By Dayne Hudson
I know what it's like.
Finding out that Santa Claus really doesn't land on your roof, and the easter bunny and the tooth fairy don't really exist - that mum and dad seem to be as talented as Marlon Brando playing all three roles year after year.
Yep.
And the same goes for some muscle growth myths - such as the idea of training to increase the circulation of hormones like testosterone, growth hormone, and IGF-1 for MORE muscle mass.
How it could it not be true?
It was the perfect theory, as it's these hormones that are all elevated highly after resitance training.
And just how largely they are jacked up, depends on weight used, rest times between sets (limited rest between heavy compound movements).
So many thought that by training specifically with the aim of bumping up these hormones, you'd be growing more muscle mass.
Shorter rest periods, with heavy weight and many compound movements were recommended, as was not training something as small as biceps alone, but combining it with exercises like leg presses or squats for an elevation in growth hormone and testosterone.
Then came the study (1) that blew the theory away to myth island, landing perfectly amongst Santa Claus and the rest of the crew.
THE RESEARCH
12 healthy untrained young men trained biceps ALONE for 15 weeks on separate days.
In one of the settings, they did isloated bicep curls in order to keep their basal hormone levels consistent.
In the other training condition, they did the same biceps workout, before going onto a high volume of leg resistance training, to bump up these hormones.
So if the theory of jacking up these hormones were true, the group pumping legs and biceps would have seen the most growth.
WHAT THEY FOUND
NO SIGNIFICANT difference in size or strength between both groups! Check out the graph below:
GRAPH: from Exercise Biology.
It also put an end to the myth of: "train legs to get bigger" - which EVERYONE once believed.
It was passed on by many gym rats, who had the same theory as a lot of researchers until they put it to the test. But why wouldn't we believe it?
Everyone was telling us - and it made so much sense!?
Train legs for LEG GROWTH - NOT for growth elsewhere.
MORE ON GROWTH HORMONE
Further to this study, other (2) research has examined actually TAKING growth hormone (as opposed to trying to naturally elevate levels of it) and found no unusual gains in muscle mass.
The study found that just 4.6 pounds (2kg) worth of lean body mass over about 80 days was gained, from people aged between 13-45.
Subjects got bigger - but not stronger.
How could it POSSIBLY increase muscle mass, but not strength?
Well, lead researcher Hau Lui certainly had an explanation, insisting that the size gained in the muscles was mostly fluid retention, and NOT muscular growth!
So it seems completely valid that training to elevate growth hormone WILL NOT cause more muscle growth, given that TAKING growth hormone doesn't!
"A lot of people think that things like growth hormone are involved (in muscle growth), I can tell you right now that even despite the name, that growth hormone does NOT make your muscles grow."
But he did go onto say that growth hormone increases collagen synthesis on your connective tissue, which may provide a benefit by making you "less prone to injury".
REAL MUSCLE GROWTH
The recent finding of MGF, muscle IGF-1 showed it's these local factors that are mainly the instigator for muscle growth and NOT the other systemic hormones.
These local factors are found inside the muscle, and told the story of why muscle growth is specific to the exercised muscle.
Because, if the other hormones were behind muscle growth, we would have seen an increase in muscle mass amongst the muscles that WEREN'T being exercised, too.
CONCLUSION
So forget training legs to get a bigger upper body, practicing shorter rest periods and doing a tonne of compound movements for the sake of increasing hormones to create more muscle mass.
You now know, if you didn't already, that it WON'T result in any additional increases in muscle growth!
MORE FIT'N'FLEXED FITNESS MYTHS HERE
Stay Fit, Stay Flexed!
REFERENCES
(1) West D et al. Elevations in ostensibly anabolic hormones with resistance exercise enhance neither training-induced muscle hypertrophy nor strength of the elbow flexors. Articles in PresS. J Appl Physiol (November 12, 2009) doi:10.1152/japplphysiol.01147.2009.
(2) Liu H, et al. Systemic review: The safety and efficacy of growth hormone in the healthy elderly. Annals of Internal Medicine. 2007;146:104.
