Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, August 17, 1993 TAG: 9308170100
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Dolores Kong Boston Globe
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Leonard, who works for the State of Massachusetts and teaches bodybuilding part-time, says his physique comes naturally - no steroids - from sweat and regular workouts, a proper diet, the correct exercises and what appears to be the right inherited potential for body composition and muscle mass.
"I think I've got pretty good genetics," he says.
These hot summer days, they seem to be everywhere, walking the beach, posing and strutting their stuff: muscular men and women, many of them with bulging biceps and stomachs like washboards. And every so often the thought occurs to many of the rest of us: If we really tried, could we shape our bodies and sculpt our muscles to look like that? Or, ultimately, are we stuck with what we are, prisoners of our genetic inheritance?
Exercise scientists and medical researchers are starting to understand the extent to which genetics plays a role in everything from the number and type of muscle cells we have to whether we tend to deposit fat around the abdomen or the hips and thighs. Hoping to understand what is inherited and what is not, they're searching for genes for obesity and studying how muscle fibers differ in marathoners and sprinters, who tend to have different proportions of certain kinds of muscle fibers.
At the same time, they're trying to figure out just how much we can push our genetic limit through exercise and diet.
Among the questions are whether weight-lifting can increase the number of muscle cells we're born with; whether dieting and exercise can revamp the metabolism of someone genetically prone to obesity; and whether intensive training can change fast-twitch muscle fibers - which are better for quick bursts of power and increase in size in response to weight lifting - into slow-twitch fibers - which are good for running a marathon - or vice versa.
The quest by scientists as well as exercisers, then, is not only to understand the limits but to learn whether we can overcome some of them through exercise and diet. We're prisoners of our bodies to a certain extent, but we can also mold the blob of clay and chisel the block of marble.
"It goes back to body types. Not everyone, even with all the training in the world, can be a world-class sprinter or look like Arnold Schwarzenegger," says Robert S. Staron, an associate professor of anatomy at Ohio University in Athens who has studied muscle in marathoners, nationally ranked judo athletes, weight lifters and Olympic oarsmen.
But with proper training, discipline and diet, everyone can realize his or her potential, says Leonard, a bodybuilding instructor at the YMCA Central Branch in Boston.
Building muscle mass, he says, means lifting free weights whose size allows you to do only about eight to 10 lifts at a time; progressively increasing the weight; alternating workouts to give various muscles a chance to rest, rebuild and increase in size; and a diet high in protein and carbohydrate and low in fat.
Leonard spends 2 1/2 hours a day, four times a week at the Y, bench-pressing up to 265 pounds and lifting up to 315 pounds across his back from a squatting position, among other exercises. Leonard, who oversees accounting for the state vital statistics registry, says he began lifting weights when he was 35, after being impressed by the appearance of a 75-year-old bodybuilder.
Incorrect technique is usually to blame for many people who don't succeed in increasing muscle size. "Nine times out of 10," Leonard says, "they're doing it wrong."
One of Leonard's students, Ed LeMay, 50, a Massasoit Community College instructor, had been using Nautilus and other weight machines for more than 10 years but had been unable to add much mass. Since he began using free weights under Leonard's tutelage about a month ago, LeMay, who considered himself a 95-pound weakling in high school, says he has seen his biceps grow. "I guess it's never too late," he says.
Leonard sees a lot of possibilities in LeMay, based on the small amount of upper body fat and the way his muscles move while he's lifting weights. "In probably six or eight months to a year, you're going to see a different person."
If what you want is strength and muscle definition, rather than mass, the key is to do more repetitions with lighter weights, as Coni Martucci, 52, a weight-training instructor at the YWCA, and Nancy Clark, 30, a "Y" member, have done. Women tend not to add bulk as much as men because they have more fat and less testosterone, although some women can become quite muscular.
In many ways, Leonard says, people can't know their full potential until they test it. "It's an experiment," he says.
When it comes to potential for developing monstrous muscles, people with a mesomorphic body type - a high proportion of muscle and little fat, someone like Harrison Ford - appear to have the advantage. A slight and lean ectomorph, someone who looks like Mia Farrow, doesn't have much muscle mass to build up, and a heavyset endomorph, such as Orson Welles, tends to have a thicker layer of body fat that hides muscle definition.
Research also suggests that people with more fast-twitch muscles may be better able to increase, or hypertrophy, their muscle size, according to Priscilla Clarkson, professor of exercise science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Other research suggests that lifting weights will not overcome the genetic limitation on the number of muscle cells an individual is born with, contradicting earlier animal studies that suggested that such training could indeed add cells, says Jean Aime Simoneau, an associate professor at the physical activity sciences laboratory at Laval University in Quebec, which is known for its work in muscle and fat.
On the other hand, specific training does appear able to turn fast-twitch into slow-twitch fibers, although not vice versa, according to studies from Simoneau's lab and elsewhere. If further research supports the finding, it could mean good news for endurance athletes, such as marathoners, because they could conceivably get an edge by training to boost the number of slow-twitch fibers they were born with. But it would not be of much help to body-builders, who could use more fast-twitch fibers for muscle size.
While researchers study what training can do to overcome genetic limits, some musclemen and musclewomen end up experimenting with drugs to push beyond their inherited potential, using dangerous steroids to build mass and diuretics to strip away water before a competition, to reveal every muscle striation.
"You can't get a lot of those effects in the human body naturally," says Ted Karnezis, national chairman of physique for the Amateur Athletic Union. But the risk they take is considerable. Anabolic steroids have been linked to cancer, atrophy of the male genitals and aggressive behavior.
The athletic union sponsors what are supposed to be drug-free bodybuilding contests, but Karnezis estimates that as many as 20 percent of the entrants in regional competitions use steroids, many more at the national level.
That means that if you can't look like Arnold Schwarzenegger, don't despair about your genetic limitations. Just know that in published accounts and interviews a few years ago, Schwarzenegger - the former Mr. Europe, five-time Mr. Universe and seven-time Mr. Olympia - admitted that he used to use steroids, but he cautioned others against using them because of the potentially serious health effects.
by CNB