Eat, Train, Progress.

Join

Science of Atrophy

Options
_errata_
_errata_ Posts: 1,653 Member
edited February 13 in Social Groups
As lifters, we often focus on the science of muscular hypertrophy, but I very rarely see discussion of atrophy. I remember when I broke my arm in the sixth grade and saw how it wilted away after taking the cast off. This got me thinking.

Maybe knowing more about atrophy can tell us how to build muscle. For example, if atrophy has a biological pathway, what triggers it? How can we avoid it? How does the pathway change when you gain more muscle mass? Does hypertrophy/atrophy have more to do with muscles than diet?

This board is a great resource, so maybe some other, more well-informed individuals, might be able to direct me toward a resource that answers some of these questions.

Thanks!

Replies

  • tomcornhole
    tomcornhole Posts: 1,084 Member
    This explains it pretty well:

    [url] http://dmm.biologists.org/content/6/1/25.long [/url]
  • Sarauk2sf
    Sarauk2sf Posts: 28,072 Member
    Tagging

    Interesting topic for discussion IMO!
  • _errata_
    _errata_ Posts: 1,653 Member
    This explains it pretty well:

    [url] http://dmm.biologists.org/content/6/1/25.long [/url]

    Holy science batman, that is a lot of info. Aside from performance enhancing myostatin inhibitors and gene therapy, it seems like IGF-1 is of most interest to lifters (surprise). If that is the case, here is an interesting study linking diets high in fat and red meat with high levels of IGF-1 (and supposedly cancer), and demonstrating that diets high in carbohydrates put people in a hyperglycemic state, which lowers growth hormone and downregulates IGF-1.

    http://jco.ascopubs.org/content/17/10/3291.long

    Here is another article demonstrating a correlation with IGF-1 and resistance training:

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11283443

    So... if I eat steak every night and lift like a madman, I might get ripped, but die could potentially put myself at risk for cancer?

    Hmm. What do you guys think? I've also seen studies that show IGF-1 is elevated post workout by increased insulin response. If anyone could track down some studies on that, I'd appreciate it.
  • _TastySnoBalls_
    _TastySnoBalls_ Posts: 1,298 Member
    In, because I fractured my left patella in a car accident in July 2011 and my quads atrophied severely! 2 1/2 years later, they still aren't up to par with my right leg.
  • SideSteel
    SideSteel Posts: 11,068 Member
    Tagging. Thanks!
  • _errata_
    _errata_ Posts: 1,653 Member
    After reading my above posts, I realized that I wasn't making clear points, or writing coherent sentences for that matter. The observation I have made is pretty simple. It seems like no matter how much protein one consumes, atrophy will still occur if an absence of stimulus is present.

    Given the above observation, it seems true to me that stimulus plays a much more important role in atrophy, and probably hypertrophy, than nutrition. For example, a pound of muscle, according to some calculations, makes up a total of about 600 calories. It's not like I can eat 6,000 extra calories and gain 10 lbs of muscle in a few days.

    So, once again... stimulus is what matters.

    This leads me to wonder what causes gains to slow down with advanced lifters. Have there been any good studies with advanced lifters regarding what routine or technique creates an optimal stimulus? Or do we just have bro science and the techniques/routines of the guys at the top of the lifting food chain (Wendler, Coan, et al)?
This discussion has been closed.

Categories