3 Most Important Muscle Building Hormones

Published: Wed, 02/11/15

Anabolic Hormones like Testosterone, Growth Hormone
& IGF-1 are the keys to unlocking your body's muscle
growth.

All of these have crucial roles on how your muscles
respond to your training. Without these key ingredients,
your time in the gym would be 100% worthless!

You're probably wondering what the heck they do...
keep reading.

Anabolic (or Anabolism) simply means GROWTH.
Making a bunch of smaller things into bigger things
while using up a ton of energy in the process.

For some, it has a negative connotation only because
it's often found in the same sentence as steroids.

But the fact is, your body naturally releases all kinds
of goodies that help you grow and develop from a
young boy into a full grown man-BEAST.

You don't need outside help...the answer is already
in you. You just need to UNLOCK the right doors
inside your body to release these muscle building
monsters.

Let me breakdown all of these extraordinary
hormones.

TESTOSTERONE:

No hormone gets as much press in strength training
as the capital T and for good reason. Testosterone is
what makes men, men.

Without testosterone coursing through our veins,
we would never grow facial hair, have energy or
be TEN TIMES stronger than women. It is the
KING of all male hormones and it is the bus
driving all of the other muscle building hormones.

HOW TO STIMULATE IT:

Although there are several factors that stimulate
elevations in Testosterone, it appears that exercise
selection may be the key variable. Large, compound
exercises such as the squat, bench press and deadlift
have been shown to produce large elevations in
Testosterone as compared to exercises that stimulate
smaller muscle groups.

Note: You need to structure your exercises in the
right order to get the most benefit. Make sure you
put your multi-joint mass building exercises first
in your routine!

Research proves this is critical and elevates the
release of testosterone throughout your workout.

You'll want to lift heavy with 85-95% of your
one rep max. Take 1-3 minute rests between sets
for optimal results.

GROWTH HORMONE & INSULIN-LIKE

GROWTH FACTOR-1 (IGF-1):

The primary role of growth hormone is in promoting
tissue anabolism or growth. So if you want muscle
cells to increase in size, GH is extremely important.

Probably the coolest thing GH does is to stimulate
the production of insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1)
which ultimately make your muscles grow.