Muscle Maturity Discussion

[troy_trinity]

I put this thread in this section because I want to discuss any correlation between aas useage (or any substances for that matter) and muscle maturity.

I want to know what everyones views are on muscle maturity and if they feel it's something related to aas or just the amount of time you've been lifting and your age or if it's a mix of both or if it's something completely different in your view.

Let me know what you guys think- everyone seems to have a different view on this subject so discuss :)

[Solo59]

Explain "muscle maturity", if you please.

Solo

[troy_trinity]

Source:http://www.warriorfx.com/2008/09/wha...scle-maturity/

"Muscle maturity" is often mentioned when comparing bodybuilders competing on stage. Typically, the term is used to explain why a young bodybuilder has a harder time reaching the hard and grainy look of someone older, or otherwise much more experienced. Preaching the possibility of gaining muscle maturity is often an effort to reassure a new bodybuilder of future potential. However, actually defining muscle maturity is quite debatable. exactly what it is depends on whom you ask.

Many fitness publications, even accredited medical journals outlining the principles of animal growth and development, construe muscle maturity as a maximization of muscle fiber size. Strength athletes frequently, often erroneously, interpret a stubbornness to build muscle and strength as reaching peak genetic potential. Everyone begins weight training at various degrees of genetic endowment, but truly maximizing one's potential for muscle growth is at least as hard to define as muscle maturity itself. Muscle gains usually stop due to insufficient nutritional habits or poorly designed exercise programs ? both parameters must evolve with the athlete. Furthermore, failing to train the body?s muscular systems symmetrically can stall results; such as favoring upper-body training while ignoring the lower extremities. Symptoms of overtraining syndrome result in chronic fatigue and drops in limit strength. Also, administering anabolic-androgenic steroids increases blood androgen levels to supra physiological values. Exogenous hormone use supports muscle acquisition beyond genetic predispositions. If muscle maturity is synonymous with reaching genetic limits, administering AAS for an ergogenic effect would blur this defining moment.

Some fitness enthusiasts connect muscle maturity to changes in neuromuscular coordination. When beginners first start bodybuilding, muscles quiver under loads due to a lack of properly developed motor control. In time, consistent rehearsal using proper form leads to less involvement from antagonist and supportive muscles. After years of resistance training, muscular bodybuilders develop a capacity to execute movements with maximum intensity; while less conditioned individuals have a harder time focusing efforts. Consistent and progressive training results in more efficient agonist muscle activation, stronger contractions and greater pumps. This adaptation to exercise eventually allows sudden and dramatic increases in muscle strength, size and definition. However, this pivotal change in a bodybuilder?s athletic progression more accurately explains the process of muscle memory ? not maturity.

Muscle hardness seems to vary amongst individuals, based on age and exposure to strain. The basic make up of muscle tissue is consistent amongst all mammals; it?s composed of tiny tube-like fibers with the ability to contract, either voluntarily or involuntarily. Young and generally inactive muscle is soft; as illustrated at the local butcher shop by comparing veal to meats obtained from matured cattle. Veal is known for its tender texture and originates from inactive and young calves. To potentiate this softening affect prior to slaughter, some farms keep calves in small containers to restrict their movements. It seems reasonable to associate muscle maturity with a threshold where muscle loses tenderness.

In April 2007, the Department of Animal and Food Science conducted a study examining the tenderness and oxidative stability of post-mortem muscles from cows of various ages. The researchers confirmed meat is most tender in young animals and muscle fibers become tough and hard when subject to a lot of muscular action; according to biopsies obtained from necks and leg tissue. Advanced maturation not only intensified cow meat toughness but also lowered its oxidative stability. Collagen, the basic substance of the connective tissue bundling groups of muscle fibers together, is known to breakdown easier in young and tender muscle tissue, when boiled in water. This fibrous protein gets tougher with age due to an increasing number and type of cross-links. In this respect, muscle maturity could refer to a change in the muscle tissue?s architecture; more specifically, a change in collagen solubility.

At low body fat percentages, the thickness of encompassing tissue will have the greatest influence over the outward appearance of underlying muscle. Enlarging muscle fibers with progressive resistance training stretches surrounding fascia and thins out the skin. Stretch marks occur when skin stretches fast enough to rupture elastic fibers. Skin thickness varies greatly between different body sites. The thinnest epidermis lies over the abdominals and thorax. The arms and legs are generally wrapped in the thickest layers of skin ? especially over the palms and the soles of feet. Changes in epidermal thickness by age are difficult to measure but varies greatest in older populations. Through all ages, men have thicker skin than women. In clinical studies, men?s skin has demonstrated a gradual thinning with advancing age, whereas women?s skin thickness remains more constant until the post menopausal years, after which it also declines. Hormonal patterns could play a significant role ? androgens in particular. Interestingly, both sexes exhibit a linear decrease in skin collagen throughout a lifetime. Collagen contributes to skin?s smooth, plump appearance ? beauticians are always on the look for ways to boost collagen levels and repair collagen damage. For bodybuilders trying to obtain a hard and grainy appearance, the natural decrease in skin collagen might not be so bad. Once again, collagen seems to play a role in obtaining a hard and grainy look.

What is muscle maturity? Bodybuilders tend to associate muscle maturity with achieving a tough and serrated appearance at low body fat percentages. This visual effect is likely to occur only after proper motor skills are developed and muscle adapts to intense training demands. Some trainees obtain the look faster than others, but genetic anomalies set aside, the phenomenon is most often realized after many years of conditioning muscles to progressive overloads. Subsequent changes in collagen, within muscle and skin, may play major roles.

taken from http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=111966411

[tiramisu]

I believe that cool grainy look is genetic. You occassionally see it in young bodybuilders as well.

Branch Warren has it in spades.

[Praetorian]

It is a combination of training duration and specific aas/peptide usage. Conditioning is something even those with poor genetics have control over. So genetics play less of a role here than say size or shape. You must be in shape first to even see muscle maturity. Then its a matter of cosmetic enhancement and years of training.
P

[rickyboy36]

GENETICS ALL THE WAY!Muscle maturity is reached when your body does not want to grow any more.Actually not that it doesnt want to,it was programmed to do so.Your bones,tendons and ligaments are part of this as well.You can only put a certain amount on those NATURALLY.They can only hold a certain amount of weight.Its the way god/nature/whatever made you.The same reason why you have blue eyes,a small nose,large feet..whatever.You were "wired" to be a certain weight..where your body is comfortable(called homeostatis).This is how you are when not weightlifting.But the body was ALSO given directions(in your DNA called your genetic makeup) to "adapt" to certain environements in case it is ever needed..but will only go to a CERTAIN LIMIT.Why,cause it is programmed to not cause problems on your bones,heart all the inner parts of your body.To get to that certain limit this is where weight training changes THAT environment.

Now You can achieve muscle maturity 2 ways.First way is natural and this will take years to achieve.Time will also depend on age.The earlier,the better.Your weight training needs to be progressive so that you give it a reason to change,and grow and adapt.Once you reach this programmed limit and happen to keep it for a while so that your body becomes adapted to it..if ever for some reason you stop weight training there are good chances that you remain bigger than when you first started off.The reason being you CHANGED your wiring through adaptation( a new homeostatis).

Another way is through Steroids.This will bring you there faster..and beyond muscle maturity where everything will grow stronger including your bones,ligamaents and tendons.BUT..the day you come off..you will go back down to you ORIGINAL natural muscle maturity.Thats if you still train hard of course and kept this weight long enough on your body to give it reason to keep it

As for the rest like the grainy look,muscle belly shape and what have you..this is purely genetics as well.You cant change a belly shape nor give yourself that grainy look if you dont have the "hardware" to start off with.You can only make YOUR bellys more visible through normal training and and dieting.Leaness is also genetic and one can only go down a certain % to as much as the body lets him.Some cant go low and lose muscle instead of fat.So in a nutshell..you can only go as far as your body will let you.Training with different styles and diffeent reps will only bring out the best of what YOU HAVE available

[Ritch]

I`m gonna go with father time here. Guys who`ve been training for a decade or 2 tend to look the most impressive. Gear will often make them look even better.

[JonnyO]

Muscle maturity isnt something that can really be explained IMHO, is just something you know it when you see it.

For example, I'm not as young as I think I am at times. There are a lot of younger lifters that look at me and guess my weight, and thats usually 20, sometimes 30lbs more than what I actually am. I think this would possibly fit into the muscle maturity category. Also me standing next to another guy the same height/weight we will look totally different, I might look alot heavier that him.

[Solo59]

I have lean but dense & definitely well-aged muscle. Does that count as muscle maturity?:o

Solo

[Praetorian]

I`m gonna go with father time here. Guys who`ve been training for a decade or 2 tend to look the most impressive. Gear will often make them look even better.

Bingo! Gear does not create muscle maturity without spending years in training. Neither does genetics....there are those now and in the past that have had great genetics and have used aas but lacked muscle maturity. In essence muscle maturity is defined as dense lean muscle....some just call it muscle density but without being in shape it isnt visible. You can have muscle maturity with poor genetics as well it really doesnt matter...genetics come into play when you define how one responds to aas or peptides...the better the genetics the better someone responds. Thus the more muscle one can grow in a specified time.
P

[natenator]

GENETICS ALL THE WAY!Muscle maturity is reached when your body does not want to grow any more.Actually not that it doesnt want to,it was programmed to do so.Your bones,tendons and ligaments are part of this as well.You can only put a certain amount on those NATURALLY.They can only hold a certain amount of weight.Its the way god/nature/whatever made you.The same reason why you have blue eyes,a small nose,large feet..whatever.You were "wired" to be a certain weight..where your body is comfortable(called homeostatis).This is how you are when not weightlifting.But the body was ALSO given directions(in your DNA called your genetic makeup) to "adapt" to certain environements in case it is ever needed..but will only go to a CERTAIN LIMIT.Why,cause it is programmed to not cause problems on your bones,heart all the inner parts of your body.To get to that certain limit this is where weight training changes THAT environment.

Now You can achieve muscle maturity 2 ways.First way is natural and this will take years to achieve.Time will also depend on age.The earlier,the better.Your weight training needs to be progressive so that you give it a reason to change,and grow and adapt.Once you reach this programmed limit and happen to keep it for a while so that your body becomes adapted to it..if ever for some reason you stop weight training there are good chances that you remain bigger than when you first started off.The reason being you CHANGED your wiring through adaptation( a new homeostatis).

Another way is through Steroids.This will bring you there faster..and beyond muscle maturity where everything will grow stronger including your bones,ligamaents and tendons.BUT..the day you come off..you will go back down to you ORIGINAL natural muscle maturity.Thats if you still train hard of course and kept this weight long enough on your body to give it reason to keep it

As for the rest like the grainy look,muscle belly shape and what have you..this is purely genetics as well.You cant change a belly shape nor give yourself that grainy look if you dont have the "hardware" to start off with.You can only make YOUR bellys more visible through normal training and and dieting.Leaness is also genetic and one can only go down a certain % to as much as the body lets him.Some cant go low and lose muscle instead of fat.So in a nutshell..you can only go as far as your body will let you.Training with different styles and diffeent reps will only bring out the best of what YOU HAVE available
wow lol

[rickyboy36]

Bingo! Gear does not create muscle maturity without spending years in training. Neither does genetics....there are those now and in the past that have had great genetics and have used aas but lacked muscle maturity. In essence muscle maturity is defined as dense lean muscle....some just call it muscle density but without being in shape it isnt visible. You can have muscle maturity with poor genetics as well it really doesnt matter...genetics come into play when you define how one responds to aas or peptides...the better the genetics the better someone responds. Thus the more muscle one can grow in a specified time.
P

Yes!Everyone can have muscle maturity.But "MY" muscle maturity may look a lot shittyer than yours.You can only "GET" what you "Have".A good analogy of this are abs.Some dont have any at all.No matter how hard you train and for how long with anymount of steroids..ITS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.Why..cause you dont any have to begin with.Its the same for the bellys and what have you.

But like you said anyone can acheive muscle maturity..and..there are 3 things responsible for this which go hand in hand:GENETICS+WEIGHTRAINING+TIME.With this everyone has the possibility of maturing but the "look" of that muscle is an individual thing.AAS will only speed things up..

Im editing this cause im really not a good writer(seeing I was brought up in two different languages) and my point is probably coming out bad here.This is how i see it:

The "look",the upper limit of "denisty" of those muscle you are training is from genetics.The "time" it takes..again some of it is genetics.Why?You may respond super well to food and drugs.You may pack on muscle quicker than the average jo as well.These are genetics.

The rest is TIME+WEIGHTRAINING and all 3 go hand in hand!!