The Limits of Muscle Growth

Unlike this road, our muscle growth does have a finite limit.

The largest muscle size you can ever achieve is determined in combination by your genetic predisposition and your workout pattern, consistency, effort, and to a lesser degree nutrition. Beyond that you can push closer to your limit by using anabolic drugs like testosterone and it’s derivatives, Growth Hormone, IGF-1, Insulin and others.

However, even those individuals who use any or all of these drugs will eventually reach a limit as well.

The human system (any biological system for that matter) can only adapt to a finite and specific amount of stress until it eventually breaks down.

This is a well known phenomenon and is an example of hormesis (not to be confused with homeostasis)

Hormesis is the concept that a given stressor (such as exercise) can force the system to adapt in a positive manner but the amount of stress that compared to the benefit/reaction is not a linear relationship but rather a curved relationship.

In other words, there is an amount of exercise that is too little and an amount that is too much and an amount that is just right.

The ‘just right’ zone is where you want to be to stimulate muscle growth, and as you get stronger this zone changes.

You need to do more work and more often to continue to grow over time. This however reaches a limit at which point the entire system breaks down (over training).

Most people don’t do enough work to ever reach a true state of over training so this really isn’t an issue.

The key to stimulating maximum muscle growth is pushing the upper edge of the ‘just right zone’ without ever going over it.

John

Posted by johnbarban in Muscle Building
Tags: Muscle Building, muscle growth |14 Comments

14 Responses to “The Limits of Muscle Growth”

  1. usernametooshortnowitstoolon Says:
    June 21st, 2010 at 2:36 pm

    John, what evidence (or body of evidence) do we have that lets us know that a shoulder-to-width ratio of 1.62 is achievable for everyone while having a waist measurement that is 44% of their height?

  2. johnbarban Says:
    June 21st, 2010 at 4:22 pm

    There isn’t any formally published research on this specific phenomenon because Brad Pilon and I are the ones would came up with the concept.

    I’m an example of someone who has achieved that shape, we also have other people on the program who’ve achieved this shape within 1 inch of our waist calculation.

    It seems that our waist measurement might even be slightly high (perhaps by an inch for the average built guy) in which case I might suggest this waist measurement to be the ‘end of day’ measurement compared to the ‘morning fasted’ measurement.

    In general this recommendation seems to be holding for most of our guys who’ve achieved a 1.6 ratio or higher.

    Ecto’s seem to be coming in 2-3 inches smaller than our cacluated number (which makes sense).

    Regardless, of the exact waist, the ratio still holds. The variance on waist size is likely not going to be much more than an inch perhaps 2 for most people.

    JB

  3. usernametooshortnowitstoolon Says:
    June 21st, 2010 at 7:59 pm

    Pretty quiet in here today, eh, John?

  4. James Says:
    June 21st, 2010 at 9:15 pm

    John, what happens when you over train?

  5. Jaxon Says:
    June 22nd, 2010 at 2:44 pm

    “You need to do more work and more often to continue to grow over time. This however reaches a limit at which point the entire system breaks down (over training).” Is this a reference to overtraining or the slower part of the anabolic continum?

  6. johnbarban Says:
    June 22nd, 2010 at 4:20 pm

    Jaxon,

    That is a reference to overtraining which can happen at any point in the anabolic continuum.

    Think of it like trying to run 25 miles per day for 10 days in a row…it doesn’t matter where you are in the anabolic continuum this is simply too much work for a human system to handle in that time frame.

    JB

  7. Jason Says:
    June 22nd, 2010 at 7:25 pm

    John,
    Good post and good podcast.

    I also think it’s helpful to think of FAT cells as billions of balloons that can shrink or expand (both significantly).

    With regard to fat loss, why do you think people create cutoffs for deficits but not surplus? For example:

    -Not going a day without eating
    -No more than 60 minutes of cardio at at time
    -No more than 500 calorie deficit, or 1000
    -For some, not skipping meals

    YET when it comes to overeating, it’s possible to eat 3500 extra calories in one sitting. To me, the “conservative” approach to creating a calorie deficit is no match for our excessive energy surplus environment.

    Does this make sense?

  8. Jonathan Says:
    June 23rd, 2010 at 9:27 am

    Jason,

    You make a good point, but the question that really needs to be asked is, How often is one engaging in such a surplus? If it’s every other day, fat loss is not going to occur. Maintenance might, but not fat loss. However, for fat loss, John has demonstrated on this site (along with others who are regular contributors/readers) that a person can set a benchmark (or cutoff) for low calories, while still enjoying a “surplus” one day during the week (whichever day you want). John has mentioned before, as well as Brad Pilon and Brad Howard, that it helps to look at total weekly calorie consumption, instead of trying to measure every day exactly the same.

    If you want to have a social life, I think it’s nice to be able to say, “Tonight I’m going to eat what I want with my friends,” without having to worry about a “cutoff” point. But that only works for fat loss if one has been on target with the diet the rest of the week.

  9. Jonathan Says:
    June 23rd, 2010 at 9:28 am

    Whoops. Above, I meant to say, “Maintenance might occur if you are having a surplus one day and a deficit the next.”

  10. usernametooshortnowitstoolon Says:
    June 23rd, 2010 at 12:21 pm

    Jonathan, that is exactly what John Barban, Brad Pilon, et al are saying – look at caloric consumption on a weekly (or even monthly) basis. Daily would be too restricting for most people.

  11. Alek Says:
    June 24th, 2010 at 6:22 pm

    Hey john, what do you think of those calculators for calculating maximum size? Most guys (99% who try them out) seem to get results that are around what you guys say in the anabolic (again) continuum… They get between 180-95 pounds at 5’10. Those calculators are based on wrist/ankle circumferences.

    But some guys (like me), get as much 230 pounds on those calcs. Am I genetic freak, lol. I used 5 different tapes, those are my actual wrist/ankle sizes.

    I think you should give your 2 cents on those calculators, since a lot of people look to them to find out their natural maximums.

  12. Alek Says:
    June 24th, 2010 at 8:47 pm

    Sorry, meant 220 pounds. And apparently all the biggest guys have huge bones.

  13. johnbarban Says:
    June 25th, 2010 at 3:23 pm

    Alek,

    I’ve never looked at these things. where did you find them?

    JB

  14. Alek Says:
    June 26th, 2010 at 8:41 am

    Hey, I pasted the info, but didn’t appear, I’m guessing its because blog auto-denies comments containing urls? Here’s the same comment sans urls for that purpose:

    ===========================

    Hey John. Pretty much the entire “natural bodybuilding” community is mad about these calculators.

    Calculator:
    google: “maximum size calculator hypertrophy specific”, first result

    (Bunch of theory)
    google: “maximum potential natural bodybuilding”, first result
    http://www.weightrainer.net/maximum_potential.html

    They’re based on wrist/ankle measurements, to predict natural potential.

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