Also, does casting someone’s arm, lets say 5 days, irregularly (for example, casting every second day adding up to 5 days)
create the same shrinking effect as someone casting their arm for 5 days in a row? Which is more effective for muscle loss in your opinion?

So John, if i was doing lots of sprinting, and jogging aswell. Would that mean my legs would be smaller than if i were just sprinting?

I think both methods are essentially the same, decrease the amount the muscles are challenged and they will react by shrinking in size until they are the appropriate size to sufficiently meet the challenge placed upon them.

While that could be the worst sentence I have ever typed, I hope you get the idea.

The less of a strength challenge that is chronically place on the muscle, the less that muscle needs to be ‘big’

B

If I wanted to lose leg muscle in the shortest time possible, what would be fastest?

a) Your way (sit in a wheelchair), or
b) Rusty’s way–
http://fitnessblackbook.com/muscle-building/how-to-lose-muscle-mass-on-purpose/

I really need to lose leg muscle for a variety of reasons but don’t want to go down the wrong path for too long.
Thanks in advance,
–TBG

I actually coached a girl who was a two sport varisty athlete and had the same issue as you so we worked out a simple exercise program for shrinking some big muscles. She wanted to make her thighs arms and back smaller.

As Brad correctly states disuse is a sure fire way to make a muscle get smaller. However long duration low intensity use is another way of forcing a muscle to get smaller.

You’re muscles do have an overiding theme of adaptation for efficiency. In other words, if you take up long duration low intensity activites like jogging you might actually be able to shrink down the big muscles of your legs.

This is an adaptation response your body has to the constant low level intensity use. Your body is trying to feed the muscle with blood, and since it doesn’t need the muscles to be so big and strong any more it learns to bring down the total size of the muscle so it can adequately feed it with oxygen and blood. hence why distance runners have that “skinny fat look”. but in most of their cases they never had the muscle mass you currently have. In your case you’ll just look nice and lean, and toned as you bring down your muscle size.

I basically put this girl on a program of ESE with moderate calories on her eat days, and then she stopped all of her heavy weight training and started running 3-4 times per week and only did 1-2 upper body only weight workouts. We cut all of her sets back by about 40% and dropped the amount of weight she used during each set by about 50%, and upped her reps into the 15-20 rep range.

She took regular mesurements of the muscles she wanted to make smaller and by the end of the summer she had lost a couple inches off her thighs, and an inch off of her arms, and a few inches off her back, everthing! So its definitely possible.

John

From my review of the evidence 72 hour without food will not change BMR. Not in men or women, obese or lean.

Starvation for long periods of time that result in significant loses of body fat, then eventually muscle and organ mass will result in decreases in BMR beyond that which you would expect from a simple mathematical equation relating BMR to muscle.

This is believed to be due to the wasting of actual organ tissue resulting in altered organ performance.

This is why I like to refer to this phenomena as ‘wasting” and not ‘starvation mode’

To get to this level of wasting, we would need to examine concentration camp victims or end-stage periods of prolonged and drastic weight loss from eating disorders.

B

these are all great comments, clearly the subject has interested us all. in many ways this flies in the face of the stuff we read and hear about diet and starvation. Your book makes clear that skipping a meal here and there will not result in loss of muscle or slowed BMR. My experinence doing fasts twice a week proves it to me.

However with this constant reinforcement of the ‘don’t eat too little or your BMR will drop’ i cannot help but ask if there is any scientific proof that consuming a low calorie diet short term or long term will result in a lower BMR.

The example i am using to people it this. i have lived in islamic countries before. during the month of ramahadan they fast during the day and consume large amounts of calories at night and early morning – often in high carb/fat comfort foods. this is exactly what we are told will result in weight gain – however i have never seen anyone gain weight in the holy month (some regain weight in the festivities after but all end the month down).

is this myth completely busted or is there some truth to it. sorry for the long post.