Hgh

[1wheelr1]

I've never been able to increase size in my arms or calves. Was wondering if taking hgh and putting a large emphasis on these muscles is a good idea? Btw this is just a thought, not sure if I'm really going to pursue this.

[Atomini]

No, you won't find what you are looking for there.

HGH is a very poor mass builder. In the long term (6 months or longer) it will have a cumulitive effect on IGF-1 levels in muscle tissue, and will bring about some nice gains, but as I said you must be on it for 6 months at least in order to achieve this effect. It just does not have that 'overnight' 8-12 week dramatic effect that AAS has. In the short term, HGH is only good for fat loss. HGH also does not have a localized growth (or fat loss effect), so don't think that shooting into your calves will make them grow any larger or faster.

Your best bet is to look elsewhere.

[1wheelr1]

Ok, well lets say I was going to use it for 6 months. If I payed extra attention to the muscles I want to grow during my workout would they progress?

[956Vette]

Ok, well lets say I was going to use it for 6 months. If I payed extra attention to the muscles I want to grow during my workout would they progress?

Solid insight from Atomini - he's correct to shoot down this approach/theory...you'd be spinning your wheels unfortunately
Continue working your large muscles and the ancillaries should follow to some degree w/ time & effort

[Atomini]

Possibly. There is no guarantees as to anything though.

In all of my years involved in training, being a personal trainer, and now trying to get into the medical field... I can unequivocally say that much of what we describe as 'weaknesses' or areas that 'lag' or 'require improvement' are really unfortunately for the most part uncontrollable. And the reason for this is: genetics. I'm not trying to make this seem hopeless for people who have poor genetics in certain areas, but its something that we must come to terms with.

I have gigantic calves, and I always have even before I touched the weights. Naturally, when I started training they got even more massive. My calves are so big that they actually dwarf my quads, they make my quads look small! I actually have striations in my calves when I flex them, even at 15% bodyfat or more. Now, my dad has even bigger calves than me! And he doesn't really train (he does martial arts training and calisthenics and very light weights at home - not in a gym - to stay in shape, so there isn't much direct calve work at all involved in his routines). Now... my gandfather (dad's dad) had bigger calves than MY DAD and he never worked out! He died before I was born, so I never got to see them for myself, but apparently he was massive. If my calves are massive (and I train them intensely directly), and my dad's calves are bigger than mine... what the hell did pops' calves look like!? That's the power of genetics for you.

We all see those guys around, in the gym and out, who have massive biceps (or some other massive muscle group) and never do anything special for them. We have guys who just have the overall genetics to go pro and they don't have to do very much to get there and stay there compared to the rest of us. It all lies in genetics. But its no reason to just say "ah, I just don't have the genetics to properly build my [insert muscle here], i'll just quit training it all together". You should still do the best you can but don't BS yourself thinking you'll be able to change the shape of your muscle belly or build it excessively by doing anything special.

With all that being said, you could try out HGH for 6 months and see. But as I said, it is not a very good mass builder at typical doses. If you want to see the mass building effects of HGH, you'd need to be running higher doses (8-10iu per day or more) and that gets very very expensive. If you're willing to do it and have the cash, go for it. I would also advise doing cycles with HGH, as you will get a synergistic anabolic effect with AAS and HGH working together. The main reason why bodybuilders today are so freakishly massive today compared to pre-90s bodybuilders is directly due to HGH and IGF-1 use with their anabolic steroid cycles. It really does allow you to smash through new barriers in mass gaining. They didn't have access to peptides in the 70s and 80s.

All compounds set aside, here is a basic training tip for you that may help: training a particular lagging muscle group that you want to develop more will not grow more or grow faster by doing more sets for the muscle. The same thing goes for training said muscle more frequently. The biggest mistake people can make is to take a muscle group they feel is lagging, and go from training it once a week to now twice per week. You will not progress doing such a thing, and may even regress if you cross the threshold of overtraining it (as often is the case when people start doing more volume and higher frequency). Try to train more intensely (i.e. advanced techniques such as rest-pause sets, negative-only training, omni-contraction sets, forced reps,etc.) and with that, try to reduce your frequency and volume. Sometimes doing absolutely nothing also helps (i'm serious), as this one time I had big problems getting my biceps to grow beyond a certain point. So you know what I did? Stopped all direct bicep work. No barbell curls, no curls, NOTHING. All I did was let my biceps get hit as a secondary muscle when I trained back. I laid off of biceps for a good year and I didn't lose any size or strength off them - I in fact gained a bit more.

[< <Samson> >]

Damn, Atom man. . . That is a very solid post.


Very true. . . When I started, I wanted giant arms. My Bi's were 14" or so I trained and trained(all natural) for about 3-4 years and got to 15.5". Then the growth just plain out stopped. I hit my arms 2-3x per week just doing a insane amount of sets and reps. 2 years later of this my bi's were - - - - 15.5-15.75". . . I was like WTF, this is BS and I just can't grow.

I started reading and reading some more. Came to the conclusion that I wanted to run a cycle and ran my first cycle about 2 months ago. I completely changed my workout routine to 2 muscle groups per workout once a week for 3 months. Then I changed to one muscle group per workout day. My bi's blew up to 18.5"


But, it is a fact that genetics play a huge role. My calves also have been a ginormous size even before I ever started working out anything. Also more genetical BS, my dad has never stepped in a gym yet holds single digit Bf% numbers(or damn close, he has no fat fold period) and resembles Bruce Lee. Yet he is only 5'5" and I am 5'10"

[ScotchGuard02]

I have similar issues like 1wheelr1. My arms are big but my biceps has never peaked and I've always had thin calves even when I ran track. When I got on AAS I concentrated on my calves quite a bit. They're still not a big as I would like but they're better now then they've ever been before. I think that we do the best we can and then we get comfortable with our body image. Nothing else to do IMHO.

[1wheelr1]

Thank you all. I'll just keep working at it the old fashion way.

[EZ E]

I agree with what Atomini says BUT everyone is different and you need to find out what works best for you. I found doing arms 2x a week worked better for me while leaving my bigger muscle groups at 1x/week. Try it out (or if you are already doing it 2x/week drop it to 1) and see if you notice a difference after a month or 2. Calves are tough for those of us not genetically gifted but I have recently put on 1/2 inch in the last month or so (growth has stalled now so I will probably try to change it up again). I did 100 standing calf raises every day, adding weight as soon as the 100 became easy. Started off with no weight and am now up to using a 45 on a belt w/ chain.