Short Muscle Bellies Part II

Bodybuilding means that you try to develop an symmetrical, aesthetical pleasing physique with all muscle groups in proportion to each other.

In an ideal world you would be blessed with the right basics and genetic predisposition to easy gain muscle in the right proportion.

But as we’ve seen in our previous blogpost, most people have weak points, an uneven or unbalanced body, short muscle bellies and some are unlucky and have hard time to gain muscle.

Some muscles grow better that others, by example that the trapezius is a muscle that grows relatively fast for most people. It’s a tough muscle, full of androgenic receptors and with very favorable insertions for heavy and frequent training. Beside that anabolic steroids will make the traps explode right away.

This guy shows his traps grew and his very short biceps did also grow. This created a very imbalanced physique. He needs to train his lagging bodyparts, like triceps, front delts and forearms to the same level. To develop championship quality arms, the biceps, triceps and forearms. Each musclegroup must be trained into huge, proportional mounds of muscle. The triceps contain two thirds of your upper arm's overall mass while the biceps contain the other one third. It is very important that you hit all three muscle groups with a variety of different exercises

There's no absolute better or worse insertions

It's all relative to your own body and how every body part flows. Although a lot of people will agree that longer insertions are better. Longer insertions means the muscle covers more of the body part.

Comparing Phil Heath and Kai Greene, Phil has much longer insertions. You can see in his arms how there is little dead space that's not covered by muscle. In comparison, Kai has shorter bi, tri, and forearm insertions, leaving a lot of dead space on his arms (between bicep and forearm, wrist area, back of elbow). Even with his palms facing forward, which makes your biceps appear longer, there still is dead space between his bicep and forearm. Kai's lats also insert lower into his torso (mainly due to just having a shorter torso) taking a little bit away from his taper, and giving a more blocky appearance. So you can see that there is no absolute better choice in high vs. low insertions, but rather how everything flows together. Kai has higher bicep insertions, which allows him to have a more impressive 'peak' than Phil, but in my opinion Phil’s biceps look better.

On the right a young Dennis Wolf who has really high lat insertions which create the appearance of weak and naked lower back. On the other hand guys like Joel Stubbs, Larry Scott, Dorian Yates have really low lats which make their backs wider and thicker looking. That’s also the reason why Phil Heath looks more “aesthetically pleasing” than almost everybody else. He has full muscle bellies in his entire body and thus no underdeveloped parts. He does not have any major weaknesses.

Later in this blogpost we will show with help of pictures how Dennis Wolf transformed his weak back into some giant muscle mounts.

Low insertions might not be better than high insertions for all body parts, but in terms of biceps and calves, for instance, it's preferable to have a lower insertion because it looks more aesthetically pleasing. Take a look at Johnnie Jackson's calves for example, they're pretty high, which really holds him back at the Olympia level. High calves are often found on many people who have long legs, but it’s not a guarantee by any means. You can be tall and still have long calves. It’s also known that especially black bodybuilders struggled to become big muscular calves. And there's nothing you can do about your insertions, just the hand you're dealt. But you are certainly able to improve the look of it.

On the picture the calf’s of Johnnie Jackson and Dorian Yates.

For decades now bodybuilders discuss how one can improve a genetically lagging calf. On the net you find an enormous amount of articles about calf improvement.

Which Muscle Groups Grow The Fastest

In my experience the muscle groups with long muscle bellies and short tendons grow the fastest when trained frequently and intensely. Those, however, vary for different people. As I wrote in the article about calves some people will never be able to develop that muscle group to something impressive, regardless of training, food intake or drug usage because when the insertions are really high there is not much muscle to grow in the first place. You should probably still train your calves though, at least for strength and ankle health. Ultimately, it’s up to you. Pro-bodybuilders found ways to deal with this.. just keep on reading.

You will notice that the muscle groups that are the fullest to begin with will respond quickly to training because they contain more muscle fibers, which gives them higher growth potential. Those muscle groups are also easier to activate during compound exercises.

At the end of the day, it’s all about your personal genetics. For example, my latissimus dorsi muscles have really low insertions which makes training lats a joy. However, my calves, forearms, hamstrings and arms have ridiculously short muscle bellies, and I know very well that those won’t improve much regardless of training routines and experts’ advices.

Since people are different, I can’t tell you exactly which will be the fastest muscle to grow on you. In general, the longer the muscle, the better as far as bodybuilding/recreational muscle building is concerned. If you have nice long biceps, those will grow quite easily compared to other less favorable body parts. When the muscle is lengthy there is just more room for growth and nothing can change that – not even steroids.

On the left I compared Big Ramy with low full quads (left) and Joel Stubbs with high/short quads.

I hate using professional bodybuilders for examples, because people tend to get the wrong idea, but since those guys are famous it’s very easy to illustrate my point.

A few decades ago bodybuilders increased their lagging bodyparts with Esiclene. Esiclene stimulates the muscle tissue located at the point of injection. The tissue defends itself or shall we say, reacts with a local inflammation. This is manifested by an accumulation of tissue fluid from the lymph system which is the cause for the swelling or enlargement of the injected muscle.

From an interview with Nasser el Sonbatty: “The anabolic steroids, the off-the-list diuretics, the GH and the Insulin and the stimulants like ephedrine and caffeine. However I did not – ever – like so many of my female and male peers – take amphetamines, nubaine, ketamine and cocaine for that event. For sure I also used Esiclene but not Synthol because I think that Esiclene is way more effective. By the way, I am not putting people down for using Synthol. I am just stating what I did and did not do. Only idiots, people who do not have bodybuilding aspirations and people who really do not like bodybuilding – because they are envious – try to discredit bodybuilders who use Synthol. If someone needs Ritalin to compete, he should go ahead if he/she thinks that it contributes to his/her placement.”

I made blogpost some time ago about the Synthol – Esiclene – Implants and Silicones. You can find it here:

//juicedmuscle.com/jmblog/content/site-injections-progress-or-madness?page=1

About the silicone implants, whenever you read or hear about it you immediately think about huuuge breasts. Why? because if a girl is “blessed” with small breasts and wants to make them bigger, they can take a proportional aesthetic looking pair of boobbies. But most of the time they want a pair of eye catchers that are way too big. So silicones make you think of Lolo Ferrari.

The same is true for Synthol, thousands of bodybuilders use them wisely and “lift” their muscles with Synthol to make the fuller and bigger and with a nice peak. But speaking of Synthol makes most people think of Gregg Valentino and his crazy followers.

Greg Kovacs on Synthol: “To be completely honest, there are some benefits to using it – albeit few and far between. On stage, having a bicep peak can definitely benefit your score as opposed to not having one. Using it in small quantities with low frequency can work quite well, if done properly. However, the whole practice is a tight rope walk that can wind up with you distorting your natural muscle shape and condition. Again, if done properly, it will not cause irritation and swelling, provided it is done in small quantities with low frequency. if you do choose to use synthol, follow my recommendation to use it sparingly and infrequently. It is definitely better not to use it, but some of you stubborn bastards out there are going to use it no matter what I say. If you do choose to inject it, use it sparingly. Limit your use to contest time to help add fullness to certain areas. Try to limit its use to the biceps (and maybe triceps). And, yes, I did use synthol.”

Is there any scientific evidence that the shape of a muscle can be changed through training?I know guys in the gym who focus solely on barbell curls for training their biceps and they always use a wide grip. It shows in their physique. The short head of their biceps is much larger and out of proportion than their long head. The outer aspect of their upper arm is lagging behind.

If they were to include more Hammer Curls and Incline Dumbbell Biceps Curls, they could “Bring Up” the outer aspect of their upper arm. Hence, they would change the shape of their muscle.

But changing the shape of your muscles goes beyond targeting individual heads of a muscle to create a balanced, symmetrical, and proportionate physique. In an incredibly insightful paper by Jose Antonio, titled Nonuniform Response of Skeletal Muscle to Heavy Resistance Training: Can Bodybuilders Induce Regional Muscle Hypertrophy? he reveals multiple factors that could contribute to nonuniform growth of a muscle, including compartmentalization of skeletal muscle, muscle fiber types, neural adaptations, metabolism, and hormonal responses.

Let’s first take a look at the intramuscular fiber type differences. In the paper Jose states,

“The short head of the biceps brachii contains a greater percentage of fast-twitch fibers vs the long head. Furthermore, there is a greater percentage of fast-twitch fibers at the insertion of the biceps brachii (long and short head) in comparison to the origin”

Note: The insertion point of the biceps is the portion close to your elbow. The origin is close to the shoulder.

“On the basis of the preponderance of evidence that shows that heavy resistance training induces a preferential hypertrophy of type II or fast fibers, it would be plausible that a normal response of skeletal muscle would be to enlarge in a nonuniform manner. That is, those regions of a muscle that are predominantly fast-twitch would enlarge proportionately more than those that are slow-twitch. Thus, is it possible to emphasize particular kinds of exercise or training protocols (e.g., high vs. low volume) that could selectively hypertrophy parts of a muscle and in essence change the shape of that particular muscle?”

This definitely provides us with some food for thought. If your training is designed for hypertrophy of type II muscle fibers by focusing on the lower to moderate rep ranges, will it result in greater growth of the short head of the biceps and even more so in the lower region of the biceps?

The portion of the paper that really intrigued me was about the compartmentalization of skeletal muscle.

“An individual muscle is more than just a collection of muscle fibers spanning the entire muscle belly with a single muscle–nerve interaction. Instead, a muscle can be divided into neuromuscular compartments, which are distinct regions of a muscle, each of which is innervated by an individual nerve branch and therefore contains motor unit territories with a unique set of characteristics. In other words, different portions of a muscle may be called into play depending on the task demands of the situation.” From an article of Scott Tousignant

In the beginning of this blogpost I promised to show how Dennis Wolf has made his weak point, his high inserted latissimus (lat) muscles into an impressing looking back.

On the top left, look at how low the lats of Franco ‘The Bat’ Columbu originate from the back. Dennis Wolf had lats that start halfway up the spine. The Bat’s lats/wings start almost right above his hips, creating a ridiculous V-shape (W-shape really). Than you see how Dennis managed to improve his back from 2007 to 2008.

The last pictures from left to right showed how Dennis improves in 3 weeks right before the Flex Pro 2011. The pictures of an untanned Dennis clearly shows the amount of androgenics needed to realize such a shape. He really deserved to win, but as always in bodybuilding other factors play a role. An excerpt from BB.com:

Fourth place at the inaugural Flex Pro was probably not a fair placement for Dennis Wolf given the improvements in shape and conditioning he appears to have made since 2010. In the minds of many the most impressive competitor onstage, Wolf was, as readily observable, ready to win. At prejudging his stage presence indicated that he would be the victor, and who could blame him?

As the widest, most muscular man onstage and with what appeared to be career-best conditioning few would have complained had he won the show outright. With a structure that seemed less blocky than it had previously been and with his next closest competitor, Fouad Abiad, showing less balance and refinement, Wolf should probably have placed third at worst.