Hormones and Their Effect on Muscle Growth & Destruction

Don’t let the newscasters fool you into thinking that testosterone is what causes road rage! Testosterone and other hormones help promote muscle growth while others are responsible for muscle degradation. By understanding the role that hormones play in the growth and destruction of your muscles, you can optimize their benefits and reduce their negative effects.

There are two basic hormones that are important for you and your exercise program: anabolic and catabolic. Anabolic hormones such as testosterone, growth hormone, and insulin like growth hormone are useful for—yeah, you guessed it!—the growth of muscles. Catabolic hormones will promote muscle wasting and should be minimized at all costs and examples of these are cortisol and glucagons.

Testosterone is the not the source of evil that some radicals would have you believe! Actually, the testosterone hormone helps increase the size of your muscles by triggering the release of the growth hormone and the insulin like growth factor. By doing so, testosterone indirectly promotes muscle synthesis.

The hormone testosterone can be naturally increased in the body by performing heavy resistance workouts of an hour or longer. You need to use multiple sets and only take short breaks of a minute or less. Then, if the hormone testosterone is released during compound exercises, substantial muscle mass growth will follow. For the ripped body you crave, testosterone is a must-have! Count on including exercises in your routine that promote testosterone hormone production.

The growth hormone is also important in muscle building as it is important in protein synthesis. The growth hormone reduces carbohydrate use for energy during workouts leaving energy in your muscles for growth, instead. But you can’t stay up all night partying away and expect to have adequate growth hormone production! You have go get a good night’s sleep to make growth hormones. To increase their production, try workouts with moderate resistance using multiple sets and short breaks of a minute or less.

Insulin like growth factors sound like some rather dull hormones, don’t they? But these little babies will enhance protein synthesis and help you build bigger muscles in less time. To optimize their production, you are going to want to use long workout sessions using moderate resistance.

Catabolic hormones like cortisol need to be minimized if you are to maximize muscle building because these little devils actually degrade muscle tissue and destroy all your hard work! Not only do they inhibit protein synthesis, they produce enzymes that will literally degrade muscle tissue! If you get injured, catabolic hormones will increase muscle atrophy and delay recovery. However, as muscle needs to be first destroyed before it can be rebuilt, some catabolic hormones are necessary to promote growth. Keeping the balance just right is the key so avoid high volume, high resistance exercise because these activities promote cortisol production.

Glucagon works in much the same way that insulin does meaning that it regulates blood sugar levels. Only, unlike insulin, glucagon is released when blood sugar levels get too low. But where an insulin imbalance may cause you to be light-headed or faint, a glucagon malfunction will trigger the destruction of all your hard work! The glucagon hormone tells the body that it needs glycogen and one of the first places the body goes for this energy source is muscle tissue. So, increased levels of glucagon will lead to muscle loss. Glucagon levels are kept lowest when eating foods that are low on the glycemic index.

Hormones are an important element to the Total Fitness Plan because they help regulate muscle growth and degradation. When they get out of whack, you can be in for a world of hurt and all of your efforts can be wasted if not careful. Be sure to optimize anabolic hormone production while minimizing catabolic production. By keeping your hormones in check, you can ensure that your Total Fitness Plan is on the right track.

Other hormone-related articles:

Cortisol, Stress, and Body Fat
The Three "E's": Exercise, Endorphins and Euphoria
Are There Hormones in Your Whey?