Just a quick post today to let all readers know that I’m going to launch a new product.

It’s called Anabolic Again, and basically it’s a 12 week muscle building workout system designed for advanced weight lifters to overcome plateaus in both muscle size and strength gains. This is NOT for beginners.

The system is meant to be used for it’s full 12 weeks and then you stop and go back to your regular workout. The Anaboilc Again System is designed to ’shock’ your system back into new muscle growth.

Starting this Tuesday everyone can go to www.anabolicagain.com and sign up to get a FREE copy of the Assessment guide, and to sign up for the FREE Telesminar I’m going to give on Thursday that explains Anabolic Slow Down and the Anabolic Continuum.

Many of us have false expectations about how much muscle we can actually build.

“Hi Brad!

I read almost every article u wrote, and your view is very impressive.
But I have 1 question (maybe off topic, sorry)

You say the amount of protein is not so important, the quality of the food is not so important (ok avoid crap), 2-3 workout per week is enough to keep or build muscle.

What is then the mistake what most of the average  gym rat make?

Ok we can see some real life example like you, but every competitive bodybuilder use (or they lie) the old method (6-8 meals, lot of protein above 300 grams, lot of training, cardio everyday) and not only for the end of the preparation, but from the beginning.”

Hey Wood,

Average gym rats think they can get steroid-like muscle growth without taking steroids.

I believe it’s true when bodybuilders say they eat 8 meals per day, ingest more than 300 grams of protein, and do a lot of cardio training.

This may even be the right way to build muscle if you’re taking 3 grams of test a week along with GH, insulin, and maybe even Clenbuterol.

It’s even possible that males who aren’t bodybuilders and who use “a small amount of drugs” – cover models, for example, and maybe even “before and after” models – could benefit from eating this way.

I’m not an expert on the topic of drugs and their effect on the kinds of nutrients your body needs.

But for normal, non-drug-using adults, the amount of muscle you can add depends on your genetics and your training. Protein intake and food quality have very little to do with it – at least not as much as advertisers would like to have you think.

The bottom line is: Powdered protein will not give you steroid-like effects.

PS – I should point out that you don’t have to BE big to LOOK big, this is part of the problem.

People often assume people who LOOK muscular are ten, twenty even thirty pounds heavier than they actually are.

Most times, they are much lighter then you’d expect. They are just lean, and have muscle in the right places.

http://www.adoniseffect.com is an example of this phenomena.

Let me state the obvious: All human bodies look roughly the same.

One can easily tell the difference between, say, a human, a gorilla, and a hippopotamus.

A description of a human male could easily be summed up by saying that they are usually about 5’10” tall, with approximately 148 pounds of lean mass. Their weight can vary greatly due to their ability to store energy in the form of fat mass.

A more detailed summary of a human male would explain that their height has a standard deviation of about three inches, meaning that 95 percent of all men are somewhere between 5’4” and 6’4” tall.

Their lean muscle mass also has a standard deviation of about seven pounds, so an athletic healthy male could have about 14 pounds more lean mass than average, and a sickly man could weigh about 14 pounds less than average before he is considered to be in a disease state.

Only about 2.5 percent of the population is comprised of “anomalies” – rare cases in which a person has much more muscle than everyone else or is much taller than the average.

You and I are fairly limited in how much muscle we can add to our bodies. We are, after all, only human beings, with checks and balances everywhere in our bodies. And this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

The next time you hear about an exercise program which claims to be able to “add 60 pounds of muscle in six weeks,” consider this: Many things which cause your muscles to grow beyond their normal limits are connected to higher than average rates of cancer.

Chronic high testosterone, chronic high insulin, chronic high growth hormone, and chronic high IGF-1 – all are connected to an increase risk of cancer.

Remember, you’re only human. Be happy with the shape of your body. Make it your goal to increase muscle mass and decrease fat mass, but keep your expectations realistic.

I have found that an adult male can expect to gain about 14 pounds of muscle through strength training. Females can expect to gain about six pounds of muscle with the same technique. After that point, muscle growth slows considerably.

You can obtain more muscle with pharmaceutical supplements, but you should be aware of the fact that there could be long-term health side effects as a result of doing so.

You can gain more muscle without supplements, but you should expect progress to be slow and growth to be limited.

Remember to eat less and move more. Try to build muscle while you keep your body fat low, but remember that you’re human. Unless you are about 6’10” tall, you’re probably never going to reach 250 pounds with five percent body fat.

Research published in 2008 by Beelen et al [Beelen M, 2008] suggests that the effect that eating (or drinking) protein during a workout has on protein synthesis is no different then the effect that the workout alone has when you continue to measure after 9 hour of recovery.

Confused? Don’t worry…

I’m willing to bet that anyone who has spent anytime reading fitness magazines or bodybuilding websites has heard that eating protein causes an increase in protein synthesis, however it’s important to take a look and see where this ‘fact’ came from.

While research has shows that eating protein before, during or after your workout DOES effect protein synthesis, this research is limited by the fact that they only measure protein synthesis for a couple of hours (usually around two hours), then speculate that the difference stays significant for a long enough time to actually cause you to build extra muscle mass.

Sounds great, but unfortunately when this measurement is taken for 9 hours as it was in the trial published in the Journal of Nutrition, we realize that the effect essentially disappears with time.

The two hour period may represent a little bit of a quick start into the muscle building process, but by 9 hours, this quick start disappears, and everything becomes equal.

This is extremely interesting since in this study, the people in the placebo group didn’t eat for over 2 hours before the workout, then completed a 2 hour workout, then did not eat for another 9 hours, essentially meaning they were fasted for over 13 hours and they still had the same anabolic response to their workout as the people who drank a protein shake during their workout then had two more protein shakes once they were done their workout!

The bottom line is that 9 hours after your workout you will have build the same amount of muscle whether you ate a lot of protein, a little bit of protein, or even if you  ate nothing at all -  Leading to the conclusion that the muscle building effects after 9 hours were attributable to the workout alone, and NOT how much protein you eat.

On a positive side, this research does suggest that if you were working out multiple times per day (less than 9 hours per workout) then there may be a benefit to protein supplementation…however this is just a theory that would require more research.

“Hi Brad, When it comes to how much protein I should eat for muscle building I was wondering if you could tell me what the difference is between ‘whole body protein synthesis’ & ‘mean muscle protein synthesis’?

For instance, I am really interested in the benefits of drinking a protein shake during my workouts since the guy who I buy my protein from said this would help me build muscle.

However, I’m a little worried since I just read this following quote:

“During subsequent overnight recovery, whole-body protein synthesis was 19% greater in the protein group compared to the placebo group (P < 0.05).

However, mean muscle protein synthesis rates during 9 h of overnight recovery did not differ between groups and were 0.056 ± 0.004%/h in the protein group and 0.057 ± 0.004%/h in the placebo group (P = 0.89).

We conclude that, even in a fed state, protein and carbohydrate supplementation stimulates muscle protein synthesis during exercise.
Ingestion of protein with carbohydrate during and immediately after exercise improves whole-body protein synthesis but does not further augment muscle protein synthesis rates during 9 h of subsequent overnight recovery.”

Does this mean that the extra protein DIDN’T help these people build ANY extra muscle?”

ANSWER:

You need to remember that you are looking at two different measurements of protein synthesis.

“Whole body protein synthesis” measures the protein synthesis taking place in your entire body – including your liver, heart, lungs, brain, digestive system and muscles. The measurement won’t tell you where the process is happening, just that it’s happening.

“Muscle protein synthesis” specifically measures the amount of synthesis taking place in your skeletal muscle.

According to the quote you shared, the post workout protein shake increased whole-body protein synthesis, but didn’t increase muscle protein synthesis. The extra protein increased synthesis elsewhere in the body, but didn’t have a measurable effect on muscles.

If you’re trying to build muscle by taking protein before, during and after your workouts, the research you quote seems to indicate that doing so won’t help you accomplish that.