Carbs required for growth??

[overhead]

I was reading through July's Powerlifting USA and came across and article about Bill Kazmaier. The interesting part was that the article stated that Kaz believes carbohydrates are his enemy, no bread, rice, sugar, pasta, potatoes etc. Now I always thought that carbs were required to grow muscle. Obviously Kaz is 325 pounds of pretty solid muscle. That made me start thinking about why carbs would be required by the body to grow muscle. I understand they are needed to refill muscle glycogen and are better to fuel weight training workouts than fat, but are they *required* to gain lean muscle mass? Could one take in some carbs to fuel a workout, than some directly after to refill glycogen, and then not touch any carbs until the next pre-workout mean and still gain lean muscle?

 

[The Red Dragon]

I think it has to do with insulin, insulin shuttles protein into the cells too, esp during a spike...and the fact that carbs allow one to lift maximal loads.

 

[Luke530]

Could one take in some carbs to fuel a workout, than some directly after to refill glycogen, and then not touch any carbs until the next pre-workout mean and still gain lean muscle?

yes, as long as you make sure you are still consuming adequate calories at the end of the day. just remember, insulin is your most anabolic hormone... use it wisely. remember, you also use carbs throughout the day as well... my suggestion is to have your first 3-4 meals be carbs + protein and your last 3-4 to be fats + protein.

 

[overhead]

Thats pretty much how I eat now. I focus on getting carbs early in the day, especially after workouts. It was more of a general question. I was thinking that I may place too much import on eating carbs at times when they really are not required. If Kaz can get to 325 on a low carb type diet, than why in the world would anyone need carbs? I wish they would have listed a typical diet for him. Maybe it was a misprint, but it did not look like it.

 

[gonelifting]

interested in hearing more on his diet. Maybe it`s published somewhere. That would be a good read.

 

[Deleted member 33117]

Overhead, I'll post my answer to your pm here. First, no carbs are not a requirement for muscle growth. Many more primative cultures, as well as generations of our ancestors, ate/eat very low carb or zero carb diets. Their muscle did grow after being weened off of their mothers milk. Thus muscle growth does not require carbs in human beings. Kaz is a perfect example of someone who got massive on low carbs.

Dave Polumbo, aka the anabolic freak is hardly small. He is considered to be pretty massive even compaired to other guys who compete in the super-heavy weight class inthe NPC on stage with him. Have you ever looked at his bulking diet? High protien, moderate fat, low carb. Once every 7-10 days he eats a meal with about 300 grams of carbs in it to keep his glycogen stores full. High protien intake can do this to a certian extent, because amino acids are easly converted into glycogen, however alittle carb boost every now and then will create a more ideal anabolic environment. Oh, btw due to his fairly lean bodyfat year round, Dave diets for 5 weeks to prep for a show... and he gets a cheat meal every day at mcdonalds to keep him from loosing too much weight, since he only needs to drop a couple ibs a week.

Dr Mario DiPasqual (I might have mispelled that), a medical doctor and former olympic powerlifter has written alot on year-round low carb diets for both competetive bodybuilders and powerlifters. He advocates using a modified ckd for bulking in which you miniumize insulin levels most of the time to limit fat gain (you only need small amount of insulin to increase protien sythesis), and maxiumize circulating levels of hgh and a number growth factors by keeping blood sugar levels in check, then using a carb loading phase each weak to overfill one's glycogen stores, via the supercompensation effect. This is very much like the carb depleting and loading that bodybuilders use just before a show. This supercompensation effect creates an extremely anabolic state. BTW, this is also the sort of diet plan I use. Hope that helps answer your question bro.

 

[Deleted member 33117]

Overhead, in fact you are correct in what you are wondering about carbs. Once your glycogen stores are full, any carbs that you eat are very likely to be stored as bodyfat, if they are not immediately burned off as fuel. So, once you have replenish your muscle glyogen post-workout, any further carbs you take in will not really be of benefit to you.

 

[Mr. Sexy Man]

but isnt getting big all about maximizing muscle cell volume?(what steroids do right). and nothing blows up my muscles like carbs.

i dont think using bill kazmier and david palumbo are good examples at all, these two have done alot of steroids to make them grow, steroids increase protien synthesis, thats probably why their main foods were protien.

 

[Gel]

Back on the Ketogenic diet I go then!

 

[Mr. Sexy Man]

just because it works for two juicedoesnt mean it will work for everyone natural and on juice

fat and protien dont hold any water and dont do anything to volumize muscle cells

only carbs

 

[overhead]

just because it works for two juicedoesnt mean it will work for everyone natural and on juice

fat and protien dont hold any water and dont do anything to volumize muscle cells

only carbs

As far as I know, and I am by no means an expert, the requirements for muscle growth should be the same on or off. Does the chemistry/biology for growth change, or is the growth just amplified?

Thanks for the reply BodyByFinaplix

 

[Mr. Sexy Man]

As far as I know, and I am by no means an expert, the requirements for muscle growth should be the same on or off. Does the chemistry/biology for growth change, or is the growth just amplified?

Thanks for the reply BodyByFinaplix

steroids are a cell volumizer, like carbs. and steroids allow for more protien synthesis

 

[Deleted member 33117]

Steroids speed up protien synthesis. Thus allowing for faster repair of exercise induced trauma, and faster adaptation to training. As far as their cell volumizing effect I would agree if we are talking about something like test or d-bol, however anything with a very low or no rate of conversion into estragen you are unlike to see this effect.

Mr. Sexy Man, your body will readily convert amino acids into muscle gylcogen, so you can keep glyogen stores someone replenished with a high protien diet, however you are very unlikely to gain bodyfat as a result of eating this large amount of protien, unlike eating large amounts of carbs. Also bear in mind that after a number of days with few carbs, any carbs you eat will immediately be used to replensih muscle glycogen, and actually you can eat a hugh amount of carbs in a short peroid of time and you will get a supercompensation effect, thus allow your muscles to hold more glycogen than normally possible, again getting no gain in bodyfat, but an extremely anabolic effect in the muscle.

Why not use Polumbo and Kaz? Who's to say that a low carb diet can't create an idea environment for someone with lesser genetics and lower or no dose of steroids? After all, there are certainly bodybuilders who use alot more steroids, hgh and insulin than polumbo who do higher carbs diets, yet have nowhere near the mass or conditioning. Dave is somewhat willing to discuss his doses, and while they are much higher than most guys would use, they are less than you would expect from a super heavy-weight in the npc. There are smaller guys using more juice. The point is, these guys were able to obtain rediculous levels of development using low carb diets. It presents at leat some evidence that low carb diets may not impede growth as much as is often believed. I mean, are you saying they would have another 50 ibs of muscle each if they had eaten alot of carbs? I find that hard to believe. "Wow Dave, you dumbass, you could be competing at 340 ibs if you just had enough sense to eat alot more rice for the last 5 years."

 

[overhead]

I just order Dr. Di Pasquale book "Anabolic diet for Powerlifters". I am going to give it a shot. I am one of those people that does not have much trouble putting on fat or muscle. The bad part is I put on fat real quick. After I read it, I plan on following the diet for a couple of months to see how it works. I post up results.

 

[Deleted member 33117]

Kewl, keep us posted. I get good results using a low carb diet for bulking. At least I don't get to 15%+ bf like so many others I know.

 

[gonelifting]

Kewl, keep us posted. I get good results using a low carb diet for bulking. At least I don't get to 15%+ bf like so many others I know.

How may carbs do you take in while bulking? and is it the same as when you`re cutting (re carbs)?

 

[PancakeFiend]

I too have felt stronger on a low carb diet. I've been following TKD for 3 1/2 weeks, and gym performance has been greater when I take small amounts of dextrose during workouts as opposed to eating a bunch of carbs before. Before low carbing I was following a high carb high protein diet. Which didn't do jack for me in terms of performance or muscle gain. The only thing it did was expand my waist. Anyways I guess if you could follow a high calorie TKD your glycogen stores would remain adequately filled nearly all the time, maybe throw in a cheat meal every two weeks and you can get a decent low carb bulking diet out of it.

 

[Deleted member 33117]

How may carbs do you take in while bulking? and is it the same as when you`re cutting (re carbs)?

It varies alot. On days I eat a whole jar of nat. peanut butter It might go as high as 70 grams. On days I get all of my carbs from salid, as low as 10 grams. I function quite well on 10 grams though. Its just I love peanut butter and it is an easy source of very clean calories, with a ton of monounsaturated fats. Plus a jar should supply all of the fiber and B vitamins you need for the day. Today all of my carbs are in the form of romain lettace and a little low carb olive-oil and vinegar based italian dressing. So about 10 grams. Relying on my 5 ibs of ground turkey for cals today (not the lean kind, I need the fat).

 

[Deleted member 33117]

bump... want to keep this thread going a little longer.

 

[MeatHead57]

id say around 300 and up

 

[overhead]

I finished reading Dr. Pasquale's book "Anabolic Solution for Power lifters". Seems to make sense, and I am going to give it a shot.
I am comfortable with a low carb diet, I followed an Aktins type diet, under twenty carbs a day for about 10 months. Lost 50 pounds and have been slowly increasing the amount of carbs I eat as I train heavier. The problem I have found is that as I increase calories and carbs I put on an unexceptable amount of fat. In the three months I have increased carbs my weight has gone up by close to 20 pounds. I was down to 185 at about 16% body fat ( I should have cut more prior to increasing carbs, but I was over it ). I currently am closer to 205 pounds at 20%. I put on some muscle, but fat increased at a rate I am not comfortable with. Which is what led me to post the question in the first place. Dr Pasquale's diet is like CKD, low carb all week then a one or two day carb up every 7 days. He recommends staying at no greater than 15% body fat so I need to start by following his cutting diet. For me this will be somewhere between 2500-3000 calories a day during the week and under 30 carbs a day. From my experience with carbs I know that I will only need a one day carb up to refill glcogen. The carb up day should include more than 350 grams of carbs. Protein should stay high on all days but carb up, so I will be getting close to 300 grams of protein a day. I plan on cycling this every four weeks or so by increasing calories up to 3500 or so. I currently train west side style, four days a week with two days of light cardio. I may increase the cardio if the fat does not start coming off. My ultimate goal is to be able to compete next summer in powerlifting at 181. We will see how it goes. I may post up results in this thread, or maybe start another.

 

[Deleted member 33117]

Sounds like a decent plan. You'll need to fine tune as you go however, it is a good place to start. Good luck.

 

[overhead]

Oh yeah, and I train natural, no steriods at all. Mass is not that important to me at this time, but increasing strength, or atleast maintaining it while lossing body fat is.

 

[Deleted member 33117]

Keto diets are fine for natural trainees. Ketones are protien sparing, which is a big plus on a diet in the absence of anabolic agents.

 

[overhead]

Thanks for pointing to Dr. Di Pasquale. Good book for anyone interested in this sort of thing, but like many others he pushes his sups. pretty hard. I realize I may have to mess with calories to get the fat off. Because of the west side style of training I will know right away if I start losing strength. He actually recomends wsb as a good power lifting program, i was already using it so I have a head start.

 

[Him1]

Good luck fellas, but, I warn you, most people won't gain very well on this type of plan, although this seems to be a new trend on the net, so I suppose there must be some validity to it. I'm an endo, and even I can't gain well w/o enough carbs. When gaining, I try to keep the carbs moderate. And Fina, I'm pretty sure palumbo follows a moderate carb plan.

 

[JKurz1]

moderate carbs are KEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[overhead]

I guess I will find out. I think you need to take into account that different people may need different diets . I spend most of my youth eating high sugar, high gi carbs like soda, ice cream, white rice etc . I am pretty sure this has left my body in a insulin resistant state. I am also an endomorph and I have messed with carb levels a lot over the past two years and found that even at 100-250 carbs a day I still manage to lay down way too much body fat. My concerns at this point are more in gaining strength and losing weight being that I am training for power lifting. I am starting another thread so that I can track my own progress, we will see how it goes. I think after three months I will know if it will work for me or not. Thanks for all the comments

 

[Him1]

moderate carbs are KEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think thats pretty general. For a hardgainer, I think huge carbs and huge protein are important. For me, whem dieting, I get a total of abut 150g carbs, and I can get Very lean(7-8%) w/ that even as an endo.

 

[SubjectiveIllusion]

I've been slowly cutting my carbs over the past few months. I'm still gaining muscle and losing fat, but my energy levels seem to be relative to my intake of carbs,.. low.

 

[variation]

personally since carb foods taste best to me, I like to eat high carb, and I find when eating higher carb I recover quiker, I think insulin spikes are pretty useful for recovery, of course that's not to say you 'need' carbs to get insulin, injecting is also an option... and it can be done without carbs.. but lots of people steer away from this option.

 

[overhead]

The only thing I really do not get about the insulin spike is that I keep reading that post workout carbs that cause an insulin spike can also lower gh production. I cannot figure out which is more anabolic, an insulin spike or more gh.

 

[Eatmorechicken]

Taking in tons of carbs throughout the day when you are primarily sedentary does little if anything to promote superior muscle growth versus targetted/cyclical carb intake. But it does promote unnecessary fat storage in sensitive individuals (i.e. a large percentage of people not of Asian descent). Carbs are not evil, but the approach to them should be along the lines of the 'work smarter not harder' perspective. Manipulating your carb intake properly allows the most 'bang for your buck.'

 

[Eatmorechicken]

The only thing I really do not get about the insulin spike is that I keep reading that post workout carbs that cause an insulin spike can also lower gh production. I cannot figure out which is more anabolic, an insulin spike or more gh.

I don't believe general hGH secrection to be particularly anabolic based on the fact that many of the guys who do heavy cycles of synthetic hGH with no other drugs report very little in the way of significant muscle gain.

 

[bilat]

bump