Muscle maintainence

[GirlyMuscle]

Say you do a cycle or two. You gain say...10 pounds of muscle. How much of that can you expect to keep? Do different substances allow you to keep more or less?

[Sledge]

It depends where you are in relation to your natural potential I reckon.

ie if your natural potential is to be 160 at 10% and you use gear to get from 135 to 145. with corect diet and training you would keep most of it if you became drug free.
Conversley if you used ger to go from 170-180 and you stopped youd loose the lot and eventualy get back down to around the 160 mark.

[GirlyMuscle]

So your body will naturally go back to what you are genetically predetermined to be?

[Sledge]

If you keep training and diet right yeah. I think if someone like ronny went natural he'd still remain above his original natural genetic potential just due to his body addapting over time. But he'd drop the bulk of his muscle beyond that.

[GirlyMuscle]

Well, that just sucks. Even muscle is temporary!

[Big Sky Guy]

GM- most people (me included) never really pushed themselves long and hard enough to know what their true potential is before taking AAS, so it is difficult to know how far above that potential we go with AAS. Very individual thing.

I would like to believe we can force our body to adapt to a new set point above our genetic limit with enough time and focused effort. The harder part of the equation being to get enough protien, work, recovery and sleep to support the new muscle when off for extended periods of time.

Once your body has created the muscle and supported it, it should be capable of maintaining some of it when we come off. The futher above our limit, the more difficult to keep it.

[dvsness]

So your body will naturally go back to what you are genetically predetermined to be?

There is a study that indicates the exact opposite. I'll get it off my home computer tonight.

[Skeptic]

Well, that just sucks. Even muscle is temporary!

Well not to be a downer: everything is temporary. Embrace the horror.

[sassy69]

I think Sistersteel has a great comment about this -- she's built up her phsyique to > 200 lb w/o chemicals so what she uses now is basically what maintains (e.g. during cuts) that as well as contributes to recovery. So what she's got is "hers", not so much chemically induced and dependent upon the presence of the chems to maintain.

Its very hard for your body to maintain something that you artificially induced in a short period of time - this is where building naturally is what gives your whole body a chance to accommodate the mass increase and adjust metabolism to deal w/ it. This is another issue w/ looking at competition prep in terms of "shows within a season" vs years. You really can't do something like "I need 10 more lb of lean muscle by my next show". You might be able to jack up a little on a cycle, but when you start cutting you'll lose most of it, and if you expect to have that as "earned muscle" for next season, you may come out w/ maybe a net gain of 1-2 lb of lean muscle. Which you could get just from a diet & training geared towards hypertrophy.

[tammyp]

i am small by most peoples standards, but i have kept everything i have gained.

[Por2gue]

I think Sistersteel has a great comment about this -- she's built up her phsyique to > 200 lb w/o chemicals so what she uses now is basically what maintains (e.g. during cuts) that as well as contributes to recovery. So what she's got is "hers", not so much chemically induced and dependent upon the presence of the chems to maintain.

Its very hard for your body to maintain something that you artificially induced in a short period of time - this is where building naturally is what gives your whole body a chance to accommodate the mass increase and adjust metabolism to deal w/ it. This is another issue w/ looking at competition prep in terms of "shows within a season" vs years. You really can't do something like "I need 10 more lb of lean muscle by my next show". You might be able to jack up a little on a cycle, but when you start cutting you'll lose most of it, and if you expect to have that as "earned muscle" for next season, you may come out w/ maybe a net gain of 1-2 lb of lean muscle. Which you could get just from a diet & training geared towards hypertrophy.

This is dead on IMO. Now look at someone like Kevin Levrone, and it's the opposite, cause he never got too huge as a natty.

[Lee Penman]

Say you do a cycle or two. You gain say...10 pounds of muscle. How much of that can you expect to keep? Do different substances allow you to keep more or less?

I would say it depends on the compound used. If you are gaining lean muscle mass and then continue to train hard post cycle you should be able to keep most of the gains.

[Sledge]

I would say it depends on the compound used. If you are gaining lean muscle mass and then continue to train hard post cycle you should be able to keep most of the gains.

Interesting. How does the compound used to build the muscle have any influence on keeping it once the compound is gone? And if you've pushed beyond your natural genetic potential by the use of chemicals/hormones. How, when you remove those hormones can your body retain most of the extra muscle.