a short term acute inflammatory response in the muscle. Basically the muscle is changed/damaged and then various metabolic changes happen and cells, hormones, and other factors enter the muscle cell to repair/remodel the muscle in response to the workout.

Once the repair and remodeling has taken place the extra material and cells leave the muscle cell.

This is analogous to a normal inflammatory immune response in any other tissue of your body.

The point is that it’s a short term transient change that comes and goes with each workout.

Chronic inflammation from infection, or over stress, or overeating may actually inhibit the ability of your muscle to react and grow in response to working out.

This theory might also provide the proof that “bulking up” will not work (without steroids) because overeating causes a chronic inflammation and ruins the acute inflammatory response.

LISTEN:

Brad talks about this in a recent podcast here –> Inflammation Theory of Muscle Growth

WATCH:

He has a full presentation at this website: Inflammation Theory of Muscle Growth

John

The 3rd Adonis Index transformation contest started yesterday and it’s not too late to enter today.

You can go to this link to find out how to enter: Transformation Contest

Here is a look at some of our previous contestants:

Pierre was one of the first winners

Ron won the overall at the first contest

Rich finished second overall in the second contest

Nate also won cash in our second contest

The result of two contests...amazing

(sorry ladies this one is for guys only…venus index is coming in October, there will be a contest for the women then)

So why bother entering a contest anyway?

1) It gives you a clear time frame to set your sights on

2) Gives you motivation to make a serious change in your body in a short period of time

3) Teaches you to challenge yourself and support others who are competing to challenge themselves too

4) Introduces you to a community of rare people who have entered and completed a contest (most people will never try this sort of thing and will never know how much their body can really change)

5) Teaches you what is truly possible when it comes to changing your body when you put your mind to it

6) You can win MONEY!

I’m sure there are dozen’s of other personal benefits you can get from competing in a transformation contest and they’re all good.

This is why we hold frequent transformation contests and they’re getting bigger every time.

Look, I can build you a workout, I can show you how to do it, I can write as many motivational blog posts as possible, and I can give you the best nutrition and fat loss program and information around…BUT I can’t make you follow any of it.

That part is up to you.

The best I can do is give you money of you follow what we say…and that is what the contest is for. I’m simply asking you to follow our recommendations take a couple pics and collect your winnings!

If you’re serious about changing your body don’t wait another day, make today the day it all changes. (and for the girls make mid october the day when the Venus Index workout comes out!)

John

As far as I’m concerned the gym is mostly (if not entirely) meant for building muscle. Sure you can do some ‘cardio’ there and try to burn a few extra calories, but I think the bulk of your time in the gym should be spent building muscle (that includes women too)

Muscle Building Happens In The Gym

I think many people run into a problem trying to make their workouts do more than they really can. For example the other day I was at the gym and saw a personal trainer making her client push a sled (loaded with 150lbs of weight) back and forth across the entire length of our gym (about 30 yards).

The poor guy pushing the sled must have been at least 70lbs overweight and I’ll bet he is hoping that these workouts are going to somehow make him lose weight.

This is a perfect example of having the wrong expectations. If that guy doesn’t start revamping how much he eats (aka eat less) then all the sled pushing in the world isn’t going to cause him to lose any weight.

It just seems like a lot of wasted effort because pushing that sled around isn’t even building his muscles in a way that will look good when he finally does (if ever) lose the weight.

The point is not to mix up what your diet and your exercise can do.

Use the gym primarily for building muscles and use your diet for weight loss.

IF you don’t have much bodyfat to lose (ie: you’re in that last 10lbs range) then you can certainly accelerate the process in the gym…but it’s still dependent on keep your calories in check.

The bottom line is to stick with a consistent workout for building muscle and use your diet to lose bodyfat.

John

An example of what steroids can do. Jose Canseco, the only honest man in baseball.

So I guess the general theme this week is “hormones”. So the next topic that we’re going to cover was sent in by Jason and this is about steroid muscle vs natural muscle.

This is a tricky topic because most celebrities, athletes and bodybuilders don’t admit or disclose the drugs they use so it’s hard to match a look with the drugs it took to get that look.

In other words, even though certain athletes have openly admitted to steroid use we still don’t know how much they used, for how long and most of all, we can never know for certain how big, strong and lean they would have been if they didn’t use.

So we’re left guessing and putting together the puzzle with only some of the pieces and no idea what the puzzle picture really looks like.

If you’ve been around the steroid sub culture or used them for any length of time they you have a good idea of what they can do and how your body will change…and how fast it will change.

You also gain some appreciation and insight into spotting other steroid users. There are a few characteristics that just become obvious if you’ve been on the inside.

1) Rapid strength gain. It’s pretty obvious when a guy is using drugs because is overall strength and the rate of is strength gain are massively accelerated.

2) Rounding bloated look. the muscle bellies of a guy on steroids seem to have a rounder, fuller more bloated look that natural guys can never really achieve. This is a subtle difference that many non users wont notice. But guys in the know can pick it out pretty easily as they can remember when they had the same effect and also know that it’s impossible to get that effect without drugs.

3) Overall size. There is a limit to natural muscle growth and when you see a guy who is simply far too big for his frame it becomes obvious that he’s using some extra help to get there.

4) Facial bloating. Many steroids will change the look of the face giving it a slightly fuller/bloated look. This is a dead giveaway for many guys.

These are just some of the visual cues that a guy is using steroids.

Natural guys who want to build muscle should try not to use a steroid induced look as their ideal that they’re shooting for. With that said it will be difficult to know if the person who you are role modeling uses drugs or not. The 4 guidelines above are at least a start to know if you’re chasing an ideal that you simply cannot catch without drugs.

If you don’t want to use drugs then you need to find a body image ideal that is drug free so you can set your expectations accordingly.

If you you do use drugs then the sky is the limit and the more you use the bigger you’ll get. But the quality of your look will still come down to conditioning and how and what you use and how much you use.

The bottom line with drug use is that the person with the best genetics to begin with will still look the best given the same amount of drugs (I’m talking competition level here).

It doesn’t really matter to me which path you’re on, it’s your body and its your rules so knock yourself out. I don’t believe anyone else has the right to tell you what you can or can’t put into your body. It’s really the only piece of property you have in the world that is mostly yours (and even with that the gov still tries to tell you what you can and can’t do with it)

Anyway, the point is to try and set a body image ideal that is consistent with what you’re doing to achieve it.

For guys and muscle building it typically boils down to:

a) Whether you are using drugs or not

b) Finding a body image ideal that was built using drugs or not

That latter is the tricky part as most steroid user’s don’t broadcast their use. The only way to know for sure is if you know them personally.

John

Ed Corney is a champion bodybuilder winning pro competitions well past the age of 60!

Still on the lines of our hormone theme is the question of what causes age related muscle atrophy (also known as sarcopenia), this is a question Jackson had.

Basically there are two things going on with age related muscle loss.

1) Lack of use

2) Lower anabolic hormone levels as we age

There hasn’t really been a generation of people who have lived a muscle building and weight training lifestyle for their entire life. Even many of the fathers of bodybuilding have given up with weight training as they’ve aged. So we really don’t have too many examples of people who have stuck to weight training their whole life. (which is a shame and I think a big mistake)

I think my generation will be one of the first to have a significant amount of people who will lift weights for their entire adult life…so we’ve still got decades to go before we get to see what the results of a lifetime of weight training really are!

This is kinda sad because we know scientifically that one of the only things we can do to stop (or slow down) age related muscle loss is weight training. If anything you should be doing more weight training as you get older not less. And it doesn’t matter when you start. Even if you’re 50 years old and you’ve never lifted weights before it’ll still have dramatic effects.

So you better start.

The #1 thing you can do to maintain a youthful body and appearance is weight training, hands down. It stimulates the muscle cell repair and growth as well as improving neuromuscular function, balance and overall quality of life, not to mention the positive effects in can have on your mind and emotional states as well.

So lifting weights is essential to preventing muscle loss as you get older.

The next part is hormones.

As you age your muscle building hormones start to decline (testosterone and growth hormone).

It’s already becoming popular among older celebrities to dose growth hormone in an effort to recapture some of their youthful body appearance and feel. I would also suggest testosterone as a viable option for older males as well.

In the next 10-20 years I fully expect physicians to be using various anabolic hormones to help keep muscle mass, tone, strength and vigor at more youthful levels in the aging population.

It will likely have a big impact on the quality of life as the baby boomers becomes older and move into their 60′s 70′s and beyond.

Hormonal replacement therapy along with weight training could go a long way to keep a youthful looking and feeling body far into the golden years.

John