Inflammation Theory of Muscle Growth

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

Posted by johnbarban in Adonis Index, Muscle Building, steroids

4 Responses to “Inflammation Theory of Muscle Growth”

trizzle1337 Says:
March 18th, 2011 at 2:13 pm
John, I got a question. So eating excess calories isn’t exactly beneficial to building muscle but what about strength? I’m a competitive powerlifter, and I’ve seen first hand (i personally haven’t really bulked) from one of my training partners gaining 16lbs and his squat increasing by 100lbs in 3 months. He was stalled before that….and if his squat went up 85lbs (from ~350 to 450, 350 squat was at 174bw, 450 is at 200). are you saying that his squat increase wasn’t related to his weight gain? I was always told that increasing calories makes it easier to gain strength…and the stronger you are, the more muscle you will have. but this seems to contradict the inflammation theory.

I would like to hear your thoughts on this subject. Thank you
trizzle1337 Says:
March 18th, 2011 at 2:14 pm
sorry, i meant his squat went up 100lbs** not 85
trizzle1337 Says:
March 18th, 2011 at 2:15 pm
grr my math is really off today haha 26lbs** gain. for some reason i was thinkin he weighed 184
johnbarban Says:
March 23rd, 2011 at 2:42 pm
Trizzle,

I’ve seen people gain similar amounts of strength without gaining any bodyweight.

There is no physiological mechanism to suggest eating in excess is necessary for strength gain.

Anecdotes don’t equal data.