Andy Walsh
| Wed June 23, 2010
Question:
Inside a mucle fibre are myofibril, then inside those are the contractile filaments: actin and myosin.
So where are these ‘nuclei’ located?
And has anyone in this study made reference to somatotypes?
Why Some Grow Muscle Easily While Some Don’t?
May 31 2010
The study shows why some folks grow like a weed while other struggle.
The study recruited 66 subjects.The training included 3 sets of squats, Leg Press and Leg Extensions 3 days/week for 16 weeks.
What were the results?
Based on the muscle fiber size, the participants were divided into three groups independent of age or sex ( using new method called cluster analysis):
Extreme Responders: 58% increase in muscle fiber size
Moderate Responders: 26% increase in muscle fiber size
Non Responders: 0% increase in muscle fiber size.
What are satellite cells and muscle nuclei?
Before you can understand the results of the study, you need to be familiar with some terms. I will keep it simple and short, promise.
Unlike other cells in the body, muscle cells (or muscle fibers) are multinucleated. Considering how a muscle cell is way larger and complex than the rest of the cells in the body, it makes a lot of sense to have more than one nuclei to control the complex tasks in the muscle.
For instance, if your favorite restaurant was a muscle and the cooks the nuclei, it’s pretty safe to say that the number of cooks sets the limit to the size of the restaurant. Similarly (or somewhat), the size of your muscle is ultimately limited by the number of nuclei you have in your muscle.
Simply put, you cannot grow bigger muscles without additional nuclei to take care of the extra muscle.
So where do we get these nuclei from?
Figure: A muscle fiber with nuclei shown in blue and satellite cell shown in red.
These muscle nuclei sprouts from specialized cells around the muscle called satellite cells. So any increase in satellite cells means some of these cells could be “blossoming” into new nuclei.
So how did the extreme responders grow muscle easily?
- The extreme responders had higher satellite cells to begin with. The authors speculate that your muscle growth potential is partly dependent on the availability of satellite cells before training.
- The satellite cell pool increased a remarkable 117% in the extreme responders during training.
- After training, the Extreme responders had significantly more myonuclei per fiber than Non and Moderate groups .
NOTE: It is interesting to note that 1/4(non-responders) of the subjects experienced no growth. The authors speculate that this might be because of a lack of greater recovery period between workouts and/ or additional weeks of training. Studies with 2 days/week has shown better results in older adults.
Practical Recommendations
- The extreme responders in the study are the genetic freaks who can do whatever and still grow like a weed. So don’t think it is their program as most folks do, and copy it blindly.
- As far as I know, the only natural way to increase satellite cells is by creatine. Creatine has shown to increase satellite cells substantially compared to training without creatine.
Related Articles
The nuclei are usually located towards the outline of the cell. Here’s a pic to help you see:
http://www.google.no/imgres?imgurl=http://cal.vet.upenn.edu/projects/histo/Lab9muscle/lab9images/s37_skeletal40x.jpg&imgrefurl=http://cal.vet.upenn.edu/projects/histo/Lab9muscle/Lab9as37musc40x.htm&usg=__EIJmDsW1jpmWGCR75B4hwD7O1DU=&h=294&w=400&sz=37&hl=no&start=1&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=Wr61qezA0DvS7M:&tbnh=91&tbnw=124&prev;=/images?q=skeletal+muscle+nucleus+location&um=1&hl=no&client=opera&sa=N&rls=en-GB&tbs=isch:1
Trying that link again:
http://cal.vet.upenn.edu/projects/histo/Lab9muscle/lab9images/s37_skeletal40x.jpg
the number 3 arrows point towards nuclei. The pic to the left is a cross section, the one to the right is a longditudional section.
Alabama | Wed October 27, 2010
If Marcas Bamman [or any of his colleagues] saw how terribly you butchered his data in hopes of gaining some ‘practical’ knowledge for your own selfish pursuits in muscle gain….
1) This data is in support of aging populations and NOT for speculative comparisons of general populations.
2) Creatine is not a worthy satellite cell stimulant. Google: leucine supplementation, IGF or Glucose Supplimentation on Effects of satellite cell proliferation
3) Leave the interpretation of the data to the true reviewers of these journals
- NOTE: JAP Membership can not be given out to Masters Students
Anoop | Wed October 27, 2010
Hi Alabama,
Thanks for the critique.
1. I have copied the text you missed fromthe study.
Subjects:Sixty-six adults were recruited from the Birmingham, Alabama metropolitan area into two age groups. Inclusion into the study was based on age ranges of 60–75 yr for the older adults and 20–35 yr for the younger group .
Also the conclusion from Bamman: These findings strongly suggest myonuclear addition via SC recruitment may be required to achieve substantial myofiber hypertrophy in humans.
2. Check this article: http://www.exercisebiology.com/index.php/site/articles/how_creatine_works/
3. Reviewers do not interpret data. They check the validity of the study. Data is data. I was only a year away from my Ph.D. So my second Master’s was infact my Ph.D.
