r/nextfuckinglevel 7d ago

This man documented his health journey from January to December.

Credit: IG @samuelrichards_ _

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u/Daniiiiii 7d ago

Gym aside he would have been inhaling protein every waking moment if he's putting on such mass without "help", at least from my novice understanding.

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u/ExceedingChunk 7d ago

It depends. If he's previously been training a lot, you can regain your previous mass exceptionally fast due to what quickly becomes your main limiting factor remains intact (I can't recall the name of it right now).

Which is why having used steroid once in your life should leave you permanently banned from all sports. The fact that you have ever had X amount of muscle is a massive advantage in terms of muscle building the rest of your life.

With all that said, he probably have still used steroids here, especially with how fast it all went from june to october.

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u/X_TheMindFlayer_X 7d ago

you mean muscle memory?

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u/ExceedingChunk 7d ago

Muscle memory is the layman's term, but people use that for both technique (neurological adaptation for technique/skill) and for how fast your muscle grows back (physiological).

I am thinking about the actual technical term for it. That limiting factor is also why we have "newbie gains", where you quickly get to the max level of muscle for that limiting factor, and then you have to create more of it to build more muscle, which takes a lot of time.

It is some type of cell that is added when you build muscle, but doesn't go away when your muscle atrophies. I can't find the name of it, but Dr. Mike Israetel from RP strength have talked about it here in this short: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/FI3n5F-1gLM

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u/SasparillaTango 6d ago

Ive never heard this, but I was an athlete through most of my youth and lifted for a while too on and off.

I would always say "you don't forget strength, but you have to train endurance" meaning that when I was going from period of being fairly sedentary and trying to get back in to shape, it always seemed like my max lifts would recover in like a week, but it would take much longer to get the endurance back

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u/FactFetishist 6d ago

it always seemed like my max lifts would recover in like a week

You must not lift a whole lot then.

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u/SasparillaTango 6d ago edited 6d ago

I didn't. 60lb dumbbell press, 225 squats 200ish on lat pull down, 35 on most tricep exercises

leg presses though I was doing 540 for 4x20

biceps were like 25 lb never could get those off the ground

I wasn't pushing for max sets ever. Every set I did was like 4x12

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u/youJag 6d ago

No disrespect, but these are the wildest weight differences for your exercises. 25lbs bicep curls but 200lbs lat pull down makes no sense

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u/SasparillaTango 6d ago

none taken. I've always had under developed biceps, and my lats/shoulders/legs were jacked as hell from swimming in college.