At first glance, this statement seems very logical. Bodybuilders also try to avoid cortisol, don't they? This seems simple, but the fact is far from so simple.
Cortisol is a catabolic hormone. When the body is under stress, cortisol will help your body resist stress, and transport energy by catabolizing protein and reducing the synthetic process of protein. For a long time, most people, including bodybuilders and experts, hold the view that the training duration should not exceed 1 hour.
However, there are also views that this statement is somewhat exaggerated. The reasons are as follows.
1. If the intensity is high enough, the cortisol level will rise in less than an hour.
2. The increase of cortisol hormone level is the result of high-intensity training, which is not different from other synthetic hormones such as testosterone, IGF- 1 and growth hormone.
3. A considerable number of trainers have been following the principle of "the training duration should not exceed 1 hour", but the progress is limited. After switching to a larger training capacity, a better training effect was observed.
No one has proved the scientific nature of this statement. The secretion of cortisol is considered to be more likely related to the fact that the body comes from high-intensity training. Stress is related to the length of training. In other words, we can confidently say that the cortisol hormone release level of a group of squats will be much higher than that of a 5-pound dumbbell 6 1 min.
5. The action time of cortisol is much longer than that of other hormones, unlike insulin, because it is connected with the receptor on the cell surface, so it can immediately cause signal changes and produce rapid reactions. Instead, cortisol works at the DNA level.
This may be too abstruse and boring for everyone, but the key point is that the increase of cortisol level in a short period of time caused by training will not lead those people to enter a state dominated by decomposition trend in most cases. On the contrary, in the long run, the continuous increase of cortisol levels caused by stress and disease is likely to make people enter a state of decomposition.
The new science of cortisol:
Next, we need to dig deeper into the knowledge about cortisol. The first thing to tell you is that the so-called training that can make muscles grow best is also the highest cortisol level.
Dr Stuart of McMaster University in Canada has just done a study on this issue. He studied a large group of subjects who received resistance training, recorded their lean body weight, muscle growth effect (measured by the change of muscle fiber representative area) and strength (measured by leg lifting), and measured their hormone levels, including testosterone, IGF- 1, growth hormone and cortisol hormone levels. His experimental results will surprise you.
They found that among the hormones they tested, the increase of lean body mass and type II muscle fiber was most closely related to cortisol. Muscle growth is closely related to cortisol. Whether it is testosterone, growth hormone or IGF- 1, these are not as good as the so-called king of catabolic hormones.
Of course, we are not saying that cortisol is a synthetic hormone. These data show that the best resistance training method to produce muscle hypertrophy will also bring the highest cortisol release level, which is probably the result of increased stress. Yes, you need pressure to grow.
Having said that, I believe everyone should understand very well. Don't be afraid of losing meat in the next training for more than 60 minutes!