You probably don’t want to hear/read this…
You may have already guessed by seeing how some people develop in the gym, and others don’t, that people all respond differently to muscle growth when exposed to the same input.
Research shows that some individuals respond very well to training, some just about respond, and many don’t respond at all.
A study by Hubal used 585 male and female subjects and this study showed us that during twelve weeks of progressive exercise resulted in a wide range of responses.
The best increased muscle cross-sectional area by 59% (yes that much in 12 weeks!) and increased their 1RM strength by 250%.
REMEMBER these men and women were subjected to the exact same training protocol.
The worst responders lost 2% of their muscle cross-sectional area and didn’t gain any strength whatsoever.
Finally in another study, Petrella showed that 16 weeks of progressive exercise involving a sizeable 66 subjects failed to cause any muscle growth in 26% of subjects.
Wow, sucks to be them!
Hubal MJ, Gordish-Dressman H, Thompson PD, Price TB, Hoffman EP, Angelopoulos TJ, Gordon PM, Moyna NM, Pescatello LS, Visich PS, Zoeller RF, Seip RL, Clarkson PM. Variability in muscle size and strength gain after unilateral resistance training. Med Sci Sports Exerc 37: 964–972, 2005.
Petrella JK, Kim JS, Mayhew DL, Cross JM, Bamman MM. Potent myofiber hypertrophy during resistance training in humans is associated with satellite cell-mediated myonuclear addition: a cluster analysis. J Appl Physiol 104: 1736–1742, 2008.
Excerpts Taken from a T-Nation article.
