Bodybuilding Plateau – A Myth or Truth to Accept

Bodybuilding Plateau – A Myth or Truth to Accept

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One of the very common questions that most of the upcoming bodybuilding enthusiasts have is that they would only grow up-to a certain limit and after that no matter how much hard they strive in their workout and how good the nutrition be but it would not result in any significant gains.

This generally is referred as a BODYBUILDING PLATEAU . Plateau is something that is basically understood as a stage in which the progressive gains in the body becomes almost stagnant due to the fact that the person’s body has reached his/her potential and now if he/she looks out for further gains that would be a very tedious task.

This may be understood as a normal scientific reason which is generally given to the people suffering from the stage of plateau as this is very much disheartening for them and usually they go in a state of depression when they are unable to see more gains. Some people try to go for anabolic steroids which do help them in busting the plateau roadblock but this again has hazardous life complications to be dealt with in a course of several decades to come which could even threaten the life of many individuals.

Moreover, the steroids again would have an upper limit attached to it and again using steroids regularly would make you grow but only up-to some limit otherwise people using steroids would have been gaining muscle on a regular basis. There is some underlying phenomenon which needs to be understood by the people facing this Plateau roadblock as once the reason for plateau is understood one can be much more calm with the approach of being more and more muscular.

 

MYOSTATIN :- 

Our muscles are under a strict control of a protein called MYOSTATIN whose job is to determine how large a muscle will become .This limit is different for everyone depending upon their respective Myostatin levels . As the muscle reaches this limit , Myostatin prevents any further growth. This generally is referred to as a PLATEAU.

But what if this existing Myostatin levels are limited or for that sake absent in a person’s body, the muscle growth limit suddenly goes away and muscle mass increases dramatically.

This phenomenon was first noticed in the Belgian Blue Cows which were almost 3 times the size of a normal cow.belgian_blue_cattle_5 It was later discovered that these cows had a special deletion to their genetic structure called GDF-8 (Growth Differentiation Factor -8) which just so happens to create myostatin. So these cattle without having a special diet or exercise had an extraordinary amount of muscle mass.

Similar cases have been documented in some dogs, mice , etc.4420013_9a859e16eb_m

 

fatmouse300These all the species with extra muscle mass have discovered to have the diminished quantities of Myostatin in them.

These findings have helped the scientists to discover the fact that why some people bulk up easily while some people finds it hard.

LOWER LEVELS OF MYOSTATIN = MORE MUSCLE MASS.

Studies have even shown that various champion weight lifters have lower levels of Myostatin or even deletion of their Myostatin Gene .

There are some drugs in the market which are marketed as Myostatin Inhibitors (a.k.a. follistatin) but the drugs abuse may result in a Hypertrophied cardiac muscle which might end up a person’s life.

Although Follistatin can aid in the Muscle Dystrophy for aged individuals but can also be used as a performance enhancement drug and Breaking the PLATEAU.