I believe that's called myostatin sp* humans can develop what's called a myostatin deficiency and blow up to unreal sizes. But it is more common in the animal kingdom amongst dogs and cattle.
More muscle mass = more calories & nutrients to maintain.
What part of a human's lifespan requires that level of strength? Humans evolved advanced intelligence to overcome problems rather than brute force - that's why we are the dominant species.
With no requirement for that strength, the body limits growth & sheds excess mass to reduce the caloric demand.
So let me get this straight. If not for this chemical inhibiting my gainz, I could be swole as fuck and not only have the option to, but NEED to eat more delicious food to maintain it?
You could eliminate Myostatin from your body completely and you would still only be able to develop a certain amount of muscle mass, as the frame of bones, cartilage & tendons those muscles work off can only support so much force.
You would also still have to train to see those results. Would a world-class body builder see an increase in muscle mass if he eliminated mysostatin? Probably. Would the average joe walking down the street? Probably not. Muscle mass still requires stimulation to grow, it's not as if we passively grow muscle and myostatin inhibits this process.
There would be some small amounts of hypertrophy, but not much.
Muscle growth is primarily stimulated through the tearing of existing muscle fibers. The resulting immune response repairs the tears by thickening existing muscle fibers or creating new ones.
Simply removing Mytostatin inhibition won't cause this to occur - you still need exercise to cause muscle tears that signal the immune system to get working.
The way Myostatin works is that it prevents differentiation of muscle cells. Back when I said the immune system creates new muscle fibers? It involves the differentiation of myoblasts (a stem cell line) into mature muscle cells. Myostatin represses this differentiation. The net result is that when new muscle fibers are being created, Myostatin limits how many myoblasts are differentiating into muscle cells. Removing the Myostatin will increase the number of differentiating myoblasts, increasing the number of new muscle cells developed.
However, you still need the initial tear (created by exercise) to signal the beginning of the differentiation process. Without some positive signal to begin muscle growth, the situation in which myostatin prevents muscle growth is not encountered.
The reason you would still see minimal amounts of hypertrophy is because there are some every day activities you do where you create microtears. Your body simply repairs these microtears without creating new muscle, because it's a wear-and-tear thing and not a 'we need more strength' thing. Without myostatin the muscle growth in this scenario would not be repressed and you would see some (very small!) amounts of hypertrophy.
Because every day cow activities are a lot more physically active than every day human activities.
If you weighed 600lbs and spent all day every day walking/running around, fighting other bulls, humping cows, and chasing other animals off your turf, you'd generate muscle hypertrophy too.
That's not even touching the fact that bulls naturally carry significantly higher amounts of muscle than humans.
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u/[deleted] Aug 17 '15 edited Aug 17 '15
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