Can We All Be As Big As Arnold? Bodybuilding Genetics Explained!

I’m sure you’ve all heard something about genetic potential in the bodybuilding game. You’ve probably heard one or both of the following:

“He’s only got that great body because of his genetics” or,

“I quit because my genetics suck and I’ll never get anywhere anyway”
If you are confused by this topic, this post will clear things up for you.

In this post I’m going to explain these genetic limitations specifically because oftentimes when the topic of genetics is brought up, the conversation ends without any further explanation.

Now, before we get into this, DON’T GET DEPRESSED! I myself have less-than-average genetics.
In school, I was amongst the skinniest guys there. In fact, that was the whole reason I started lifting in the first place!

What’s crazy is that now some people say that I’m lucky. That I must have awesome genetics. You gotta be kidding me! At best, 2 of my body parts responded better than others i.e. my pecs and biceps, but it was STILL hard work, training to failure, and eating right that produced the growth I got.

So let’s have a look…

Somatotype
Although there are an infinite variety of body types out there, 3 main classifications have emerged:

Ectomorph – skinny, thin torso, little bodyfat or muscle
Mesomorph – muscular, broad shoulders, less bodyfat
Endomorph – round torso, thick neck, shorter legs

Most likely you will fall somewhere between the extremes of these classifications. Obviously, the mesomorph body type is advantageous for bodybuilding.

Skeletal Formation
Carrying on from the above, the length, thickness, and structure of the bones also gives clues about genetic potential. Typically, very big guys will have broad shoulders, a small waist, and medium length limbs.

Neuromuscular Efficiency
This refers to to the efficiency of the relationship between the nervous system and the muscles themselves. Someone with high levels of neuromuscular efficiency will actually recruit more muscle fibers during muscular contractions. Those with lower levels will recruit less. For bodybuilding purposes, high levels of neuromuscular efficiency are obviously advantageous.

Muscle Fiber Density
Fairly self-explanatory. To grow muscle, we want to stimulate the fibers to hypertrophy. Obviously the more muscle fibers exist per square centimeter, the bigger you can get, and the bigger you’ll look without ever having lifted a weight.

Myostatin
I’ve talked before about how building massive muscle is a disadvantage from an evolutionary perspective. Sustaining a normal musculature is expensive enough calorie-wise; building MORE muscle is therefore not desirable from the body’s point of view. This is why you HAVE to give the body a damn good reason for it to build more muscle.

One of the ways the body limits muscle growth is through myostatin. The gene ‘GDF-8′ produces the myostatin protein for the purpose of limiting growth. The less myostatin you have circulating in your body, the easier it will be to build larger muscles.

Muscle Length
The longer a muscle is, the more potential there is for it to increase in size. This is because a muscle’s width will never exceed its length. The longer the actual muscle belly, and the shorter the tendons which connect the ends to the bone, the more potential you have to increase the size of that muscle.

This varies from muscle to muscle, which means that one person can have more potential in one muscle than in others. So if your calf muscles are short, that doesn’t mean that your biceps don’t have awesome potential.

Conclusion
PLEASE don’t be too concerned. People with average, or less-than-average, genetic potential are in the vast majority. People with superior genetic bodybuilding potential really are rare. Chances are that 95% of your fellow gym members are in the same boat as you.

I personally learned to embrace my skinny ass wrists and ankles and just got on with the job of building the muscle around them.

It is important to remember that while the above factors will dictate your starting point, and the rate at which you will grow, the fact is that…

EVERYONE CAN AND WILL GROW IF THEY TRAIN INTELLIGENTLY

Never forget that. People have been building muscles beyond normal levels for many, many years. Give your body a good enough reason and it will respond with new growth.

Stay Motivated!

-- Train Well With Muscle Gaining Secrets Today --

How To Flip The ‘Growth Switch’ For NEW Muscle Gains

“The necessary muscle stimulation to force adaptation occurs in the last few reps of a set.”


There’s more to this and if you want to MAXIMIZE increases in muscular size, it’s important for you to understand. We’ll look at muscle fibers, evolution, and the ‘anaerobic window’. Let’s get stuck in…
There is a point in a set where the ‘growth mechanism’ is activated, below which no muscular growth is stimulated.

You can liken this to a switch that’s flipped when you cross this threshold. I contend that this point is ‘failure’. When you reach the point in a set where you cannot possibly complete another positive repetition unassisted, you can say you’ve reached failure.

Muscle growth is actually a defense mechanism by the body. Much in the same way that a blood clot or a suntan is. Of course, a sufficient stimulus is required to produce this type of adaptation. Unfortunately for us humans, our bodies would much rather we built NO muscle whatsoever.

For evolutionary reasons the body doesn’t want to add more muscle!

Why not?

Muscle is metabolically active tissue i.e. the more of it you have, the more calories are required to keep you alive. Our bodies have adapted to expect long periods of hunger. They are also very efficient at storing/synthesizing body fat in anticipation of these periods.

Modern man is faced with the dilemma of wanting to be lean and muscular, while his body wants to have no ‘excess’ muscle (beyond normal levels) and a ready supply of fat for when famine strikes!

It should therefore be abundantly clear that without a really good reason, the body will not readily enlarge upon its existing muscle mass. Except for the neophyte or genetic freak, that reason is ‘failure’.

2B or Not 2B

Our most powerful muscle fibers, and the ones that respond most to weight training, are our type 2B fibers. These are our fast-twitch, anaerobic, power fibers. There are also our Type 1 fibers (slow twitch) and our type 2a and 2ab fibers (fast twitch). (No. 4 in the illustration is a muscle fiber).


Here’s the interesting thing about muscle fibers: They are recruited SEQUENTIALLY. This means that as a set increases in intensity and muscle fibers fatigue, more fibers are recruited from the NEXT fiber type in the following order:

• Type 1
• Type 2a
• Type 2ab
• Type 2b

Logically then, if we want to recruit and fatigue our type 2b fibers, we have to bring our set to a point where sufficient intensity is occurring to call into play the relevant motor units for the type 2b fibers.

In everyday life, the brain will not send out this signal unless there is some sort of emergency situation at hand. However, muscle hackers can voluntarily recruit these fibers by working to a point of muscular failure.
If, for example, a guy does a set of 10 reps, the tenth rep being the last rep possible, he won’t be involving his type 2b fibers until the 9th or 10th rep. All other reps build up to this point as fibers were recruited sequentially, and deeper inroads were made into starting strength levels through ever-increasing intensity.
It is that last, most uncomfortable, rep where the ‘growth switch’ is flipped. Bring a set to this point and you can rest easy knowing that you’ve done enough stimulate growth.

An incorrect interpretation of this may be to say that very high rep ranges can stimulate as much growth because if you fail at rep 30, you’ve still progressed through the sequential recruitment, right?
Not really. It is well agreed upon in the fitness world that sets lasting between 60-90 seconds or less will produce more in the way of anaerobic adaptations than aerobic ones. As I’ve stated before, because our ability to recover from mechanical work is not unlimited, sets lasting more than 1.5 minutes will SPLIT adaptations between both the aerobic and anaerobic systems.

While there is nothing magical about a certain repetition number, a good rep range and cadence should have you terminating a set around the 1 minute mark. Therefore training systems that advocate very high rep ranges, or even the SuperSlow ™ movement, are not optimal for those prioritizing muscular growth.

A question I often get is, “How do I know when I’ve reached failure?” I thought about it and came up with the following…

When you think you may have reached failure, try another rep. If you get that rep, try another one and so on. Basically, a set doesn’t end when you decide, it ends when your muscle(s) fails. If you find that you can hammer out 3 or 4 more reps every time you use this method, you are using weights that are too light. Often when people complain that they can’t reach failure, it’s simply a case of submaximal loads. So increase the weight, there’s nothing mysterious about failure, you’ll know it when you hit it.

Training ‘not-to-failure’ can lead to ‘fake progression’. If I use a weight that represents only 75% of my 10-reps-to-failure weight and lift a 10-rep set, I could ‘progress’ for many months by increasing by a rep here, an incremental weight increase there, and so on. My numbers would be going consistently up but I wouldn’t be progressing in actuality because:

• In a few months time I’ll finally reach the point where I lift 10 reps-to-failure with the weight I actually could have used way back at the start. This ‘fake progression’ ensured that I never pushed through the upper limits of my strength potential.

And I wouldn’t actually be growing because:

• I never forced any adaptation because I trained WITHIN my existing strength levels and never made any demand from my body to increase the size of the muscle fibers.

Of course, training with the requisite intensity to trigger growth does involve a longer recovery period and this can confuse some people. Those bodybuilders who train the same body part 3 times a week will fall into this category.

By the time they perform their second workout of the week (hitting the same muscle groups), they haven’t even recovered let alone overcompensated. Oftentimes, they’ll not be able to even repeat their previous performance let alone beat it. This disappointed guy goes back to his old system swearing never to train to failure again.

This longer recovery is for a very good reason though. Those powerful, type 2B fibers we want to hit, also take the longest to recover and overcompensate. The fact that you’ve flipped the growth switch and NEED that longer recovery time should put the over-anxious gym-goer’s mind at ease when he feels he’s not training enough.

So get to the gym and flip that switch!

 -- Start Gaining Muscle Now! --

High Reps & Low Weights – Good For Cutting?

The bodybuilding world is bursting at the seams with fiction.

Science, logic, and reason are NOT the cornerstones of this particular industry; tradition and hype unfortunately are.

I mean, who wants to develop a sound theory of this particular branch of exercise science when the new issue of ‘muscle blaster magazine’ promises overnight success?

New workouts and supplements are peddled by steroid-ridden “champions” who’ve never used the product, let alone depend upon it for their results.

People like me have to settle to be in minority because we aren’t prepared to flat-out lie to people in exchange for cash. Being honest with people gets less attention than “Add 2 inches to your arms in 2 weeks!” – it’s all glitz and glamor, less science and substance.

Anyway, rant over. 
One of the MANY myths that still pervades this sport is the idea that a higher rep range should be employed to promote fat loss and definition on a cutting cycle.

We’re talking 15-20 reps per set here, sometimes more. The thinking is one, or both of the following:
High reps will burn more calories than lower reps
High reps promote a more defined/cut look

Firstly, just because a set lasts longer doesn’t necessarily mean it burns more calories. A low or medium rep range terminates sooner but the intensity of the contractions is higher. This means MORE stimulation of the anaerobic pathway which in turn must mean more stimulation of the aerobic pathway while you REST. (This is because the lactic acid build up converts to pyruvate which MUST in turn be metabolized aerobically. If you want a fuller explanation read the cell metabolism part of this article.)

However, it may be true that, on the whole, a full workout to high-rep failure burns more calories. But if so, we’re talking about tens of calories here folks, not hundreds. Just leave a few peas off your plate and you’re all set.

But there’s a more important issue.

Even if you burned 15 more calories, you’ve effectively SPLIT any adaptations that the body is going to make BETWEEN the anaerobic and aerobic systems. While you can’t truly isolate the anaerobic system by lifting weights, a bodybuilder MUST seek to steer the body’s adaptations towards muscle growth as much as possible.

And you can’t get the best of both worlds because the body’s recovery ability is NOT unlimited. If it were, things would be a lot easier for us guys, but it’s not. Therefore this limited resource must be ’spent’ on recovery and GROWTH of muscle tissue as far as possible.

Remember that when cutting you’ll be incorporating some cardio sessions into your regime to help accelerate the fat loss process. This, along with diet, is what takes care of lowering your body fat percentage. It only makes sense to keep your weight training sessions as anaerobic as possible.

You want to keep muscle-building (or at the very least, muscle-maintaining) a high priority as muscle tissue is metabolically active tissue i.e. it burns calories by simply existing. There are many opinions on just how many calories a pound of muscle burns ranging from 6 – 100. I think a good estimate is 35-50 per day. If you LOSE 5 pounds of muscle when cutting you’ve lost at least 63,875 worth of yearly calorie-burn, which equates to 18.25 pounds of fat. So muscle tissue is key to getting lean, and even MORE important for STAYING lean.

In short, the purpose of your weight training sessions is to stimulate growth irrespective of whether you’re on a bulking or cutting cycle. Attention to diet and incorporating some cardio is what’ll get you ripped. High reps have nothing to do with getting that defined look.

-- Start Gaining Muscles Today! --

HIT or Volume Training for muscle?

So this bodybuilder at my gym who runs a shake bar inside the gym calls me, "Lazy" which inspired this post today.

You see, while he was making me my post workout shake we started chatting about HIT (high intensity training) VS Volume training and which was best to build a body to resemble a mythical God and to scare little kids.

Being an old-school bodybuilder (he's not natural but built like a tank) he was a volume guy and I said something that implied he probably didn't understand the scientific approach to building muscle and didn't push himself hard enough to get the job done in a few sets.

He didn't like that.

He retorted with a comment that implied, that by being a HITer, I was not being as devoted as he was and said, "Sounds like you're a little lazy..."

I respect where he's coming from. I have lots of bodybuilding friends who train for 2 hours a day, sometimes up to 3 hours a day on leg day! These guys don't care about being in the gym all day or seeing the gym as interfering with life because "It is life!"

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Why I Crave HIT
===============

I'm a huge advocate of High Intensity Training. I'm the kind of guy that thinks you should squeeze out every last rep to push yourself to the limit of every workout.

The secret is to know how to tweak the volume so you can stimulate each muscle group with high frequency.

My bodybuilding friend who runs the shake bar would have you believe there's nothing wrong with forced reps and strip sets. If you're not pushing yourself to absolute muscular failure every workout you're just not going to make gains right?

This works if you're on the gear but by large, volume training wipes out the average trainee if not designed or planned properly.

=================================================================================
I believe in taking each SET to absolute muscular failure, but not each WORKOUT to absolute muscular failure.
=================================================================================

I've believed that for a long time and I still do. But there's something I believe in even more and that's PERIODIZATION, which is an organized approach to cycling different training regimens during a specific period of time.

Many powerlifting cycles will last up to 12-weeks without any strict diet in place and when the 12-week cycle is done, it's time to start eating better, and change up the training a bit.

I'll don't adhere to traditional powerlifting workouts but after a cycle of heavier lifting, I'll take a week off or go right into a cycle of volume workouts.

With the volume workouts you take short breaks between sets (great for fat burning), and you do more sets. If you're just concerned about building muscle these workouts are actually pretty good at that too.

Another advantage of switching to this sort of workout is giving the central nervous system, bones, joints and tendons a break.

This style of training is nothing new and it's not something I invented. It's based on volume training techniques and a lot of the bodybuilders from the Golden Era swore by it.

==================================
If You're Wondering What The Golden Era Is...
==================================

The bodybuilders of the Golden Era from the 50s, 60s, and 70s produced bodies that resembled Greek Gods! The symmetry and proportion untainted by the humongous drug bloated waists of today's pro bodybuilders explains why even young men of today's generation are inspired by the men of this past generation.

Guys like Vince Gironda, Frank Zane and Larry Scott Had Attained The Secrets To Achieving Steroid-Like Results Without Abusing Drugs Like Many Of The Pros Of Today Have Done.

These were a few of the physiques who inspired me transform my own body with this guide book:

http://www.MuscleGainingSecrets.com

Picking up this book will make a lot of sense if you're looking for a PLANNED APPROACH to your training. The approach in this book is especially beneficial if you are still getting to know how your body responds to different stimuli.

If you don't pick up this book and you're a newbie, take heed.

One of the biggest mistakes you can make is getting on a program found in muscle magazines, believing that you can train "just like the pros," and end up overtraining so badly you hardly grow.

That's why this book for you. I want you to avoid this mistake and get a perfectly PLANNED approach to experience some rapid and dramatic muscle gains.

Click here to grab your copy today:
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See you in gym!

Build the body woman want

Am I right or wrong? Men are obsessed with sex and looking good to women?

While flying to NYC for a few days, I read a recent study saying that sex was central to a man’s happiness.
Money came a close second, but sexual activity was the strongest predictor of happiness - the more sex, the greater the happiness.

This is up for debate, of course, but I m sure there is a good degree of truth to it.

I have noticed that many successful men are extremely methodical about their careers and personal finances but not so much “on the ball” when it comes to improving their sexual attractiveness to women.

I think men have a general idea, like we discovered in the last post, but not as sure as they would prefer.

We know that women like fit and athletic-looking men and shun guys “too big” or who are fat slobs, but that’s about it. I’ve seen some pretty attractive women with guys who look like skinny marathon runners and others with guys who would be classified in the “Mr Olympia” category.

It's, no doubt, very confusing.

As I shared in my last post, I believe men need at least 20-30 pounds of new muscle mass to attract women.

But in reality, we don’t know 100%.

Until today… we are bridging the gap and it appears my 20-30 pounds is probably pretty accurate.

-- Build Muscle Now --

Do you need to train like a bodybuilder to look like a bodybuilder?

I got into an argument with this tough guy at my gym yesterday because he insisted, “You gotta train like a bodybuilder if you want to look like a bodybuilder!”

Sounds like this knuckle head was stating common sense, right?

WRONG.

He could not have been further from the truth.

How do I know that? Read this quote below:

“When my guys tell you it costs more than $25,000 to get ready for a big contest, do you think they’re talking about pasta?”

-Wayne Demilia, President of the International Federation of Body Builders (IFBB)
As quoted from the New York Times May 13, 2001

Consider a pro bodybuilder does four shows each year and that adds up to $100,000 (US) per year on steroids but that wasn’t what stirred up the argument.

I’ll tell how he got my blood REALLY boiling after I bust this popular muscle myth wide open on my blog.

My Website < -- CLICK HERE

I want at least 50 comments before I post two new emails on the bodybuilding supplement cartel that is also ROBBING you of your muscle (and fat loss) progress.

P.S. I just got this email from Paul from Dallas Texas, a user of my No Nonsense Muscle Building program:

“I started your NNMB program on 4/4/09 with Upside Down Training (UDT). I am currently on week 7 of the 29 week beginner-intermediate weight training program.

THE RESULTS HAVE BEEN IMMEDIATE AND DRAMATIC!!!

Since beginning UDT through today, I have gained 25 lbs (12 weeks). I’m not sure exactly what the ratio of muscle to fat is, and I don’t really don’t care either because it looks great.

And lots of people have noticed my progress.

One friend I hadn’t seen in a few months said “Holy $#*% dude, you’re jacked!”. Another friend who I hadn’t seen in about a month said I “look like The Hulk” and I looked like I “blew up”.

Best of all is the attention I now get from love interests at bars and clubs-my life has truly been changed in that regard.

And I’ve only been doing this for 7 weeks-hard to imagine what thing will be like at week 29!

Feel free to use this for your testimonials on your website.

Please just use my first name, Paul, and location, Dallas, TX. Thank you for changing my life.”

-- Start Gaining Muscles Today --

The 1 Simple Rule To Build Massive Muscle

Over the past weekend I was thinking about how to simplify the fundamentals of training to maximize muscle growth.
I mean, is there one rule that can sum it all up?

1 word?
1 phrase?
1 sentence?

This 1 principle should contain all others and should be simple enough to be understood by ANYONE that wants to real deal on how to build muscle.

Before we really get into this, let’s look at WHY the body builds muscle in the first place. Did you realize that building muscle is a DEFENSE mechanism that the body employs?

If the proper stimulation is not given, the body WILL NOT build any new muscle. Basically, your body needs to be brought to its 100% maximum strength limit which prompts it to ‘think’….

“Hey I better protect myself from more of these brutal onslaughts. In order for this same intensity of exercise to feel easier next time, I’ll synthesize more muscle tissue.”

However, next time (if you’re smart and read MuscleHack.com ) you don’t lift the same weights or complete the same amount of reps; you INCREASE the intensity and once again push the body to it’s MAXIMUM, and now higher, strength limit.

By this time the body is wondering what the hell is going on and once again builds more mass to cope better with your intense workouts.

Repeat this cycle over and over and you have the simple logic of building muscle mass. You’d think it would be obvious to most gym-goers, but surprisingly it’s not.

Now, if your answer to my question in the second sentence of this article was ‘Progressive Overload‘, your answer was incomplete.

Yes, you absolutely MUST increase weight and/or reps over time to continuously build muscle. Simply put, you NEED to get stronger to get bigger. A good muscle building program is, in essence, a strength training program.
HOWEVER, strength gains are a means to an end for us Muscle Hackers, NOT the end itself.
But progressive overload doesn’t describe it all…

What about intensity? Should we train to failure?
Should we reach failure on the 2nd, 10th, 20th, 100th rep?
What we need is a concept that sums up the following…

Get stronger by lifting progressively heavier weights
Train to failure to ensure 100% maximum intensity

Reach failure at progressively heavier weights to force the body into ongoing adaptation
Work in a rep range that activates the ANAEROBIC pathways, NOT the aerobic ones
After a few hours lying in my back yard catching some rays and mulling this over, I got it!
Here it is. Drum roll please…

The principle of Progressively Maximizing Anaerobic Intensity

In a nutshell, the above principle states that in order to maximize muscle growth you have to force the body to grow/adapt by pushing it to ever-increasing strength limits by working with 100% intensity of effort in an anabolic rep range. Phew!!!

This one phrase encompasses all the following…

You must get stronger to get bigger
Your effort must be maximal AND ever-increasing i.e. working to failure at higher and higher weights
You must stimulate muscle GROWTH above all else i.e. reps should not be too low where strength gains take precedence, and reps cannot be too high which is essentially an aerobic workout

If you memorize this concept you’ll NEVER go far wrong my friends. No gym rat or muscle rag will ever lead you astray again.