The Body Weight Factor 2

[quote]Chris Colucci wrote:
And yes, I now feel like an old man telling whippersnappers to shape up and fly right. Whatever.[/quote]

Colucci -

Regarding insulin and your current avatar (w/beard).

I’ve found that a good full beard adds no less than 30 lbs to my bench and I seem to uptake protein better.

Have you noticed strength and insulin sensitivity gains as your beard has come in?

I think there’s a point where the inverse is true with respect to insulin sensitivity and beard thickness – i.e if it gets too thick it has a reverse affect. I’ve not gotten an epic enough beard to link it to strength gains.

What are your thoughts on beard?

[quote]SteelyD wrote:

[quote]Chris Colucci wrote:
And yes, I now feel like an old man telling whippersnappers to shape up and fly right. Whatever.[/quote]

Colucci -

Regarding insulin and your current avatar (w/beard).

I’ve found that a good full beard adds no less than 30 lbs to my bench and I seem to uptake protein better.

Have you noticed strength and insulin sensitivity gains as your beard has come in?

I think there’s a point where the inverse is true with respect to insulin sensitivity and beard thickness – i.e if it gets too thick it has a reverse affect. I’ve not gotten an epic enough beard to link it to strength gains.

What are your thoughts on beard?[/quote]

Give yourself a pat on the back for being witty

The more I read about insulin sensitivity the more interesting the tale becomes! This is actually not understood nearly as well as I had imagined it to be.

Also, I think X caught too much shit for his views on insulin sensitivity. From the studies I’m reading (including cshlp.org/content/21/12/1443.long) insulin sensitivity is strongly correlated to obesity, but not necessarily just fat gain if that makes sense. It looks like the tie to diabetes isn’t from the fat itself, but actually from inflammation in fat cells due to macrophages once the fat cells reach a certain size (i.e. becoming obese as opposed to chubby). In other words it appears more likely that there is actually a fat “threshold” if you will at which insulin resistance starts becoming seriously affected. Someone bouncing between 15 and 20 percent bodyfat would likely not experience such changes. That is to say that fat gain and insulin sensitivity aren’t linked in a simple manner as one would turn up the dial on a stove, but rather they share a relationship with a third variable, chronic low-grade inflammation, which is caused by your body sending macrophages as an immune response into the enlarged fat cells. The macrophages produce inflammatory chemicals called cytokines. Cytokines contribute to insulin resistance.

I am however having trouble coming up with an answer as to why your body produces an immune system type response to fat cells once they reach a certain level (“obesity”). Many of the variables (insulin resistance, obesity, inflammation, etc.) appear interrelated due to the complexity of the human body system, and it seems like scientists are actually having a difficult time separating out and isolating their variables in this problem. I imagine that when collecting data on the human body the scientists have a myriad of problems with multicollinearity and confounding variables. Never knew there was so much to this!

[quote]Maiden3.16 wrote:

[quote]SteelyD wrote:

[quote]Chris Colucci wrote:
And yes, I now feel like an old man telling whippersnappers to shape up and fly right. Whatever.[/quote]

Colucci -

Regarding insulin and your current avatar (w/beard).

I’ve found that a good full beard adds no less than 30 lbs to my bench and I seem to uptake protein better.

Have you noticed strength and insulin sensitivity gains as your beard has come in?

I think there’s a point where the inverse is true with respect to insulin sensitivity and beard thickness – i.e if it gets too thick it has a reverse affect. I’ve not gotten an epic enough beard to link it to strength gains.

What are your thoughts on beard?[/quote]

Give yourself a pat on the back for being witty[/quote]

I’ll do it for him. Full housers cannot reach their own back.

[quote]super saiyan wrote:

[quote]Maiden3.16 wrote:

[quote]SteelyD wrote:

[quote]Chris Colucci wrote:
And yes, I now feel like an old man telling whippersnappers to shape up and fly right. Whatever.[/quote]

Colucci -

Regarding insulin and your current avatar (w/beard).

I’ve found that a good full beard adds no less than 30 lbs to my bench and I seem to uptake protein better.

Have you noticed strength and insulin sensitivity gains as your beard has come in?

I think there’s a point where the inverse is true with respect to insulin sensitivity and beard thickness – i.e if it gets too thick it has a reverse affect. I’ve not gotten an epic enough beard to link it to strength gains.

What are your thoughts on beard?[/quote]

Give yourself a pat on the back for being witty[/quote]

I’ll do it for him. Full housers cannot reach their own back.[/quote]

I <3 U SS.

[quote]LankyMofo wrote:

[quote]Chris Colucci wrote:
As a general comment, I’m very hesitant to post in this forum. It seems to have become X vs the World and the World vs. X, and, frankly, that sucks.

I don’t think it’s what the crew had in mind when they created it, but if this is what the BSL forum ends up becoming - with every new thread referencing arguments from an old thread and eventually spiraling into “same shit, different thread title” - then it’s going to be entirely the fault of those who participate.

Good threads can happen if the forum members choose to create them. Shitstorms can happen if the forum members choose to create them.

And yes, I now feel like an old man telling whippersnappers to shape up and fly right. Whatever.[/quote]

Completely agree. The last thread became 10 guys trying to convince X he is wrong and for what purpose? Obviously the majority of this site (at least the active portion) disagree with X on that particular subject. No amount of “clarifying” anyone’s positions is going to change the other side’s mind.

I mean, it’s not like we didn’t see all sides of everyone’s argument by page 25 in that thread.

Both sides need to learn a little “Ok, agree to disagree” and move on.

(I was not heavily involved in the last thread but at times I could use a bit more of that myself). [/quote]

I posted this in another eerily similar thread and thought it was worth repeating:

Long time lurker but I decided to create an account to speak my peace. Take it or leave it.
I’m sure most will leave it though

These arguments threads are pointless and only drive quality and reputation of this forum down.

Professor X is not going to convince his opposers that his way or views are correct.

The Professor X detractors are not going to convince him that his ways or views are incorrect.

It is a negative cycle that is just being perpetuated over and over to no end. It also does not serve the forum in a positive manner, unless you count lurker views/clicks like mine as positive.

It appears to me that this entire sub forum was created as a place to have these arguments without detracting from the actually helpful threads in the Body Building section.

I think everyone involved would be better served by taking the advice of Zraw and ignoring Professor X if you do not agree with him.

If people that disagree with Professor X stop responding to him then these pointless threads will die out. Please just give out your advice or thoughts on a subject and avoid the nitpicking arguments and this entire site would be better served.

Neither side is going to convince the other that they are wrong so, please, give it a rest.

[quote]Chris Colucci wrote:
As a general comment, I’m very hesitant to post in this forum. It seems to have become X vs the World and the World vs. X, and, frankly, that sucks.
[/quote]

I’ve had the same thought. While personally, I can understand the idea to differentiate ‘contest and sport’ bodybuilding from just ‘training to improve your physique’ (according to whatever your personal goals are), I question if the intent was for PX to have his own forum similar to CT or Meadows. Aside from he odd thread by Zraw (successful competitor), or Brick (RD and extremely well schooled on the actual science of all of this nonsense), each thread seems to be X arguing the same stuff he’s been ‘discussing’ for years in the BBing forum.

CT - Successful and respected coach and author
JM- Successful and respected coach and competitor
PX- Lightning rod for thread views

S

[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:

[quote]Chris Colucci wrote:
As a general comment, I’m very hesitant to post in this forum. It seems to have become X vs the World and the World vs. X, and, frankly, that sucks.
[/quote]

I’ve had the same thought. While personally, I can understand the idea to differentiate ‘contest and sport’ bodybuilding from just ‘training to improve your physique’ (according to whatever your personal goals are), I question if the intent was for PX to have his own forum similar to CT or Meadows. Aside from he odd thread by Zraw (successful competitor), or Brick (RD and extremely well schooled on the actual science of all of this nonsense), each thread seems to be X arguing the same stuff he’s been ‘discussing’ for years in the BBing forum.

CT - Successful and respected coach and author
JM- Successful and respected coach and competitor
PX- Lightning rod for thread views

S

[/quote]

i find it funny people come to this forum to talk about competition over and over (is the Bodybuilding forum dead now because no one here actually cares about competing)

have a lot of people here achieved a physique similar to PX, even at his level of BF?

i don’t like how you talk about “successful competitors”(is everyone who doesn’t compete a failure?) as if that is the end result of everyone here (specifically in this forum). Not everyone cares about walking around at non-maintainable levels of bodyfat, or flexing on a stage…

also, it’s as if the posters here think that going on a cut is somehow the challenging aspect of bodybuilding and not the actual “putting on muscle” part… and try to diminish the results of people who have more LBM than them

^^genuinely curious, how much LBM are you carrying Marshal?

I saw the convoluted discussion in the other thread where you said you put on 84 pounds in two years, IIRC, and then some claimed it was 84 pounds of pure muscle or whatever and things spiraled down at that point…

What do you think/know that you gained during those two years? 84 pounds is quite impressive for 2 years of lifting, natural or not.

Can you go a little more in depth about your journey?

Thanks.

[quote]Smashingweights wrote:
^^genuinely curious, how much LBM are you carrying Marshal?

I saw the convoluted discussion in the other thread where you said you put on 84 pounds in two years, IIRC, and then some claimed it was 84 pounds of pure muscle or whatever and things spiraled down at that point…

What do you think/know that you gained during those two years? 84 pounds is quite impressive for 2 years of lifting, natural or not.

Can you go a little more in depth about your journey?

Thanks.[/quote]

i don’t know really

i only track my lifts and go by how fat I look in the mirror

probably between 15-20% just from what other people look like

[quote]marshaldteach wrote:

[quote]Smashingweights wrote:
^^genuinely curious, how much LBM are you carrying Marshal?

I saw the convoluted discussion in the other thread where you said you put on 84 pounds in two years, IIRC, and then some claimed it was 84 pounds of pure muscle or whatever and things spiraled down at that point…

What do you think/know that you gained during those two years? 84 pounds is quite impressive for 2 years of lifting, natural or not.

Can you go a little more in depth about your journey?

Thanks.[/quote]

i don’t know really

i only track my lifts and go by how fat I look in the mirror

probably between 15-20% just from what other people look like
[/quote]

If you don’t mind, what were your starting stats and what are they now?

And by stats I mean: height, weight, lifting strength (“Big 3” if you do those?)

What are you goals?

[quote]csulli wrote:
The more I read about insulin sensitivity the more interesting the tale becomes! This is actually not understood nearly as well as I had imagined it to be.

Also, I think X caught too much shit for his views on insulin sensitivity. From the studies I’m reading (including cshlp.org/content/21/12/1443.long) insulin sensitivity is strongly correlated to obesity, but not necessarily just fat gain if that makes sense. It looks like the tie to diabetes isn’t from the fat itself, but actually from inflammation in fat cells due to macrophages once the fat cells reach a certain size (i.e. becoming obese as opposed to chubby). In other words it appears more likely that there is actually a fat “threshold” if you will at which insulin resistance starts becoming seriously affected. Someone bouncing between 15 and 20 percent bodyfat would likely not experience such changes. That is to say that fat gain and insulin sensitivity aren’t linked in a simple manner as one would turn up the dial on a stove, but rather they share a relationship with a third variable, chronic low-grade inflammation, which is caused by your body sending macrophages as an immune response into the enlarged fat cells. The macrophages produce inflammatory chemicals called cytokines. Cytokines contribute to insulin resistance.

I am however having trouble coming up with an answer as to why your body produces an immune system type response to fat cells once they reach a certain level (“obesity”). Many of the variables (insulin resistance, obesity, inflammation, etc.) appear interrelated due to the complexity of the human body system, and it seems like scientists are actually having a difficult time separating out and isolating their variables in this problem. I imagine that when collecting data on the human body the scientists have a myriad of problems with multicollinearity and confounding variables. Never knew there was so much to this![/quote]

Interesting paper, but I think your interpretation of the information it is presenting might be a little off.

[quote]Chris Colucci wrote:

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]Chris Colucci wrote:
Bodyweight gain is going to coincide with most appearance-based goals. The majority of the time, a lifter will have to gain weight (at least temporarily) in order to end up looking better, whatever “looking better” means to them.

If that 6’2" 170-pound guy wants to end up looking like Vin Diesel, I’d make it clear that he’s really looking to add 40+ pounds in the long-term. That’s definitely an eye-opening surprise to most newbs. If he wanted to end up looking like Jason Statham or some random slightly-smaller dude, he might end up in the lean 170-180 range, after being closer to 190-200 for a while…[/quote]
This was a good post.

Are you saying that a trainer may have to go through some period where they do not look ideal in order to reach their end goal?
[/quote][/quote]

Okay…

To be clear, when I wrote that, I also quoted and was replying to a comment you had posted:

[quote]Professor X wrote:
I am just making it clear that yes, working on gaining body weight should be a goal in itself along with making sure most of it is muscle.[/quote]
I definitely agree that the end goal is, overall, more important than the middle steps it takes to get there. It’s why basic goalsetting involves making a long-term goal, then working backwards to determine the short and mid-term goals/steps needed to get there.

But I disagree with your statement “working on gaining bodyweight should be a goal in itself”. It’s inaccurate to say that gaining bodyweight should be the goal. The goal should be the goal, and that’s most often going to involve gaining bodyweight (presuming the long-term goal involves being more muscular).

This could be us misunderstanding/miscommunicating again, but stating “gaining bodyweight should be a goal in itself” could easily be misunderstood as “if the number on the scale is going up, you’re doing good.” Instead, I’d say it’s important to treat several methods of progress-tracking fairly equal (depending on the individual lifter’s exact goal): tracking measurements/tape measuring, what the scale says, what the mirror shows/how clothes fit, and performance in the gym. The combination of those will help keep someone on track better than overfocusing on any one of them.[/quote]

I can definitely see the merits of both of the approaches to bodybuilding that seem to be the polar opposites of the spectrum in these threads. The way I see it is this… There are not many people that get involved in bodybuilding and strength sports without having the goal of gaining muscle. Regardless of sport, not many people end staying in the same weight category that they start off in.

If we can all agree that gaining muscle is the end goal, then most people want to know what the best approach is to do that. We all want to get where we’re going as fast as possible. It is common sense that if you want to gain muscle, then you need to eat. It’s pretty simple really. It makes no sense to shortchange yourself muscle gains because your self image is so fragile you can’t handle carrying a bit of excess body fat. When you’re done you can diet it off, and if you’re lazy like me you can even drug it off.

Once you’ve exhausted your newbie gains, you need to fight for every single pound. You literally have to force your body to grow. Who gives a flying fuck about minute differences in insulin sensitivity. Insulin is considered to be one of the most anabolic hormones in your body. Read that again if you didn’t already know that. You need to jack up your insulin to shuttle all that nutritious protein you (hopefully) shovel into your mouth into your muscles so they can grow. That the reason that sumo wrestlers, despite the fact they are not renown for their use of aas carry the most muscle mass of any group of athletes. All they do it sit around eating high gi meals like rice all day long. They literally give their body no choice but to grow. Now I’m not saying we all need to go sumo, but there’s a lesson to be learned there. I don’t know personally anyone who got fucking huge without getting a bit fat. That’s not to say they don’t exist, but they are far and away in the minority. I see no harm in saying “ok, I’m not going to look my best for the next year but I’m going to do whatever it takes to mass the fuck up”. Yeah it’s unhealthy, but fuck it so what, it’s temporary and will make you a shitload more progress than if you didn’t do it.

[quote]MassiveGuns wrote:

[quote]Chris Colucci wrote:

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]Chris Colucci wrote:
Bodyweight gain is going to coincide with most appearance-based goals. The majority of the time, a lifter will have to gain weight (at least temporarily) in order to end up looking better, whatever “looking better” means to them.

If that 6’2" 170-pound guy wants to end up looking like Vin Diesel, I’d make it clear that he’s really looking to add 40+ pounds in the long-term. That’s definitely an eye-opening surprise to most newbs. If he wanted to end up looking like Jason Statham or some random slightly-smaller dude, he might end up in the lean 170-180 range, after being closer to 190-200 for a while…[/quote]
This was a good post.

Are you saying that a trainer may have to go through some period where they do not look ideal in order to reach their end goal?
[/quote][/quote]

Okay…

To be clear, when I wrote that, I also quoted and was replying to a comment you had posted:

[quote]Professor X wrote:
I am just making it clear that yes, working on gaining body weight should be a goal in itself along with making sure most of it is muscle.[/quote]
I definitely agree that the end goal is, overall, more important than the middle steps it takes to get there. It’s why basic goalsetting involves making a long-term goal, then working backwards to determine the short and mid-term goals/steps needed to get there.

But I disagree with your statement “working on gaining bodyweight should be a goal in itself”. It’s inaccurate to say that gaining bodyweight should be the goal. The goal should be the goal, and that’s most often going to involve gaining bodyweight (presuming the long-term goal involves being more muscular).

This could be us misunderstanding/miscommunicating again, but stating “gaining bodyweight should be a goal in itself” could easily be misunderstood as “if the number on the scale is going up, you’re doing good.” Instead, I’d say it’s important to treat several methods of progress-tracking fairly equal (depending on the individual lifter’s exact goal): tracking measurements/tape measuring, what the scale says, what the mirror shows/how clothes fit, and performance in the gym. The combination of those will help keep someone on track better than overfocusing on any one of them.[/quote]

I can definitely see the merits of both of the approaches to bodybuilding that seem to be the polar opposites of the spectrum in these threads. The way I see it is this… There are not many people that get involved in bodybuilding and strength sports without having the goal of gaining muscle. Regardless of sport, not many people end staying in the same weight category that they start off in.

If we can all agree that gaining muscle is the end goal, then most people want to know what the best approach is to do that. We all want to get where we’re going as fast as possible. It is common sense that if you want to gain muscle, then you need to eat. It’s pretty simple really. It makes no sense to shortchange yourself muscle gains because your self image is so fragile you can’t handle carrying a bit of excess body fat. When you’re done you can diet it off, and if you’re lazy like me you can even drug it off.

Once you’ve exhausted your newbie gains, you need to fight for every single pound. You literally have to force your body to grow. Who gives a flying fuck about minute differences in insulin sensitivity. Insulin is considered to be one of the most anabolic hormones in your body. Read that again if you didn’t already know that. You need to jack up your insulin to shuttle all that nutritious protein you (hopefully) shovel into your mouth into your muscles so they can grow. That the reason that sumo wrestlers, despite the fact they are not renown for their use of aas carry the most muscle mass of any group of athletes. All they do it sit around eating high gi meals like rice all day long. They literally give their body no choice but to grow. Now I’m not saying we all need to go sumo, but there’s a lesson to be learned there. I don’t know personally anyone who got fucking huge without getting a bit fat. That’s not to say they don’t exist, but they are far and away in the minority. I see no harm in saying “ok, I’m not going to look my best for the next year but I’m going to do whatever it takes to mass the fuck up”. Yeah it’s unhealthy, but fuck it so what, it’s temporary and will make you a shitload more progress than if you didn’t do it.[/quote]

Oh and I missed out the point about goals. I’ve never seen anyone add one hundred pounds to bench squat and dead, and not gain a ton of muscle. Most people would get where they want to go that much faster if they set two goals and pursued them with almost religious laser like focus.

1)add one hundred pounds to the big three
2)eat like a horse till 1) is reached

The rest are insignificant, especially obsessing over tape measures and an inane fascination with the mirror.

^^wouldn’t that depend on the trainees goals?

I agree that adding strength is important and usually a good indicator that muscle is being gained (especially in noobs-intermediates) but not everyone has the goal of adding 100 pounds to their Big 3.

[quote]Smashingweights wrote:

[quote]marshaldteach wrote:

[quote]Smashingweights wrote:
^^genuinely curious, how much LBM are you carrying Marshal?

I saw the convoluted discussion in the other thread where you said you put on 84 pounds in two years, IIRC, and then some claimed it was 84 pounds of pure muscle or whatever and things spiraled down at that point…

What do you think/know that you gained during those two years? 84 pounds is quite impressive for 2 years of lifting, natural or not.

Can you go a little more in depth about your journey?

Thanks.[/quote]

i don’t know really

i only track my lifts and go by how fat I look in the mirror

probably between 15-20% just from what other people look like
[/quote]

If you don’t mind, what were your starting stats and what are they now?

And by stats I mean: height, weight, lifting strength (“Big 3” if you do those?)

What are you goals?
[/quote]

big 3? what is this the powerlifting forum?

[quote]Smashingweights wrote:
^^wouldn’t that depend on the trainees goals?

I agree that adding strength is important and usually a good indicator that muscle is being gained (especially in noobs-intermediates) but not everyone has the goal of adding 100 pounds to their Big 3.

[/quote]

If you want to add a lot of muscle and your goals do not include the big three or some variations of, then you’ve got the wrong goals. If people want the brad Pitt look then they’d be better off with p90x and some nice salads. IMO

[quote]marshaldteach wrote:

[quote]Smashingweights wrote:

[quote]marshaldteach wrote:

[quote]Smashingweights wrote:
^^genuinely curious, how much LBM are you carrying Marshal?

I saw the convoluted discussion in the other thread where you said you put on 84 pounds in two years, IIRC, and then some claimed it was 84 pounds of pure muscle or whatever and things spiraled down at that point…

What do you think/know that you gained during those two years? 84 pounds is quite impressive for 2 years of lifting, natural or not.

Can you go a little more in depth about your journey?

Thanks.[/quote]

i don’t know really

i only track my lifts and go by how fat I look in the mirror

probably between 15-20% just from what other people look like
[/quote]

If you don’t mind, what were your starting stats and what are they now?

And by stats I mean: height, weight, lifting strength (“Big 3” if you do those?)

What are you goals?
[/quote]

big 3? what is this the powerlifting forum?

[/quote]

Real men eat quiche.

[quote]marshaldteach wrote:
i find it funny people come to this forum to talk about competition over and over (is the Bodybuilding forum dead now because no one here actually cares about competing)

have a lot of people here achieved a physique similar to PX, even at his level of BF?

i don’t like how you talk about “successful competitors”(is everyone who doesn’t compete a failure?) as if that is the end result of everyone here (specifically in this forum). Not everyone cares about walking around at non-maintainable levels of bodyfat, or flexing on a stage…

also, it’s as if the posters here think that going on a cut is somehow the challenging aspect of bodybuilding and not the actual “putting on muscle” part… and try to diminish the results of people who have more LBM than them
[/quote]

No one was talking about competitions, I simply referred to Zraw and Meadows as successful competitors (I know that Thibs has stepped onstage as well) because they’ve clearly demonstrated a solid understanding of packing on muscle, and shredding down to the degree where not only an audience, but a panel of experienced judges can attribute a degree of ‘success’ in relation to a standard set of requirements. To me, and I’m sure many on this site (whether they plan to ever step onstage themselves or not) that’s a fairly powerful credential.

Certainly referring to someone who chooses not to compete as a failure is a pretty asinine statement, which I can only assume that you don’t seriously believe anyone would imply, but merely typed it in an effort to get a rise or simply to stir up an argument. Go ahead if you like, I have no issue with you. You can argue limits, insulin sensitivity and whatever all you want.

All I can think of as a possible reason why so many people seem to be more concerned with the dieting down aspect lately is perhaps the possible rational that it might be easier to verify true muscle gains in a leaner state. Due to the nature of recent threads (muscle gains, limits, insulin sensitivity and gains…) it kind of makes sense when people are making various claims.

S

[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:

All I can think of as a possible reason why so many people seem to be more concerned with the dieting down aspect lately is perhaps the possible rational that it might be easier to verify true muscle gains in a leaner state. Due to the nature of recent threads (muscle gains, limits, insulin sensitivity and gains…) it kind of makes sense when people are making various claims.

S[/quote]

when competing you don’t know their bodyfat either, isn’t getting it measured scientifically the only way?