Miss Part I? You can find it HERE.

Shugart: What causes the phenomenon of muscle memory?

Thibaudeau: Hard to pinpoint one cause. Fascia stretching is one thing. When a muscle is hypertrophied and stays large for a while, it does stretch its envelope (the fascia). When you stop training, muscle will atrophy (lose size) but fascia will take a much longer time to get back to its original tightness. As long as it's still slightly stretched, muscle growth is facilitated.

This is why if you've been muscular for a long time you'll regain the muscle faster (because the stretch is more significant). It also means that the longer you wait before re-training, the more of the "plasticity facilitation" you'll lose.

For example, if you stop training for 10 years, chances are that you'll regain the muscle at a much slower pace than if you stopped training for only 2 years: the fascia doesn't have time to tighten up completely with the shorter time period.

Some also believe that carrying extra muscle size for a while gets the body "used to" that state. The body comes to accept it as normal. It's much easier for the body to get back to a normal state than it is to go beyond it. So regaining muscle (going back to a once-normal state) is more "comfortable" than going to brand new levels of muscularity (exceeding what your body perceives as normal).

Shugart: What about the myostatin aspect? What's the theory behind that?

Thibaudeau: Myostatin is the gene that limits muscle growth. The more of it you have, the harder it is to grow muscle. It's been suggested that spending a lot of time in a muscular state lowers myostatin levels. When you stop training you lose some muscle, but myostatin levels stay low, which makes it easier to pile on muscle once you get back into it.


Whatever the cause of muscle memory might be, we can say for sure that:

1. The more muscle you had, the easier it'll be to become big again upon retraining.

2. The longer you've been carrying extra muscle, the more pronounced and the longer lasting the "muscle memory" will be.

3. The longer you wait before training again, the less of an effect on re-growth you'll have.

Shugart: Okay, how should a person measure and evaluate his progress? After all, scale weight doesn't matter all that much. If someone loses 10 pounds of fat and gains 10 pounds of muscle, the scale will show no change. Visually though, that's a dramatic improvement! So how should we measure progress?

Thibaudeau: Ideally we'd measure both fat tissue gain/loss and lean mass gain/loss. That's called body composition testing, and it consists of measuring your body fat percentage and your body weight. You then subtract your fat weight from your total weight and that allows you to establish how much of your "weight" is muscle and how much of it is fat.

Let's say that at your first evaluation you're 195 pounds with a body fat percentage of 18%. It means that your fat mass is 35 pounds, so your lean body mass is 160. Careful, it doesn't mean that your muscle mass is 160. Lean body mass includes muscle, fluids, bones, internal organs, and anything that isn't fat.

A few months later you get tested again and now you're 192 pounds at 10% body fat. You now have 19 pounds of fat and 173 pounds of lean body mass. It's likely that your bone and internal organs didn't change much so you basically gained 13 pounds of either muscle or water. (Normally we're talking about a 2:1 ratio between muscle and water.)

But one thing is for sure: You lost 16 pounds of fat and gained between 8 and 13 pounds of muscle. So although you weigh less, you should look much bigger!


Shugart: So how do we get our body composition tested accurately?

Thibaudeau: You need to have your body fat measured. In an ideal world we'd use underwater weighing or DEXA evaluation, which are very accurate. But most people will have to settle for caliper measurements. If these are done properly, they're pretty accurate.

Understand that the more measuring sites the tester uses, the more reliable his calculations will be. So if someone says that he can evaluate your body fat percentage from three sites, understand that it might not be super accurate because we all store and lose fat differently. Much like Charles Poliquin, I recommend a formula based on 12 measurement sites.

Now, in an ideal world we'd judge our results from the mirror. But our own self-evaluation is seldom objective. And since we see ourselves everyday, it becomes very hard to see the small changes taking place on a regular basis.

Shugart: I find that taking photos is invaluable as well. The mirror lies, but pictures (one from the front, one from the side, and one from the back) can be brutally honest.

Now, let's talk more about diet. We run tons of training articles here at Testosterone, and quite a few diet/nutrition articles. But honestly, the diet articles seldom get the attention that the "Build Bigger Gunz!" articles get. How important is nutrition really?

Thibaudeau: If your nutrition sucks, it's the most important thing to you! Nutrition, training, recovery, supplementation... everything is important. The thing you're lacking is the thing that'll hold you back.

Since nutrition is a 24/7 thing and because it requires so much sacrifice and discipline, it is, for most, our Waterloo. I mean, training is fun, and even if we're stressed out and tired it's still fairly easy to get psyched for four weekly workouts.

However, nutrition is something that you have to be serious about all the time, and that is hard! Don't let anybody tell you otherwise. Following an optimal nutrition program is a pain the arse.

Now, some people are blessed in that they can eat like crap and still get results. Face it though, most of you don't belong in that category. Others take "products" that aren't necessarily legal that also allow them to iron-out a few imperfections in their diet. Again, this is not you. The average Joe who wants to truly transform his physique will need to follow a strict and optimal diet, and that requires careful planning, sacrifice, and a lot of balls.

Shugart: Most people are animals in the gym and wusses in the kitchen. I see it all the time. Now, what supplements do you consider to be essential for anyone looking to make a huge body transformation?

Thibaudeau: A high quality fish oil like Flameout would be first on my list. Sadly, most people disregard fish oil because it isn't sexy; it doesn't claim to "burn" or "melt away" fat. But the fact is that fish oil will have a profound impact on how your body handles food and utilizes fat.

I wouldn't recommend dieting without using a good fish oil. For maximal results I recommend at least 12 grams per day, and I've dosed it as high as 40 grams per day in fatter individuals or those with poor insulin sensitivity.

A quality whey and casein protein blend is also very useful, albeit not as essential as a good fish oil. It's mostly for convenience purposes. When you slash calories you need to increase your protein intake to prevent muscle loss. In fact, the lower your calories are, the higher your proteins need to be. It can be impractical to cook six to eight protein meals per day, so a good protein blend becomes a lifevest.

People will ask me if any whey protein will do. No, it won't! Pure whey protein, isolate or concentrate, is absorbed too fast. Speed of absorption is a plus after a workout, but during the day we want a slower absorption rate. This has been shown to be much more effective at preventing muscle catabolism (muscle loss). So for maximum results you need something like Metabolic Drive.

Energy supplements can also be useful when dieting because eventually, regardless of the quality of your diet, your energy levels will dip down. A stimulant can be used from time to time as a pick-me-up, but you shouldn't become dependant on it as it puts a large burden on your adrenal glands which can lead to adrenal burnout/chronic fatigue. A nootropic supplement like Power Drive or another one high in tyrosine is a better day-to-day choice as it'll give you a mental boost without overexerting the adrenals.

Creatine and beta-alanine can also be of some use by increasing work capacity. They won't reduce fatigue, but they will allow you to be able to perform more physical work without bonking.

Shugart: Okay, what role does age play in making major physical changes? Teens and those in their early 20's seem to have it easy. Is there hope for the 40-plus guys?

Thibaudeau: Nope, no hope!

I'm kidding of course. Everyone can make positive changes to their appearance, but it's true that older folks will have a harder time. For one thing, they've been in "bad shape" for longer. They might have been carrying that extra 30 or 40 pounds of fat for 10 years or more. The body eventually accepts that little extra package as part of you.

Losing fat will be harder because of that fact. If a guy in his 20's suddenly gains 30 or 40 pounds of fat over a short period of time and decides to lose it, he'll have an easier time because the body hasn't yet had time to accept it as part of its normal physiology.

Understand that what holds true for muscle memory holds true for "fat memory" as well. The longer you have "something" the less likely you'll be to lose it fast and the more likely you'll be to regain it easily.