The "ANABOLIC STATE"

J

Joe G

New Member
Firstly, If someone could explain thoroughly what it means to be in an Anabolic state. I feel like guys in the forum including myself use this phrase very often but don't truly know the meaning of it.

Bryan has said that training the whole body with a frequency of 3 times a week is more effective than a conventional split of training each body part once a week with a frequency of 5 times a week because it enables us to stay anabolic all week long.

My question is if you workout this way:
Monday-Chest
Tuesday- Biceps and triceps
Wednesday- Legs
Thursday- Shoulders
Friday- Back

wouldn't you be anabolic all week long as well? I understand that you are only training each body part once a week, does that mean that your body is anabolic all week but your chest is not?

This question also applies to cardio. In the ebook Bryan says that cardio can have anabolic benefits. What does this really mean? Does this mean that cardio throughout the week can help keep my body in an anabolic state? And if so do my muscles benefit from that in terms of hypertrophy?

JOE G
 
Ah, that's a good question. I bet a lot of people are puzzled over this one. Well, I'm not the most appropriate person to answer, but I'll start, hoping that other more knowledgeable guys will follow. Please note that the following are only what I have gathered reading around, so I don't claim they are accurate or even true. Just what I believe so far.

To make a long story short, the "anabolic" state is a localized effect (for our BB purposes). Yes, if you train your chest once a week, it will be anabolic for a couple of days at best (36-48 hours). The rest of the week it will only be in balance between protein breakdown and synthesis (what happens if someone doesn't train at all). So, the growth actually stops after about 48 hours. After that, the muscle does not use available protein to repair itself (as it is already healed), so it isn't "anabolic" any more.

The above are only general guidelines. A muscle may take longer than 48 hours to heal completely, but most of the "growth" procedure (as we understand it) happens during this time period.

Cardio can also be anabolic. This is mostly due to the metabolic work it induces to the muscles involved. We all know that metabolic work can "help" hypertrophy (better nutrient partitioning etc). In other words, cardio will mainly help those muscle groups involved (usually legs) and not so much the others. Of course, a muscle isn't completely isolated from the rest of the body, so there may be an overlap. For example, cardio increases overall blood flow (which is responsible for "feeding" our muscles). Of course, by doing stationary bike you will not be increasing blood flow in your arms that much.

Some time ago, before I found this site, I used to believe that the "anabolic state" is systemic, probably because the words were used that way ("you will be anabolic all of the time" etc etc). However, by studying what actually happens to the muscle from a psysiological point of view, you can reach your own conclusions, which often may be different from what you have been led to believe. I am not into physiology or anything, these are just my own conclusions, formed through reading out of personal interest. Other guys will probably be more qualified to answer your questions. Hope this helps a bit.
 
Joe

9 to 5 has tried and well to explain the meaning and its surrounding circunstances.

Lets be as simplistic as we can:

Anabolic - strictly speaking it means the muscle metabolism is in a state of repair and therefore is re-building itself, thus growing bigger if provided with the necessary nutrients, these are understood to be a ratio of protein/carbohydrates and fat.

If this ratio is perfect, and that varies with each persons metabolism, then you have achieved or are achieving your perfect genetic capacity (this without added pharmacological additives)
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catabolic - your body's metabolism is in a state of breaking down, which could be protein, yes, even muscle protein i.o.w. scavenging on itself. :angry

Also lovely is the fact that on this state, the body's quite able to store fat and will tend to do so, unless the state is so far advanced that it has no choice but to turn to fat for energy.
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There are various reasons for the above:
- Working over the threshold of anabolism, (somewhere after 1 hour of gym) thus releasing catbolic hormones like cortisol.
- Extreme dieting.
- Not eating early in the morning (fasting state).
- Stress (induces survival mechanism), etc (I am not the best person to explain this totally) :confused:

Going back to what Bryan explains as the basis of the HST program as 9 to 5 said, is the fact that the metabolism will be anabolic for a maximum of 48 hours, therefore to repeat a bout of exercise will re-induce anabolism so to say
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  hope I am making sense.

So, technically speaking, hitting a muscle or muscle groups or groups every week, will at best get 48 hours of growth, then STASIS, then growth again after another bout of exercise, so it is not the ideal hypertrophy situation but, yes, it will induce some growth, but at a much slower rate.

Hope I have cleared up some of the HST principles in a very basic way!
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I think anabolic can be applied to both muscles and the body systemically.

Microdamage/trauma and fed state are separate entities yeh...?
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]Microdamage/trauma and fed state are separate entities yeh...?
Click to expand...

That maybe so...but they work in correlation with each other, i.o.w. if the body is in a fed state, then microdamage/trauma will be addressed by repair by using available proteins.
 
After all, this is the essence of bodybuilding... Cause microtrauma to the muscle and then feed it so that it can repair itself and become bigger and stronger. The theory is simple, its application though can be somewhat trickier.
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I would be interested to see some studies that indicate how a specific muscle group becomes "anabolic" by more frequent stimuli in comparison to less frequently stimulated muscles.

This is an interesting topic, I'm disappointed that more people don't have any thoughts on this, especially when a lot of guys on the forum complain about the lack of insightful questions, and how all of the questions lately have been too elementary.

thehamma
 
Both,
Local and systemic systems need to work in conjunction to provide muscle increases. Muscle mass increases over a duration is a matter of protein accrual, this in turn is dependant on local factors and systemic factors so you really can't rule out one or the other.

Joe, in response to your question yes overall you would be anabolic as each body part would be but since elevated synthesis has been shown to last @ 24 to 96 hours the muscles that where worked on Monday of each week would have returned to baseline synthesis well before the next workout. The whole idea in increasing frequency to to have a consistent elevation above baseline so a net positve balance will be happening. Since the elevation rates are local to the muscle that received work and or tension the other muscles that didn't would not be in an elevated state. Even though some systemic factors would still be elevated they wouldn't have much of an impact on the muscles that were at a baseline sysnthesis rate. Remeber elevated MPS is not the only issue here others including growth factors that are released by work or tension but be active along with subsequent satellite cell activity.

thehamma,
It is interesting and I don't think it's that no one wants to reply, but many of these issues have been discussed and this question in itself can hardly be completely covered over one post. Not only are their local and systemic events but also acute and chronic, autocrine and paracrine, not to mention that the body as a whole in an integrated system so one would need to touch on each aspect from biology to endocrinology to physiology to human kinetics and nutrition.

Now I personally don't think that anyone was complaining that the questions lately have been rudimentary what was said is that this forum has a wealth of information at your fingertips in a relatively easy format to find. For example in the  The Basics of HST is an overview of the process and science this would be a good place to start when thinking about the question posed here by Joe. Since this topic is so broad I would recommend to anyone to read it first then, if there are specific questions based on that, to continue this discussion. Also read the FAQ on RBE as some of the questions that Joe brings up are related to that as well.

Dan
 
Monday-Chest
Tuesday- Biceps and triceps
Wednesday- Legs
Thursday- Shoulders
Friday- Back
also doing this routine as joe suggested on mon you would work some tris and delts
tue some back delts and chest
thur chest and tris
fri some bis

so would you not be anabolic all week
 
Also, we're dealing here with a negative feedback - the RBE -. Whether you do 1 set or 15 sets doesn't make much difference because you will adapt anyways to the stimulus through the RBE. Doing 15 sets won't change squat, except for the time it will take to get accostumed to it.

The only real solution is to find a way to increase the load.
 
Not saying they don't work in correlation, of course they do.

But you can be in an under-fed (cutting state) systemically, and still have your muscles in an anabolic state - in terms of signalling cascades, kinase activity, growth factor effects etc. Isn't this how we cut up without losing/losing as little muscle mass as possible?
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Jester @ Oct. 04 2005,6:35)]Not saying they don't work in correlation, of course they do.
But you can be in an under-fed (cutting state) systemically, and still have your muscles in an anabolic state - in terms of signalling cascades, kinase activity, growth factor effects etc. Isn't this how we cut up without losing/losing as little muscle mass as possible?
Click to expand...
But I doubt you will see an accrual of mass. Even if you do every thing right on a local level with the tissue you still need the other systems to coordinate. Same in reverse, if you do everything perfect systemically I doubt you will see much change if the local events aren't there. For instance just eating more than your body needs causes anabolism, now add exogenous test to the mix there will be more anabolic response because the events effect the local situation in the tissue, so both are coordinated in the changes seen.
 
Oh there def. won't be an accrual of mass. Systemic and local anabolic states do of course need to be co-existent.

But I don't think you can consider them the same thing.
 
dkm-'elevated synthesis has been shown to last @ 24 to 96 hours'

Does this mean that protein sysnthesis lasts up to 96hours but that it peaks at 24-48hours?
Just curious as I have had to decrease my frequency to twice/week as I am doing some kickbox training which was too much combined with 3xweek weight training. Once my tolerance has increased I will switch back to three times but in the mean time I was worried that I would only be anabolic for up to 48hours.
 
It changes, some hormones, kinases, other molecules stay elevated for longer than 48 Hours, some less. The more conditioned you become (adapted to a given load/work level) the lower the duration of MPS becomes.
 
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