Do You Have the Genetic Potential for

Bodybuilding?

Every single time someone post a great physique shot,

naysayers write moronic comments such as “Yeah, roids.”

However you could give those naysayers

as many anabolics as they want, they
would never make it.

The first step in having a great physique is to choose

the right parents. If you want to survey your
bodybuilding potential, you can assess the following
factors.

How good are your muscle length attachment? The

lower a muscle inserts, the better it is. The concept
is not new, just look at the statues built in Ancient
Rome and Ancient Greece. Depictions of the demi-
god Hercules show him with low muscle insertions.
One of the easiest muscles to illustrate this concept
is the biceps, Larry Scott and Arnold
Schwarzenegger are classic examples of people
blessed with long muscle bellies in the elbow flexors.

Notice that people with great lat development have

very low insertions; Franco Columbu, and Ronnie
Coleman come immediately to mind in this example.
There are some rare individuals who have low
muscle insertions in all muscle groups which
prompts to achieve rapid success in bodybuilding.
The most evident example of that is Casey Viator,
who won the Mr. America at the age of 19.
Apparently his arms were over 17 inches, at the age
of 17, that is the first day he started training! Yet,
Arthur Jones and his Nautilus company used him
extensively as a propaganda model to illustrate how
great their machine were.

The lower the insertion, the higher the mechanical

advantage, thus the more force one can produce.
Low insertions is the main biomechanical reason
why the Grizzly bear is such a strong animal.

It was rumoured in the early seventies that the

former East German sports machine establishment
had played with reattaching the muscle insertions of
wrestlers and judokas, in hope of producing
supermen. The problem was that the coordination
mechanism were severely disrupted, thus the
concept was promptly discarded, probably after a
few of them stuck an ice cream cone in their
foreheads, missing the mouth altogether….
Untrained Calf and Forearm Girth. Long term
studies done in the Polish school system in the early
seventies revealed that the best anatomical
predictor for the capacity to gain strength and power
was the girth of the kids calf and then the second
best was the girth of the forearm. In other words, an
untrained kid with 16 inch calves and 14 inch
forearms is usually prime stock for power sports.
Since the study involved over 40,000 pupils, we can
rely on it. I am certain that that data also applies to
bodybuilding.

Many of the most massive bodybuilders such as

Casey Viator and Mike Matarrazo had massive calves
and forearms to start with. Former Mr. Olympia Chris
Dickerson was born with tremendous calves and
barely did a set of them to achieve the highest
I.F.B.B. crown.

Hormonal make-up. The ideal hormonal make-up for

bodybuilding would include a high endogenous
production of androgens and growth hormone, low
levels of cortisol, and sensitivity to insulin Those
blessed with a superior hormonal make up will
hypertrophy often in untrained bodyparts. I
remember in 1982, while I was visiting Dr. Dietmar
Schmidtbleicher at the Sport Science Institute of the
University of Freiburg, he was showing me CAT scans
of subjects who had undergone a triceps training
protocol, the ones with the highest hormonal profiles
had experienced hypertrophy not only in the triceps
brachii but also in the brachialis and biceps muscles,
which are muscles that have antagonistic functions
to the triceps. But because they had better hormonal
profile, there was a non-specific hypertropic
response even in untrained muscles.

Neurological efficiency. In gym jargon, that refers to:

are you a rep type of guy or weight type of guy? A
“rep guy” will do 20 reps at 80% of his max, while the
“weight guy” will only do 3, and the average trainee
will do about 7 reps at that percentage. The better
blessed inviduals will in fact have poor relative
endurance, in other words they are the weight type
of guy, the ones who can achieve high loads for
maximum singles. These individuals can tap into
higher threshold fibers, and thus can excite a greater
proportion of their muscle fibers. I would add that
this factor is the least important of them all, as I
have encountered many professionnal bodybuilders
with extreme levels of hypertrophy who were either
rep or weight types. For example, Serge Nubret was a
“rep” guy, while Franco Columbu was a “weight” guy.

Serge Nubret, the typical “rep” guy

How good is your black box? More often than
enough, trainees count out intelligence as a
predictor for bodybuilding improvement, especially
when genetics on the physical side are not optimal.
Intelligent people will search out solutions to their
problems. Just look at Mr. Olympia winners Larry
Scott, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Frank Zane who
overcame many flaws through diligent observation
and through adequate path corrections later on went
to achieve tremendous results.

Many bodybuilding authors who were there at Gold’s

Gym and Vince’s Gym, when Arnold was in his
preparatory years, have related to me that the
Governator’s drive in his workouts was so high that
he used to burn out training partners routinely.
Fortunately, the Austrian Oak was never short of
partners as everyone wanted to share his glory.
Twelve years ago, over lunch with Dan Duchaine, he
observed once that one of the reasons he taught
Dorian Yates was so successful was the fact that his
cognitive process were far superior to the average
professional bodybuilders, and therefore approached
contest preparation in a more rational and
methodological manner. On the other hand, I have
also seen some very successful and yet very dumb
ones succeed because they were fortunately
coached by someone who knew what they were
doing. A former Ms Olympia comes to mind, she
would be the type that would walk in a shopping
center, see a sign indicating ” Wet Floor”, and do it!
I would not get too hooked up on the genetic
component, as many very good bodybuilders started
out with less than optimal genetics. Larry Scott may
have been born with great potential in upper arm
hypertrophy, yet his bi-acromial width (bone shoulder
width) was lets say, not the best available. Yet with
constant effort put into his deltoid training, he
overcame his genetic set-back, and was later famous
not only for his arm development, by also for his
massive delts.

Furthermore, you may not have the ideal genetics for

bodybuilding, but if you enjoy your weight training
hobby, that is what is most important. Don’t forget
that regular weight training has many health benefits
which you may not appreciate yet at your age such
as lowering of blood fats, prevention of osteoporosis,
etc… There is plenty of baby boomers out there who
just started training five years ago who have much
better physiques than 20 year old genetically gifted
individuals who have sedentary lifestyles.

Regardless of your genetics, strength

training/bodybuilding are both highly enjoyable.

Enjoy,

Coach Charles R. Poliquin