Contrary to popular belief, training is not the only way to stimulate muscle growth. In fact the biggest growth spurts for the average person occur in the absence of any intention to increase muscle mass (adolescent development and puberty).
A good example to illustrate the various ways of stimulating hypertrophy is with arm training. Everyone says you need to perform whole body compound movements and gain 10-15 lbs. overall scale weight to gain an inch on your arms right? However, you’ll routinely see guys at the gym who increase their arms by an inch or more without gaining a pound. You’ll see plenty of guys with big upper bodies who probably don't even know what a deadlift is. You know they didn't start out big because their lower bodies are skinny. Same thing for guys with big arms, but rather normal sized upper bodies and pencil necks. Is this just genetics or what’s going on here?
Additionally, you have “gurus” saying that it doesn’t take “extra” nutrition to grow muscle. They give examples of guys who gain significant amounts of muscle eating 1500 calories per day of fast food and pop tarts. On the other hand, you have guys who won’t gain an ounce unless they really tie on the feed bag and take a hardcore no holds barred attitude when it comes to spending hours at the dinner table and driving that scale weight up. So what’s going on here?
To understand all this it helps to understand the 3 keys for growth:
A. Stimulation – Training (load, density, volume etc)
B. Supply (nutrient and protein intake)
C. Signaling (anabolic hormones, testosterone, insulin etc.)
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