Potential Factors Hindering Muscle Growth during Off-Season Workouts

By Jim Carpentier, CSCS
Unless controlled, this invisible yet powerful opponent is like a blitzing unblocked linebacker tackling a running back for no gain or quarterback without protection for a loss.
What is it? The stress hormone cortisol that potentially suppresses muscle-building progress both inside and outside the weight room – frustrating athletes and non-athletes – if preventive steps are not taken.
And now with summer off-season workouts underway or beginning soon, athletes seeking to maximize size and strength need a defensive strategy to avoid cortisol’s catabolic (muscle tissue breakdown) results.
Cortisol Linked With Other Factors
Cortisol is naturally released by the body’s adrenal gland in response to physical and/or mental stress (e.g. high intensity exercise, sports, preparing for a final exam or job interview, anger, anxiety). Cortisol alone can limit muscle development, and it is also linked with other catabolic factors such as sleep deprivation, dehydration, overtraining, and skipping meals – especially breakfast.
So, to effectively manage cortisol levels and optimally create an anabolic (muscle-repairing and building) environment with the body’s natural release of the muscle-building/fat-burning hormones testosterone and growth hormone, follow the guidelines in this article so the time and efforts in the weight room effectively yield size and strength gains before your sports season starts. References are cited from authors and scientific studies describing how a combination of the various catabolic factors or just one or two factors can inhibit growth and thereby negate the anabolic effects from weight training. Suggestions to avoid and/or minimize cortisol-promoting elements are also addressed.
Catabolic Factors Inside/Outside the Gym
• Lowering Stress While Simultaneously Building Muscle with Exercise. Heed the words of Dave Tuttle, author of 50 Ways to Build Muscle Fast: “Too much worrying can literally make you sick. Muscle growth, of course, requires a healthy immune system. When anabolic forces predominate in the body, growth is maximized. When stress rears its ugly head, however, the body responds by releasing the catabolic hormone cortisol…Stress can reduce your muscle growth or even stop it altogether…To keep your growth on track, you need to find ways to control your stress level…Exercise is one of many ways to decrease stress and anger.”1
• Balancing High-Intensity Anaerobic Exercise and Preventing Overtraining. High intensity weight training is like the proverbial two-edged sword. When performed in moderation with sufficient recovery, it indeed decreases mental stress – releasing those mood-boosting endorphins – while also building muscle. Excessive weight training, especially when combined with aerobic exercise, sports practices and games, however, is counter-productive causing fatigue, muscle and joint inflammation, and continuous muscle breakdown with zero muscle building. The remedy: “Perform short and infrequent workouts,” according to Ellington Darden, Ph.D., author of The New High Intensity Training. “Exercise should improve your strength and increase your overall ability in other physical activities. But too often, it does the opposite: It leaves you feeling constantly tired. A persistent tired feeling should be a warning that something is wrong. Unfortunately, most lifters ignore this feeling.” He adds, “It takes very little high- intensity training to stimulate growth. Never do more exercise when you can get better results from less.”2 Other suggestions to prevent overtraining and excessive muscle breakdown: Keep workouts under an hour; do high-intensity full-body workouts just two or three times a week on non-consecutive days; and do low-intensity active recovery activities on the non-lifting days such as taking a Yoga class, or doing brisk walking or low-impact/low intensity swimming or bicycling. In other words, keep these two words in mind: Moderation and balance. Or as Darden also mentions: “Training, rest and nutrients – in that order – are the key requirements for muscular growth. The difficult part is getting just the right balance, without having too little or too much of any factor.”3
• Sleep Deprivation and Muscle Loss. Athletes and non-athletes commonly emphasize fitting in their workouts above getting enough sleep – falsely believing that muscles grow in the weight room when actually the real growth occurs in the bedroom during periods of deep sleep – at least 8 to 9 hours for complete recovery from a high-intensity workout for muscle repair and growth to occur. Sleep deprivation raises your cortisol levels. “One night of poor sleep and you already disrupt your cortisol production. Miss as little as two hours of sleep for three nights and you increase your cortisol levels by 50 per cent, according to Shawn Talbott, Ph.D., author of The Cortisol Connection.4 The reason: The body reads sleep deprivation as stress and elevates cortisol to deal with it.5 And what else happens during sleep deprivation? Listen again to Ellington Darden cited earlier: “With less sleep, the body seeks to meet the increased metabolic needs of longer waking hours by shifting into a lower gear that burns more muscle and less fat…In the final analysis, if you want to preserve muscle, burn fat, and wake up less hungry when you are dieting, sleep at least 81/2 hours a night.”6 Need more proof of the power of sleep and adequate rest for building or maintaining muscle? Darden adds: “Muscular growth, once it is stimulated, requires inactivity. To make sure you get stronger, firmer muscles from exercise, you must rest more, especially on days in between workouts. More than 90 per cent of muscular growth occurs during sleep and probably during a deep-sleep period of only 5 to10 minutes.”7
• Stay Hydrated for Adding Muscle Mass and Repressing Cortisol Levels. Says Dave Tuttle, “Water is an essential yet frequently overlooked nutrient. Your muscles are up to 70 per cent water, and adequate hydration is essential for muscle function and growth. In fact, protein synthesis is increased when the muscles are fully hydrated.”8 He also advises keeping that water bottle handy throughout the day drinking about 2 liters (6-8 glasses) and additionally consuming foods with a high water content such as fruits and vegetables.9 And during the approaching warmer summer months, the need for water intake increases to help replace lost water from perspiration. So be aware that even slight dehydration causes an increase in cortisol levels which in turn can affect exercise and sports performance. A study at the University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain showed that a state of dehydration leads to the “subsequent production of stress hormones such as cortisol. Rehydration, however, is associated with significant decreases in cortisol levels.”10 And Shawn Talbott mentions that drinking plenty of water for proper hydration is “essential for fat burning, maintenance of muscle mass, and boosting overall metabolism. If you’re dehydrated, even to a slight degree, your cortisol levels will rise and your metabolic rate will drop.”11
• Skipping Meals, Especially Breakfast, Raises Cortisol Levels and Minimizes Growth.