"muscle memory" and gear

[20gauge]

After speaking to a workmate about muscle memory and gains brought on by gear I thought I'd run it by the forum just to see how accurate it was.

Basically my workmate claims that any gain in muscle strength or size that is kept after a cycle will NOT come back if (for example), you got sick or didn't train and lost size because of it. So once you lose it it's lost forever until you naturally get back to that muscle size/strength.

So say I was 90kg went on a cycle and gained 5kg of pure muscle after the cycle. Then after a few months I was hit by a car and couldn't train for a few months. My weight drops down to 80kg. His theory is that I can get back to 85kg because thats how much muscle I had prior to my cycle but that extra 5kg I gained will never come back until I naturally gain that muscle because its "different" to AAS gained muscle. I.e "gear muscle" is hard to maintain.

Is this true or is my workmate pulling my leg. He's a PT but I have my doubts about alot of things he says.

[redz]

Not true, It will be harder to regain that extra mass but it is clearly not impossible it would just be harder without gear.

[richtries]

depends . . . if you have reached your genetic max, anything you gain after that through cycling is impossible to regain naturally once you´ve lost it.

For instance, your current weight is 90kg, lets say that this is your genetic max, after you cycle you gain 5kg, then due to illness you lose 10kg so your weight drops back to 85kg, you will only be able to regain 5kg because your natural testosterone levels restrict the amount of muscle mass your body can maintain. You can only make gains/maintain a weight above your genetic max through continued use of aas, some say that hgh can give permanent gains becuase it actually creates new muscle cells, but i´ve been told this is bullshit.

Think you´ll find the following two previous threads quite interesting . . .

How do you guys keep your gains?

Does anybody just do 1-2 cycles and then train naturally?

[magic32]

Firstly the term “muscle memory” shouldn’t be applied here as it has much more to with the neuropathways involved in muscle movements than the capacity for reaquiring muscle mass. That aside, your question essentially appears to be “If one lost (for whatever reason) his/her cycle gained muscle, can it be regained naturally?” The theory inherent here is that since new muscle capacity (both size and strength were attained) it should be possible to reacquire said gains without another cycle. However, as mentioned above (assuming genetic potential was met pre-cycle) the limits placed on genetic potential supersede the precedent set by the cycle gained muscle. In other words, “No”, it is not possible to regain your cycle imposed muscle without another cycle. Logical arguments/experiences to the contrary are, as always welcomed, but I don’t have time to pull up any physio-related materials now…gotta fly!

[T_Own]

sounds like 189s situation lol.

[JiGGaMaN]

sounds like 189s situation lol.

good call. whatever personal trainers say tend to be bullshit.

[MuscleScience]

I see my work here will never end.....

I dont really follow what your mate is saying. Nor is there any validity to what he is saying. The basics of it is this, gaining of muscle mass in nothing more than the muscle holding more protein in the contractile and structural filaments. True being on gear will change the physiology of the muscle and it will be much easier to gain back lost muscle mass with AAS.

But you could in theory get to 100kg on or off gear from your post accident weight. All you have to do is stimulate the muscle to increase protein synthesis.

Practically the only thing you retain from previously being weight trained is the neuromuscular component of training. The motor patterns never really go away, think of once you know how to ride a bike you never forget.

[Iceman69]

Before I ever took AAS my max weight was around 205. No matter what I did I just couldn't get bigger than that.

After few cycles I got up to 250lbs.

Now....no matter what happens to me...sickness, not training for a month.....I can ALWAYs get back to 230-240 almost at will.

Keep in mind I graduated high school 6'3 and 156lbs.

I truly believe that somehow I've modified my genetics. =)

I could be totally crazy of course.

Iceman

[20gauge]

good call. whatever personal trainers say tend to be bullshit.

Lol, true true. This dude is ur typical PT. He's right, your wrong and so is the rest of the world. I just keep telling him "everyones a personal trainer"

[Iceman69]

Most personal trainers I see are ****ing skinny little bitches who need to shut the **** up and go eat some protein.

I actually had this 160lb personal trainer to convince me I needed to sign up for his personal training....I wanted to rip his balls off. (Granted I was on 500mg Test E and 400mg Deca with Dbol kick start at the time.)

Now if some 275lb jacked up personal trainer asked me if I wanted to train with him...I'd think about it.

But I've yet to meet one of those.

Iceman

[MuscleScience]

Most personal trainers I see are ****ing skinny little bitches who need to shut the **** up and go eat some protein.

I actually had this 160lb personal trainer to convince me I needed to sign up for his personal training....I wanted to rip his balls off. (Granted I was on 500mg Test E and 400mg Deca with Dbol kick start at the time.)

Now if some 275lb jacked up personal trainer asked me if I wanted to train with him...I'd think about it.

But I've yet to meet one of those.

Iceman

You think thats bad you, I taught majors exercise physiology while in grad school. You would not believe the number of PT's that I had to flunk out of the class, or would get barely a passing grade.

Granted some of them where bigger than me......

[20gauge]

I see my work here will never end.....

I dont really follow what your mate is saying. Nor is there any validity to what he is saying. The basics of it is this, gaining of muscle mass in nothing more than the muscle holding more protein in the contractile and structural filaments. True being on gear will change the physiology of the muscle and it will be much easier to gain back lost muscle mass with AAS.

But you could in theory get to 100kg on or off gear from your post accident weight. All you have to do is stimulate the muscle to increase protein synthesis.

Practically the only thing you retain from previously being weight trained is the neuromuscular component of training. The motor patterns never really go away, think of once you know how to ride a bike you never forget.

Yeh that sounds right. My understanding of "muscle memory" was that because you do the same repetitive motion over time your muscle becomes accustomed to that, to the point where it becomes an unconscious process. So like for example a baby learning to walk has no fewer motor neurons to control their walking, but through trial and error and with more connections between brain and muscle the baby eventually learns to walk, their stabilizer muscles and primary muscles become stronger and gain more and more motor neurons. I would assume this would be the same whether you took a steroid or did it naturally. His theory is that there is no "muscle memory" for muscle that was gained through AAS, in other words that extra increase, if you got sick would be as though it never even happened.

[20gauge]

If I tell you what he wanted me to do for my training you would piss your pants!!

[MuscleScience]

Yeh that sounds right. My understanding of "muscle memory" was that because you do the same repetitive motion over time your muscle becomes accustomed to that, to the point where it becomes an unconscious process. So like for example a baby learning to walk has no fewer motor neurons to control their walking, but through trial and error and with more connections between brain and muscle the baby eventually learns to walk. I would assume this would be the same whether you took a steroid or did it naturally. His theory is that there is no "muscle memory" for muscle that was gained through AAS, in other words that extra increase, if you got sick would be as though it never even happened.

I am sure depending on how long a lay off a person took there would be residual in the structural parts of the muscle. It takes a rather long time for the muscle to strip itself of structural proteins unless the muscle is completely immobilized through trauma. I think full detraining takes a few years I am not sure what the current amount of time is now. It use to be a year but then some pretty smart people designed some damn cool experiments that showed that it may not be in that short of time.

There is some data out there right now that supports that steroids increase peripheral nervous innervation to the muscle (meaning increase in motor units). I do not keep up on that literature as much as I do on some other stuff out there so I cant speak on it much. That could be a counter argument I guess.

There is also data to suggest that expression of certain genes may linger or be more able to be expressed when stimuli is presented to them (this is not a technical description in-case anyone was wondering). This I have seen a bit on for endurance athletes particularly women athletes that take off time from training due to pregnancy.

This is why I love exercise science.

[Steroidman99]

Some research
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1...ubmed_RVDocSum
indicates that anabolic steroids markedly stimulate the proliferation of satellite cells into muscle cells, which increases the number of nuclei within a muscle cell and enhances its capacity to grow. They also stimulate the growth of new muscle cells more intensively than normal training. In theory, you should be able to gain all the lost muscle back naturally, although it could last longer.

In fact, a steroid cycle that has increased the number of nuclei within a muscle cell should enhance your potential as a whole. You should be able to continue in your gains for a certain time naturally.

[MuscleScience]

Some research
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1...ubmed_RVDocSum
indicates that anabolic steroids markedly stimulate the proliferation of satellite cells into muscle cells, which increases the number of nuclei within a muscle cell and enhances its capacity to grow. They also stimulate the growth of new muscle cells more intensively than normal training. In theory, you should be able to gain all the lost muscle back naturally, although it could last longer.

In fact, a steroid cycle that has increased the number of nuclei within a muscle cell should enhance your potential as a whole. You should be able to continue in your gains for a certain time naturally.

Thats a nice paper, the authors were careful to leave out a key word in their discussion. They never mentioned the work hyperplasia, but they did say new fiber formation. Of course they never mentioned the word metaplasia. This paper made me think of another thread were I talking about satellite cell influence in nuclear increase in muscle cells. It then spurred me to read another paper talking about increase AR expression and it all made sense.

Thanks for that paper.... Learn something new everyday

[MuscleScience]

The more I think on this topic the more glaringly obvious it is.....

[Iceman69]

The more I think on this topic the more glaringly obvious it is.....

Please explain bro.

Because my personal experience has been that after several cycles of AAS my natural "baseline" has been raised.

Iceman

[Charger527]

intersting topic, im keen to learn more.

[MuscleScience]

Please explain bro.

Because my personal experience has been that after several cycles of AAS my natural "baseline" has been raised.

Iceman

Well my mind was working and I came to a conclusion from several things. I knew several things one being that when a muscle cell is under stress such as when its being continuously trained the infusion of satellite cells increases. Satellite cell metaplasia adds to the nuclear count of muscle cells. Because muscle cells themselves can not divide because they are so specialized that the mechanisms for cell replication are completely unexpressed. Now if you have an infusion of new nuclei from satellite cells which are basically stem cells that are not nearly as specialized. They can express such things as more Androgen receptors and can add to protein synthesis. The nucleus donated by the satellite cells stays on the outer borders of the muscle cell that it infused with. The satellite cells nucleus does not seem to completely mature to act like a native muscle nucleus. It basically acts like a support cell much like glial cells in the nervous system.

My conclusion is that AAS dramatically increases satellite cell metaplasia even over trained individuals that train naturally. This increase in permanent or at least is very long lasting. I think or at least one theory is that having this permanent change in the muscles nuclear count is what causes the increase in baseline muscle mass if you will. Keep in mind this is my own conclusion and I have not seen to date anything in the literature that says this is a definite possibility. Everything else not in bold is currently what the literature shows at present.