Does this mean, that the use of anabolic steroids to build muscle at one point in time can lead to better performance years after usage? For example, a young athlete uses it in his late teens/early twenties to gain muscle and then lays off the drug for a while. Then he returns to competitive sports, reaping the benefits of the formerly enhanced hypertrophy without any means to test against it?
I have found this with myself - in uni ~7 years ago I was pretty into powerlifting (around 120kg squat, 120kg bench, 170kg deadlift at 184cm/81kg). Now as I go through on and off periods of training due to life etc. I find that it is relatively quick and easy for me to get back into decent shape. Like 2 weeks of training after even months of eating poorly and drinking too much is enough to get good muscle definition back and my strength goes back to probably 80% of my youthful peak. Obviously this is anecdata, YMMV.
I've told several people the same thing, based on my experience and the experience of some friends of mine.<p>I absolutely believe this is true.<p>One thing that influence this is that the second (third, fourth) time that you are doing it, you are better at it and know exactly what to do. So, you get into shape faster.<p>Also this:<p>"Epidemiological studies in human ageing cohorts also suggest that low birth weight and gestational malnutrition are strongly associated with reduced skeletal muscle size, strength and gait speed in older age"<p>More or less known among older folks.
I think general strength-training folk-wisdom is that it's easier to build muscle if at some point in the past you had built muscle, even if it had withered in the meantime.<p>I don't understand the science here, but I think they're saying the initial muscle-building efforts do something to the genome that allow future hypertrophy efforts to be more fruitful.
Proliferation/increasing satellite cells is kind of the holy grail of body building. Creatine helps here a little (at least if you're deficient from a vegetarian/vegan diet): <a href="https://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/10.1139/h2001-045" rel="nofollow">https://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/10.1139/h2001-045</a> (aside from the "tactical" effects of creatine).
Christian Bale dropping weight for a role in Machinist, only to gain the muscle back for the role in Batman [1] seems like a classic example of this effect.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.menshealth.com/uk/fitness/lifestyle/a26004466/christian-bale-batman-vice-american-psycho-transformations/" rel="nofollow">https://www.menshealth.com/uk/fitness/lifestyle/a26004466/ch...</a>
Is there such a thing as inheritance of epigenetics? I have done a lot of weight-lifting off and on and often wondered if I conceived a child while maintaining a perfect diet, tons of exercise and sleep, they would come out much differently than if they were conceived while i was eating garbage and laying around.