Iron Man USA — August 2017

70 AUGUST 2017 | ironmanmagazine.com

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IM HARDGAINER WORKOUT

Everything you need to know about building your triceps but were afraid to ask.

BUILDING SLOW-GROWING

TRICEPSBy Michael Schletter, CSCSD, NSCA-CPTD

veryone is given a ge-

netic gift when it comes

to growing muscle. Some

guys have ripped abs no

matter what and some

guys have biceps that

grow like weeds. However,

for every gift one is given, there will be

one body part that doesn’t grow like the

rest of them. Usually, this is out of plain

old neglect (yes, I’m looking at you gym

“bros” who don’t do legs), but sometimes

it just seems like the part you want to grow

the most is the one that just never does,

regardless of how hard you work on it. For

many, that’s the triceps.

The Science Behind Your Guns

First, let’s review some basic human biol-

ogy. To build muscle, you need to increase

the rate of muscle protein synthesis (the

creation of muscle proteins and thus big-

ger muscles) above the rate at which your

body is breaking it down. The biological

pathway that signals the body to build

more muscle is called mTOR, and that

pathway is controlled by your blood amino

acid profile – that’s how much of each

amino acid is circulating in your blood at

any given time.

The most important amino acid involved

with this pathway is leucine. Leucine ac-

tivates the mTOR pathway. Unfortunately,

no amount of working out will magically

cause your body to increase blood levels

of leucine. In fact, leucine is one of the

three amino acids your body simply can’t

synthesize, so it’s therefore called an es-

sential amino acid. Sorry vegans, you can’t

get it without a protein supplement. Leu-

cine can be found in most animal-based

protein products (like chicken, eggs, beef,

fish, etc) and is also sold as a branched-

chain amino acid (BCAA) supplement.

It’s usually delivered in combination with