Natural Hormone Therapy: Training, Eating, Sleeping
Part I - The Workout

By Elena Voropay

Natural Hormone Therapy: Training, Eating, Sleeping
Part III – The Snooze

In everyday day life, most people associate hormones with teenagers' pimples, girlfriend's PMS, aging hair loss and some reproductive issues. In the bodybuilding world, hormones take on a whole new meaning. These chemical messangers rule the whole purpose of living monopolizing your mind and muscles. What is the first thing that you think about when you hear 'hormones'? If you think about smuggling some stuff from overseas that has helped some legendary name to take his 8 Mr Olimpia titles, then you are missing out a huge chunk of your natural body's potential. You know that hormones control every single action of the body, from sleep to hunger, from desire to train to failure to grow.

It may be your overproduction of Cortisol, underproduction of Testosterone, insufficiency of GH and IGF-1, poor DHEA yield, insensitivity to Insulin or low levels of T3 that turn you into estrogen factory and make your pecs resemble those of grandma. Most probably never bothered to know all these hormonal names, forget about knowing all their functions. And if I wanted to briefly explain all this, this handy mag would turn into a medical library filled with more acronyms than your telephone directory. The reason you would bother to figure out how your hormones work is not to get the best steroid shot, but to bring out the best out of your natural reserves and make your body work for you.

Even though our genetic make-up regulates most of the endocrine action, don't give the involuntary chemical secretions too much power. In fact, you can monitor your hormonal levels with how you train, what you eat, and when you sleep.

In this part you will find out how much weight training alters your natural hormones. Even if you are not a 'natural' hulk, you still gotta figure out how to fine-tune your hormonal potential and get the most out of your training and supplementation. So, what's the first thing on the menu?

The Optimal Growth

The issue with bodybuilding seems obvious – getting big and shredded. Simply put, for growth you need anabolic hormones responsible for muscle growth, for fat loss you need catabolic ones that lead the destruction of lard cells.

The famous anabolic trio consists of Growth Hormone (hGH) and Insulin-Like Growth Factors (IGFs), Testosterone and Insulin. All of these will help expand and strengthen muscles, tendons, ligaments, and everything else you want enlarged. On the other hand, you gotta keep release of catabolic hormones to a minimum, because it is these little villains that can ruin everything that comes their way, including all of your lean tissues . The two most familiar stress-boosters are Cortisol and Progesterone. But catabolic hormones may only seem to be the bad guy. Because they don't promote muscle growth, doesn't mean that they have no good mission to accomplish. If you want to get lean and trim, burn all the muscle-covering blanket and get some razor sharp striations, you need to put your body in the catabolic state. The first way to deal with this complex issue is by manipulating the way you train. And you don't have to turn into a professional gym junkie to notice the results.

Molecular changes in the muscle begin within just two to four weeks after beginning of the weight training. This is much earlier than previously thought. What's more, the muscles appear to respond to even limited weight training. The most pronounced and noteworthy changes in your endocrine system occur in rising levels of Growth Hormone, Testosterone and Cortisol. So, prepare yourself to get the workouts under control immediately.

Simply from its name, you know that Growth Hormone (hGH) promotes growth. That means proliferation of all body cells - muscles, bones, tendons, ligaments, even skin. This is the chemical that helps your system repair and heal itself. You know you need plenty of hGH to magnify your muscles and pack on some serious size. Naturally secreted by the pituitary gland at the base of the brain in bursts every few hours, this anabolic somatropin promotes synthesis and secretion of small protein hormones called Insulin-like Growth Factors (IGFs). It is their job make all tissues multipy, including lean mass. Another great feature of IGFs is to help your body burn the unwanted fat. IGFs increase lypolysis, or the break down of fatty acids for ATP production. And that's what you want – to use your ugly blubber for energy and save the sugars for more important constructive work of building rock-hard mass.

How can you promote the most muscle-friendly anabolic hormone environment? By deep sleep and high stress. Seems like an oxymoron, but so do most functions in the body. Just accept it - your body and whoever created it work in mysterious ways, many of which will remain for generations to discover. Note here that your hGH levels go up and down throughout the day, as do times of stress and relaxation. If it was any other way, we would all turn into robots, function at mid-level and be half-asleep. So far, we know that to get the bodybuilding ball rolling and start putting on the desired type of weight, you gotta train hard, eat well and sleep plenty (more on that in the next issue). All of these stimulate your Growth Hormone.

However, simply training hard is not your best bet for optimal muscle growth. In fact, if you train too much, your hGH levels will take a nosedive by the mechanism of negative feedback. Yes, pushing to the limits brings hGH levels up. But interestingly, so does the low blood sugar level, or hypoglycemia. Studies noted elevated hGH levels in starving or anorexic people.

Here is how the hGH mechanism works in training. When you step into the gym, your glucose energy stores are, say, at moderate level (unless you just finished eating a huge tub of ice-cream hidden at the back of the freezer for special occasions). After beginning your workout, you stimulate Growth Hormone release. You also put all the stored glycogen to work in order to produce energy for all the heavy weight lifting. The heavier you lift, the more hGH you release, the more hungry your working muscle cells become. They demand energy, fast. Now the glucose stored in the liver is broken down faster than you could say 'grow', your blood sugar levels are going through the roof which suppresses your hGH production. Low levels of Growth Hormone slow down the break down of glycogen and glucose enters the blood more slowly. Intense training requires a lot of immediately available sugars, but you can only store and release so much. Once that gets used, the blood glucose depresses and hGH can go up again naturally. That means your muscles will grow during rest provided you've given them all the right tools in the form of nutrients. Unless the nourishment is there, muscles have nothing to grow on. If you want any positive results, you gotta stop training and breaking down your muscle tissue just when your energy reserves are run down.

Last but not least, women produce more growth hormone than men regardless of the training method used. Unfortunately, that doesn't translate into ladies' bigger muscles due to other hormonal responses. A lot of researchers note that women are actually much stronger than men when the measurement is done in proportion to the amount of muscle. So, the delicate gender may not be so easy to break, after all.

Testosterone

You gotta love this one, as it makes you loving. That is the T that rules your sex and training life making you feel like a macho man in both endevours. This hormone is in charge of your sperm production, growth of facial hair, and your deep low-tone manly voice. The famous 'fact' that women can't build big guns because they don't have testosterone is a myth. Testosterone is a steroid hormone produced by the gonad glands. That stands for testes in men, and ovaries in women. Both men and women produce Testosterone, only men can take pride in having 10 times more. Now there is no question which gender is naturally meant to be weaker, fatter, more fragile and sensitive (sorry, ladies). However, that shouldn't mean a thing when it comes to heavy training. Every day your natural sex factory manufactures seven mg of Testosterone. Women make much less of that otherwise they would all start shaving their faces.

What else is awesome about T is that it keeps your muscles firm and sky-rockets your metabolism. And, if you made the connection, it sizzles the fat. You know your Testosterone is dejected if you carry excess fat around, haven't felt like working out much, your confidence has taken a downward spiral and find yourself quite ineffectual to attractive representatives of the opposite gender (or whichever gender you prefer). Straight to the point – you don't feel hot enough. Additionally, poor Testosterone production is linked to increased risk of heart disease. With age, your levels of this steroid hormone decline, leading to all kinds of undesired results in the gym and in your body.

If you noted the above mentioned symptoms of subliminal muscularity in yourself, you gotta get to the gym. Fast. It only seems like you'll be training the muscles, but your it is your gonads that will do all the heavy lifting job by bringing you Testosterone levels up. It's been known for years that weight training initiates favourable responses in the T production for both men and women. But recent investigations noted significant changes in the production of sex-hormone binding globulin (SHBG), a protein that binds with testosterone, helping transport it though the blood to the muscle cell. Surprisingly, Testosterone changes in women are more dramatic when compared to men. The suspicion is that due to naturally low hormone levels in women, their SHBG is more active to protect that little bit of T they procreate during exercise.

But simply stepping into the gym for a few minutes wouldn't do the trick. Blood levels of Testosterone begin to increase about 20 minutes into an exercise session and may remain elevated for one to three hours after exercise. Your body doesn't automatically start doubling your Testosterone after the first set of heavy weights. Do a warm up to get some blood into your system, wake up these stiff and dormant muscles, bring your internal temperature up, psyche up your ego and now go lift heavy. As boring as it sounds, warming up will not only prevent injuries and prepare your neurons for heavy work, it will actually help you produce a better response to your anabolic hormones. As a matter of fact, Growth Hormone elevations during physical activity are directly related to the core temperature rise.

Cortisol

You know stress is bad. But that's exactly what you want to stimulate your muscle growth and development. Just think about how much physical stress, damage and trauma muscle fibres have to tolerate when you force them against stacks of iron plates. And in response to all that pressure, your body produces stress hormones Cortisol and Adrenaline. These firing chemicals are released from the adrenal glands located on the top of your kidneys. Cortisol has multiple functions, such as to increase amino acid supply to the liver, and thus stimulating increased protein catabolism. When you train with weights, just like in any stressful situation, your levels of Cortisol go up. This speeds up your metabolism, so you start burning calories like crazy. The good stuff is that you can melt a lot of body fat that way, but you also are in danger of sizzling some muscle with it as well. Cortisol is often thought of as enemy number one in high intensity training, but if you keep the situation under control you can use the stress to your advantage.

You get the idea that stress is needed for optimal body function. It is your living natural stimulant in life that keeps you going from day to day, from task to task, from gym to bed. This is the way you progress in life, learn and expand. No stress – no life. Same pattern works for the muscles: unless you give them appropriate stimulus, they would deteriorate and eventually cease to exist. This is what you can find in some skinny fasting boneless yogis that can tie their limbs into climbing knots. Their flexibility is superb, and they have mastered the art of fasting and detoxification, but don't even dare to compare yogis power and strength against bodybuilders or other athletes. So, pumping weights in the gym breaks down muscle tissue releasing tonns of Cortisol and stripping off the fat. Just like with your house renovation, if you want to turn your old crappy dungeon (fat laden weak body) into a mansion (strong, healthy and beautiful physique) - you gotta break some stuff (like muscles) and throw away the garbage (like fat). The process continues for a while, but it needs to be stopped at some point. If you spend all your time destroying and dumping away, you'll never find time or energy to rebuild and renew. Eventually, you'll find yourself trapped in empty ruins that you don't even want to see, forget about doing anything about it. When it comes to building health, taking a break for replenishment of energy and complete rest are paramount.

Cortisol can dramatically suppress the immune system and inflammatory response negatively effecting the recovery and remodeling of muscle. The reason is that Cortisol helps convert amino acids to carbohydrates when glycogen levels in the liver and muscle are low. This is the opposite of muscle protein synthesis essential for growth.

Cortisol, like many steroid hormones, is released in a complicated nature throughout the 24-hour daily cycle. How much of the hormone is present in the blood at any one point depends on several factors, such as working out, resting, eating and sleeping. The bulk of Cortisol is released not only under stress, but during the sleeping hours as well. That makes its mechanism even more complex. Ideally, you want your hormonal levels to fluctuate and the foundation of balance lies in the overall daily hormone regulation. Acute responses of Cortisol to exercise differ from these during sleep, and resting promotes the most remarkable impact on the balance between muscle anabolism and catabolism. So, regardless of whether you train with weights or do a marathon run, your Cortisol goes up. And the more intense your workout is, the greater the Cortisol release.

Researchers used to think that aerobic training stimulates a higher Cortisol response than weight training. This, in addition to lower Testosterone release, explained why aerobic training is very limited in making muscles grow in size. However, investigations continue to show that Cortisol response is proportionate to the intensity of exercise. Strength training demands a much higher intensity at near maximal power which your body can handle only in short bouts of time. So, if you are in a mass gaining phase and choose a powerlifting type workout with very heavy weights maxing at 3-6 reps, you literally shoot your stress hormones through the roof. But here we are concentrating on immediate hormonal responses. Endurance type activities are responsible for overall long-term increases of blood Cortisol levels, especially when performed frequently and for longer than one hour. The difference is that aerobic training may involve excessive volume rather than intensity of weights. Both elevate Cortisol, just in a different manner. You know you'll be exhausted if you lifted every day for hours on end. This is when the volume is beyond what you can handle easily leading to overtraining making you weaker and smaller.

With all the credit to their love of pain and mighty persistence, endurance athletes do suffer from constant overtraining. They tend to push themselves to the limit, enduring the pain, and getting 'high' from all the endorphins produced by the brain. This the natural training drug that often gets abused by addictive types. Ok, we know that bodybuilders are no different. Professionals, on the other hand, have learned the hard way how to monitor all three stars of their success – training, nutritional replenishment and rest. Unfortunately, there is no one formula that suits all, and most just have to go through some unpleasant experiences to find what works for them and what doesn't.

Hormonal Training

Here it is extremely important to note that 'more' is not 'better'. The major problem here is that you still want to make as much Growth Hormone and Testosterone as you can, and these are best produced in high-volume high-resistance sessions. But this is the same protocol that lifts up your Cortisol which can end in overtraining. To avoid the complete breakdown and get Cortisol under control, try to watch both intensity and volume of your workouts, or how hard and how often you lift. How much should you train for the best hormonal environment?

Researchers found that weight training for about 45 minutes shoots you hGH and Testosterone levels sky-high and keeps them that way for an hour after you finish. But remember, it is not just any type of weight training that naturally puts additional bulk. You gotta use the most power and force your muscles can handle to produce the most anabolic environment. This is best achieved with training large muscle groups in compound movements. If your training is centered around small muscles to make them stick out better, you are not favoring the body growth. Save your lateral raises and isolation curls for the cutting season when muscle gain is not your primary concern. Go for deadlifts, squats, lat pull-downs and, yeah, the beginner's favourite bench-press. Note that this is a high-intensity workout, so you gotta keep each exercise short. Studies confirm that you can see the best results following this protocol: Choose heavy weights at 50-60 percent of your 1RM Complete 8 reps/ 3 sets of each exercise Resting should be kept at a 1min range, depending on which muscles you train

If you remember, the most paramount thing about Cortisol is its overall blood levels in a 24-hour period. What goes up, must come down. And because anything can be a stressor wrecking havoc on your life, like your job, mother-in-law that lives next door, or the competitive training partner, try to see your training as part of everyday existence. If you haven't slept much lately, everyone is getting on your nerves, your house renovation is not moving anywhere and you are living in ruins, forget your iron-pumping plan. Following the planned intense workout at scheduled days when your Cortisol keeps you up all night is the worst thing for the anabolic environment you need. If you feel like you must get to the gym, just do something, very little, eat as much as you can, call in sick at work and sleep. Well, that may be unscientific extreme, but more specifically on that in the next issue.