Genesis Zone

So, here I want to discuss what I believe is optimal, but I'm not going to provide all my reasoning here, just explaining what I believe is optimal. High Training Frequency - This is optimal, I used to be of the opinion that if your on cycle, due to protein synthesis you don't need to keep training frequency as high. Here's where the problems can arise. Frequency of a lift is important, more practice of a movement, the more efficient you become, simple. Eventually this will cause issues, your only going to be able to repeat a movement daily for so long. For example 3 sets daily is a lot more management then 21 sets in 1 day. Long term though, you'll run into the constraint of injuries due to movement repetition. Also, you should never go below a frequency of twice per week. Training of a muscle more frequently will provide benefits, such as increased satellite cell profileration, muscular swelling (remain pumped looking constantly). So training each lift twice per w

Back Day 1 All exercises are rest paused, no supersets today, 3 rest pause sets , 10 deep breaths, 2 overall sets per exercise. Up weight if you hit targets. Zbar Row 8-5-3 Single arm dumbbell row 8-5-3 Narrow seated row 8-5-3 Mid back machine row 8-5-3 Lat pull down 12-8-5 Assisted chin 12-8-5 Lat pull down 12-8-5 Assisted chin 12-8-5 Straight arm pullover on the cable 12-8-5 + CHEST Chest seated press 8-5-3 Seated Cable Flies 12-8-5 LAT STRETCH Machine Shrug 12-8-5 www.genesis-ugl. com www.genesis-board.com

(8am) Meal 1 - 2 whole eggs, 150g lean beef/sirloin (10% fat content), 8g extra virgin olive oil, 15g protein from whey (11am) Meal 2 - 200g salmon, 120g white fish, 70g avocado (1.30am) Meal 3 - 300g chicken/turkey, 150g sweet potato, 30g mozzarella cheese, 1 apple (4pm) Meal 4 - 60g protein from whey, 65g gluten free oats, 100g strawberries, 10g dark chocolate (7pm) Meal 5 - 300g chicken/turkey, 60g rice/couscous, 5g coconut oil (10pm) Pre bed - 60g protein from whey, 70g nut butter Each shake with 250ml Semi Milk www.genesis-ugl.com www.genesis-board.com

When planning your workouts you don't need to account for metabolic stress, only tension and damage. Unfortunately some of the researchers who study this stuff aren't all that bright. The reason why metabolic stress appears to stimulate hypertrophy is because the type of training that produces metabolic stress just so happens to be great for recruiting all available motor units and exposing the slow/moderate twitch fibers to more tension/volume. Performing a light pumping/fatigue set of 30 reps after finishing your heavy 5x5 doesn't cause extra growth because of metabolic stress, if causes extra growth because you've just increased your total rep count from 25 for the slow/moderate twitch fibers to 55 total reps, adding just 1 pump set at the end of your workout more than doubled the volume demands on the low/moderate twitch fibers. Metabolic stress and fatigue themselves don't cause hypertrophy, the real hypertrophy effect comes from motor unit recruitment modulat

Training Day (5am)Meal 1 : 3 eggs white, 2 whole – 5gr coconut oil, 20gr german wheat flour, stevia, make as a pancake Pre gym meal always to be had 90mins pre – 60g protein from whey, 50g ground rice, 100g banana    Train 8.30am 9am : Workout shake, drink throughout the session in at least 1.5litre of water, start this 15mins pre training –  50g peptopro, 10g citralline malate, 5g beta alanine, 5g creatine, 80g cyclic dextrin (10am) Meal 2 : Pwo/last meal – 150g chicken/turkey, 100g rice, 100g low fat cereal like cheerios/golden grahams/cocopops with almond milk, 200g pineapple (1.30pm) Meal 3 – 165g salmon, 1 whole egg, 8g extra virgin olive oil, 20g protein from whey   (4.30pm) Meal 4 – 300g extra lean beef/rump (4-5% fat content) 100g avocado, 30g light mayo (7.30pm) Meal 5 – 300g chicken/turkey, 100g sweet potato, 10g coconut oil, 40g cashews (11pm) Meal 6 – 40gr from Whey isolate, 20gr of almond butter, 10gr of dark chocolate www.genesis-u

Is breakfast good beneficial or not? Well, I've not come to the conclusion that... It depends. You see a common problem people within the fitness industry suffer from is adrenal fatigue, if you suffer from adrenal fatigue you will not make enough cortisol and this makes it harder to maintain normal blood sugar levels. If you eat a breakfast, between say 6-8AM this can help with this issue, thebenefit of this can last up to approximately 10AM, this is where we get into the realm of balance and passing this should be avoided for health purposes. As mentioned above evening protein intake is important, but then I also recommend periods of fasting for at the most 12 hours with 10 hours being the ideal minimum to support processes such as insulin sensitivity, autophagy and more. It is true that carbohydrates in the morning and post-workout are less likely to be stored as fat.  So here really, the choice is yours, you either can skip it and have the evening meal even later, or just h

Some people seem unsure of which forms of carbohydrates are best for replenishing muscle glycogen stores, well most fruits aren't very good at replenishing muscle glycogen stores because fructose is only capable of replenishing liver glycogen stores. Sugar (sucrose or HFCS) isn't very good either because it's 50% fructose. Only glucose can replenish muscle glycogen stores. Glucose = Can replenish muscle and liver glycogen stores Fructose = Can only replenish liver glycogen stores Galactose = Can only replenish liver glycogen stores Sucrose (and HFCS) = Half glucose, half fructose Lactose = Half glucose, half galactose Starch (complex carbohydrates) = Glucose Fructose and galactose can't directly replenish muscle glycogen stores although they can do so indirectly via dynamic equilibrium (they're converted into glycogen/glucose in the liver and then released into the blood stream where they can be absorbed by your muscles) although this process

As far as pre and post workout goes, I advise to eat within a few hours either side, up to 2 hours  either side is still shown to have the same benefits, less so past 3, plus some like myself use intra  drinks to support the peri nutrition further, I personally drink milk throughout my workout, this has  the benefits of giving me additional electrolytes etc and supporting the intensity and length of my  training, plus carbohydrates during a workout can reduce protein degradation but also blunt AMPK  mediated inhibition of mTOR.  There is enough support to show benefits in taking both protein and carbohydrates throughout the process of pre, intra and post. Again this echos the above that carbohydrates reduce protein  degradation and can work together for increasing protein synthesis and causing the greatest activation of mTOR. www.genesis-ugl.com www.genesis-board.com

Nutrient timing, something that's begun to recently bug me because it's getting way more attention  then it deserves. People think that manipulating GH, insulin, glucagon etc with meal timing will  have an effect on overall body composition. It's really just a silly idea people get when they think  they know what they're talking about but really don't. As they say, a little bit of knowledge can be  dangerous. The overall difference on meal timing has little effect compared to total intake, now  there are some cases where it can be beneficial to include meals, but again without total daily intake  being correctly met, this will mean fuck all. For example, evening, pre workout, intra and post workout.Evening time protein intake is important for supporting muscle retention, growth hormone, testosterone and it stimulates protein synthesis thus improving whole body protein balance during a post exercise overnight recovery. At the end of the day it's also evolutionary

Why do I dislike fruit and vegetables? Its because they're nowhere near as important as most people  seem to think. Assuming you're taking a vitamin c supplement (which I recommend) you can cut  them out of your diet completely without causing any harm whatsoever, assuming of course you're  obtaining the vitamins/minerals usually found in vegetables from other food sources instead (which  isn't hard to do). Overall fruit can cause too many problems, a better explanation would be that  excess fructose is converted into triglyceride’s (fat), which are then attached to LDL particles so  that they can be shipped out of your liver. This is why excess fructose consumption increases your  triglyceride’s and LDL cholesterol. It's important to remember that sucrose is half fructose and half  glucose, HFCS also contains fructose. Other issues that can arise are raising liver glycogen levels  too high and having no effect on suppressing appetite. Fruits that are high in potass

I don't include further Fiber, it lowers testosterone, generally not very much at all but excessive  amounts of fiber will result in a noticeable (10-15%) decrease of testosterone when fiber intake  exceeds around 25-30 grams per day. The only people who benefit from additional fiber are those  who eat foods which are potentially vary unhealthy, carrying pesticides and chemicals etc, the fiber  will decrease the length of time it is within your system. www.genesis-ugl.com www.genesis-board.com

Carbohydrate intake is the simplest to identify, you simply take the remainder of your calories and  divide it by 4 to see how many grams you have left to play with. If you feel this does not meet your  requirements for your activity level, lower the fat intake and raise the carbohydrate intake until  you've adjusted to a number your comfortable with, remember to not go below 50 grams of fat at  any period of dieting.  Whether you get your calories from carbohydrate or fat makes zero difference in terms of body  composition, assuming of course equal calorie intake and no deficiencies. www.genesis-ugl.com www.genesis-board.com

Fat intake, first off I will provide a minimum, I don't care how you arrange your carbohydrates to  proteins to whatever, but do not go below 50 grams of fat a day, this would be extremely unhealthy  and detrimental to your hormones. I prefer a minimum of 0.4 grams per lb of bodyweight, you can  go higher then this if you wish, a bonus to hitting these numbers with protein and fat is that  depending on your caloric intake goal, it stops your carbohydrates from hitting excessive numbers,  win win. Saturated/Mono fat isn't the enemy, Polyunsaturated is, keeping your poly fat intake to a  minimum is most impo rtant aspect of fat intake. www.genesis-ugl.com www.genesis-board.com

T h e ideal number for protein intake is 0.82g per lb of bodyweight, BUT before you go rushing  off with your calculators, hear me out. This is the highest recorded amount will benefits were still  provided, as far as intake goes when compared within a study of different ranges, there was small  benefits going over 0.64g per lb of bodyweight, namely nitrogen balance . By playing it safe with  the higher option, we can assure that if the rest of the diet and training is in check, during a cut their  will be minimal muscle loss and during a bulk this gives us additional room for carbohydrates and  fats. For those who use steroids, this is different, this number goes up to 1.5g per lb of bodyweight  due to protein synthesis, but this needs to be explained completely separately to avoid confusion.  So, my recommendation for protein intake, is to hit at least a minimum of 0.75g per lb of  bodyweight using direct protein sources, this is not including any outside macro-nutrients, ie the  pro

Now we are going to count all of our macro-nutrients, but in theory, you don't need to. The reason  why we are is because it fits simpler with most modern day counting systems. Most are in-fact,  incorrect, for example protein is not 4 calories per gram, carbohydrates are not 4 calories per gram  and fats are not 9 calories per gram. We simply use these figures because they make it easier to  count. The protein is way off and the carbohydrates plus fats are just rounded to the nearest,  different forms of macro-nutrients ie glucose digests at a different caloric intake to lactose and so  on. This will complicate things for most and this is the reason why I stick to the 4-4-9 system even though it is not actually accurate. Caloric intake is set depending on your goal but it gets slightly adjusted depending on lifestyle, you see somebody who is extremely active or doing a high volume bodybuilding routine would require a different caloric intake to somebody who is sedentary. My

With dieting, something I often get asked is ratios of macro-nutrients. I don't use ratios, all you need  to worry about is getting enough protein, getting enough carbohydrate (depends on your training  volume and general activity level) and then filling in the rest of your calorie requirement with  mostly sat/mono fat. You should be thinking in terms of actual gram numbers, not ratios. If you  wish to think of ratios, I would say the optimal ratios for testosterone production for those who are  interested would be : - 20% Protein - 30% Carbohydrate - 50% Fat (45% saturated, 45% monounsaturated, 10% polyunsaturated with a 1:2 omega 3 to 6 ratio) Now we are going to count all of our macro-nutrients, but in theory, you don't need to. The reason why we are is because it fits simpler with most modern day counting systems. Most are in-fact, incorrect, for example protein is not 4 calories per gram, carbohydrates are not 4 calories per gram and fats are not 9 calories p

This ties in with training and diet, s ometimes people ask me about feeling flat etc, this is mainly diet related. You'll feel flat and get a  shit pump if your glycogen stores are low. Glycogen makes your muscles swell up in size and feel  nice and full. If you're noticing flat muscles and low vascularity you should increase your average  daily complex carb intake or instead have a high carb day every 3rd of 4th day, around 500 grams  (mostly complex), I will explain more about carbohydrate intake further on. Salt increases  vascularity, eating more sodium than usual increases your blood volume which makes you more  vascular, however it's only temporary, after your body adapts to the higher sodium intake your vascularity will return to normal. I don't directly recommend adding sodium to your diet unless you participate in a lot of endurance activities, if people wish to a small amount shouldn't hurt and I would recommend Himilayan Sea Salt. Vascularity as a whole

Occlusion isn't as important as I once thought, it simply makes you reach failure quicker through a reduced range of motion maintaining more tension. I pause slightly at the bottom position, this reduces stress on the tendons due to the way the stretch-shortening cycle (SSC) works. Fast turnaround speeds take advantage of the SSC which allows you to lift more weight but it also increases the risk of injury. As far as tempo goes, I lift (concentric) my weights at a natural tempo, not as fast as possible but not intentionally slowed down either. I lower (eccentric) my weights at around half the speed I lift. I pause briefly between the end of the eccentric phase and the beginning of the concentric phase. www.genesis-ugl.com www.genesis-board.com

People ask me about fiber types, and how training different ranges would promote more hypetrophy, the thing is you can usually tell by their rate of progress at different repetition ranges to see where they likely are on twitch dominance, but this applies to the muscle groups being trained. Fast twitch dominant people will make fast progress in the low rep ranges but slow twitch dominant people will make slow progress in the low rep ranges. The opposite is also true, fast twitch people will make slow progress in the high rep ranges but slow twitch dominant people will make fast progress in the higher rep ranges. Although it's not as simple as simply looking at fast vs slow twitch people, individual muscles and muscle groups can vary wildly, for example you might be very fast twitch in your pecs and triceps but very slow twitch in your lats and biceps etc. It takes a lot of experimentation to determine the optimal RM number for each muscle group and this would involve using dif

Now to dispel a quick myth, simply training to failure does not recruit all motor units, this is a common held belief and it is in fact, incorrect despite your body attempting to recruit them all. When ever your forced to practice maximal effort by attempting to recruit all your motor units, your telling your body that it needs to increase it's strength, it'll simply be within the range that you practise. Think of it that when your near failure, your telling your body to promote strength, now going to failure directly does not serve the best purpose for promoting maximal strength however going to failure is a requirement to maximise hypertrophy. For maximal strength training your already within the realm of failure from the very first repetition, this is where the balance begins. www.genesis-board.com www.genesis-ugl.com

Rest Pause is too intense of an intensity exercise for a beginner, or at least somebody who's not used to high volume, so how I get around this and by supporting the routine itself, I get them to find out their 10 rep maximums. This is done by doing sets of 8-12 repetitions, approximately 2 minutes rest and adjusting where necessary, so each set they achieve 12 they add a low amount of weight, ie 2.5kg (1.25kg per side) and if they only achieve 8 repetitions they decrease the weight slightly using the approximate guide above.  This can help them understand roughly where their 10 rep maximums are at with the exercises they wish to use on the rest pause routine. I start them off with 3 sets and each session add a set until they are doing a session of 5 sets with each exercise, this lets me know they have the frequency and volume down but at a reduced intensity. Then we invert this slightly with rest pause, as rest pause is a very intense technique so the volume is lowered slight

So what you should do is aim for a certain number of total reps per week and then divide these reps  over as many sessions as possible. So for example instead of training twice per week with 30 reps  you could train 3 times per week with 20 reps, 4 times per week with 15 reps, 5 times per week with  12 reps or 6 times per week with 10 reps, at the end of the week the weekly volume still adds up to  60 total reps. Obviously these aren't the figures we are working off, just a way to explain how  the volume is spread more efficiently to combine with strength increases. Some people will ague  that this way you lose out on glycogen super-compensation, however worrying about increasing  your long term progress rate is far more important than worrying about a little bit of glycogen  super-compensation and even then with a raised volume this very minor negative will slowly fade. Now with the above in mind in regards to frequency, this applies across the board, frequency for the muscle,

Weekly volume is the most important factor, frequency is of secondary importance. Performing 20  sets per week is always going to be better than performing only 10 sets per week regardless of  frequency differences. Frequency comes into play when weekly volume is equal, for example  performing 10 sets twice per week (20 sets total per week) is better than performing 20 sets once  per week (20 sets total per week). Remember, body building is like power lifting, your trying to get as strong as possible, just simply in a different repetition range. You'll gain strength faster with a higher frequency, for example in order of least effective to most effective: 12 sets once per week (least effective) 6 sets twice per week 4 sets 3 times per week 3 sets 4 times per week 2 sets 6 times per week (most effective) www.genesis-board.com www.genesis-ugl.com

There are lots of factors with training, several I believe are very important are - High Volume High Frequency High Intensity Moderate Repetition Range (Weight) Training To/Near Failure How do I sum the above into a sentence? Pick a suitable intensity (% of 1RM, or rep range etc) and then train with as much weekly volume as you can handle from while spreading your weekly volume over as many sessions as possible/practical. www.genesis-ugl.com www.genesis-board.com

Here I will include my post on DHA, EPA and AA which I'm hoping many of you have read and  understand, It doesn't get repeated often enough and I'm so frequently responding with this to  questions relating to fish etc, I have added slight parts to the previous to help fill some possibly void  gaps. The essential fats are AA and DHA (docosahexaenoic acid), the best source of DHA is fish but the problem with fish is that it contains far too much EPA and the EPA requirement is nil. EPA reduces androgen receptor density and also reduces the binding affinity of androgens to the androgen receptors that are present. Your testosterone levels will appear normal if you get a blood test but what a blood test doesn't show is that the testosterone in your blood won't be able to do its job properly because there won't be enough androgen receptors for it to bind to and even the androgen receptors that are present won't bind very well with testosterone. It just so

Random question I've received on steroids, the questions simplified, are steroids safe, how can you  tell visually if somebody is using steroids, can you hide it and when is the earliest you can use it? Injectable steroids are very safe, the side effects are exaggerated, oral steroids damage the liver and should be avoided. I don't go out of my way to recommend steroids although I'm willing to help someone if they decided they wanted to take steroids. The traps, neck and delts have a naturally high density of andogen receptors, they blow up the most when someone starts taking steroids. The calves have a very low androgen receptor density, this is why steroids don't help very much with calf growth. If you see someone with an usually thick neck, big traps and round delts you're most likely looking at a steroid user. A steroid using man vs a natural man is basically the same as a man vs a woman, the visual difference can be that dramatic. A sexual partner would

Random question I've received on gear, the question simplified, is do steroids only cause temporary  gains? Well, the answer is yes and no. If you pass your genetic limit for muscle, some of what you gain will be temporary once cycled off, however, it is possible to keep everything up to the point of the genetic limit providing your training and diet is on point. Where I answered no, they are not temporary is a little harder to explain. You see steroids increase satellite cell proliferation, as does training. Satellite cells donate nuclei to muscle cells which allows them to grow/hypertrophy. During de-training the number of nuclei doesn't decrease, this means that when you start training again you'll grow much faster than you did the first time because you don't have to wait for satellite cells to donate nuclei, the nuclei are already present. Steroids will help you reach your genetic limit faster than usual, this is why beginner cycles can be sometimes extremely s

Random question I've received on GI, the question simplified, does the glycemic index make any  difference on body composition or health?  Glycemic index really doesn't make much of a difference to your physique whether you eat low or high GI carbs but this doesn't mean you should throw all caution to the wind, low GI carbs are much better for your health because they don't raise/spike your blood glucose levels as high. Glucose is an extremely destructive molecule, this is why your body keeps your blood glucose levels within a very narrow range, when your blood glucose levels are too high it damages almost every tissue in your body (especially your eyes, there's a very good reason why almost every type 2 diabetic on the planet wears glasses or contact lenses). So although GI makes very little difference in terms of your physique this doesn't mean that you shouldn't care about GI at all, low GI carbs are much healthier. www.genesis-board.com www.gen

Random question I've received on muscle density, the question simplified, does low rep training increase muscle density?  This is called myogenic tone, think of when you flex your muscles they feel tenser and harder. Myogenic tone is how tensed/hard your muscles feel when you're not flexing. Yes it's true that low rep training increases myogenic tone, however higher rep training increases your 24/7 pumped look more than low rep training and you will appear bigger overall. If your lean enough, the muscle density won't make a difference. www.genesis-board.com www.genesis-ugl.com

Random question I've received on drinks, the question simplified, Is drinking soft drinks (like diet  coke) okay, along with tea or coffee?  I don't actually recommend soft drinks like diet coke, Too much phosphorus in soft drinks and not enough calcium/magnesium/potassium. Tea contains too much flouride, which can cause problems such as a reduced thyroid and coffee can cause issues, caffeine isn't harmless as people believe but it's not detrimental either. If you having a drink and want it sweetened, I would recommend Stevia, it causes less problems then other sweeteners, I would feed aspartme to my dog. A drink I would recommend, although not amazingly beneficial due to caloric intake etc is orange juice, but this should be drunk with a straw to avoid vitamin C coming into contact with your teeth, Vitamin C is not good for your teeth and I have no idea why they make vitamin C chewables for people especially children, argh. Saying that, do as I say not as I do,

Random question I've received on Hydrogen Peroxide, the question simplified, why do you use it as  a mouthwash, how can it help you if your sick and why do you avoid chemicals?  Well, HP is H2O2 while water is H20, so water has 2 hydrogen atoms and 1 oxygen atom, HP has 2 hydrogen atoms and 2 oxygen atoms. So basically HP is simply water with twice as much oxygen as usual. HP is unstable and naturally wants to shed the extra oxygen molecule. Oxygen is a bleach, in fact all bleaches are oxidizing agents, this is how HP bleaches your hair/teeth (the oxygen removes colour/stains, other bleaches (for example cleaning/clothes bleach) might use a different ingredient instead of HP but they work the same way, an oxidizing agent causes the bleaching. Oxygen is also very good at killing bacteria, so too is UV light. Have you ever wondered by running water stays fresh and safe to drink but still water goes yucky? It's the oxygen, running water is constantly being exposed to air so it

Random question I've received on CBL diet, the question can't really be simplified, the quoted a section to be and asked my thoughts, I am going to quote this section here for those who do not own the book as it won't be clear what I'm answering. So, the quoted section is -- "What makes caffeine integral to Carb Back-Loading is the ability to cause transient insulin insensitivity. Not only does insulin interfere with the actions of caffeine, but caffeine interferes with insulin's function as well, by decreasing insulin mediated tGLUT response. With caffeine, it's possible to both amplify Carb Back-Loading when training at the perfect time, but also to modify insulin sensitivity to accommodate training at non-ideal times, such as in first thing in the morning. People are the most sensitive to insulin in the morning, and most apt to store excess carbs as fat — caffeine changes that. Cells can no longer clear glucose as rapidly, so the extende

Random question I've received on eggs, the question simplified, are raw or cooked eggs better? Depends what you mean by better. The protein is easier to digest when cooked but the fats are damaged when cooked. The fats are still usable by the body, they're simply oxidized to a small extent. Eating raw egg whites reduces biotin absorption but there's quite a lot of biotin in the yolks so as long as you eat the yolks with the whites you'll still be absorbing at least some of the biotin. I personally feel that the best results are achieved by lightly cooking the eggs, I favour lightly frying them in Coconut Oil or lightly boiling them and mashing in the yolks into my rice. www.genesis-board.com www.genesis-ugl.com

Random question I've received on push ups, the question simplified, are push ups better then the  bench press?  Weighted push-ups are a suitable alternative, in fact I believe weighted push-ups are actually better than bench press due to the fact that push-ups are a closed chain exercise while bench press is an open chain exercise. The comparison between push-ups and bench press is basically the same as the comparison between pull-ups (closed chain) and lat pull downs (open chain). Where the problem lies is that push ups can be hard to add weight to over time, one way around this is to alter the repetition range used for the push ups, this shouldn't cause many issues as it's only one exercise but non the less, if your able to increase the weight within a more efficient hypertrophy range then this would be ideal, once you can't do it within this range unless you actually include them both together, the bench press will take over.

Random question I've received on Anti E's, should I take an Anti E? Moststeroid users within the group would or at least should know how Anti E's work and yes they taking letro without steroids will increase testosterone and reduce estrogen, many people take letrozole by itself, it gives a natural lifter a slight advantage. For a dosage, I would recommend half a tablet, approximately 1.25mg per week, any more then this for a natural and you could begin to run into problems such as sex drive etc.  Now I don't directly recommend women take an Anti E, If a woman takes letrozole she will lose a lot of water weight because estrogen promotes water retention. Her fat storage profile will also change, however it won't necessarily be for the better, she'll lose fat from her face, breasts, thighs, ass etc and start shifting toward a make fat distribution, i.e more fat around the midsection.

Random question I've received on creatine, does creatine reduce myostatin? If so is it significant  enough to be worth it and why does it make my muscles feel softer?  The only real ways to inhibit/reduce myostatin enough to produce a pronounced effect are genetic engineering and/or drugs, chronic resistance training decreases myostatin levels and increases GASP-1 (myostatin binding protein) levels, nutrition has minimal differences on this. The more creatine (and glycogen) you store in the muscle the softer they will feel, this is due to the water storage component of creatine and glycogen. Reducing your overall volume will make your muscles harder because you won't store as much glycogen, however this will make your muscles appear smaller overall. Bodyfat levels also come into play here, as having a higher bodyfat level would make it even further feel softer.

Random question I've received on Vegetarianism, are we biologically designed to be Vegetarians? The idea of us being designed as vegetarians is a load of nonsense, without animal food sources we'd die, it's impossible to get vitamin B12 from plant sources, our ancestors would have all died out if they didn't eat animals. Some examples to illustrate the point: - Iron is better absorbed from animal foods - Vitamin A from animal foods is better absorbed and much more potent on a weight for weight basis - Vitamin K from animal foods is better absorbed and much more potent on a weight for weight basis - Vitamin B12 can only be obtained form animal foods, without animal foods our ancestors wouldhave died - Protein from animal foods is much higher quality than protein from plant foods - Long chain polyunsaturated essential fats (DHA, AA) are easily obtained from animal foods and seafood - The short chain polyunsaturated essential fats (LA,