These types of threads always reveal the deplorable failing of the American edumacational system...
Facts:
-The best/most favourable genetic predisposition to producing muscle mass would most probably be a Hox gene mutation... either a deficient or inactive myostatin gene (or perhaps another Hox gene mutation as there have been some studies showing that other genes have equally powerful effects on muscle tissue/muscle mass).
However, there is yet to be any long-term study of the effects of myostatin deficiency as no completely myostatin deficient adults have been identified (a seven year old is being studied). Many geneticists believe that extreme myostatin deficiency leads inevitably to early onset ARMA (Age Related Muscle Atrophy) and other muscle wasting disorders via the mechanism of depletion of the finite resource of myocyte satellite cells.
Also, there is good evidence from animal studies that myostatin deficients do not respond to exercise or conditioning... therefore a myostatin mutant may be unable to build any muscle beyond that created by the maturation process.
-Being "more ape-like" does not mean that someone would be better able to build muscle.
Humans are distinctly different from chimps, gorillas and orangutans in the adaptions within their muscle tissue: humans are designed for extended effort, not maximal momentary output.
At some point in human history an evolutionary pressure selectively selected humans for muscular endurance. This may have been a societal pressure (slavery or farming are good contenders) but most likely it was the same evolutionary pressure (climate change) that adapted human locomotor mechanisms for endurance running, as evidenced by the arch in the human foot (which is without precedent in the great apes or the archaic/fossil hominids). As a result, humans have evolved for heavy workloads... not maximum power (ie: maximum muscle mass).
A cold-adapted apeman creature (something akin to the North American Sasquatch) deriving from a lineage that never adapted to such endurance requirements would indeed carry significantly more muscle mass than a human being... but would have so little endurance that it would not be able to tolerate the training loads required to stimulate further muscle growth.
In laymans terms... he'd be a hairy powerlifter with a TEN rep max that would exceed the tolerances of his bones and connective tissues and lacking the cardiovascular stamina to do more than ten reps.
This is a real phenomenon, male gorillas have only a 30 second exhaustion threshold... and even the act of mating (which rarely exceeds a few seconds effort) constitutes a serious risk to their lives: heart-attack; stroke; embolisms etc.
Long story short, no matter the selection process, the breeding of an individual with the optimal genetic predisposition to bodybuilding would take hundreds of generations and would more than likely be hampered by genetic limitations.
The fact that exceedingly muscular humans do not crop up in the general population through random mutation seems to imply that mutations of the Hox (master control) genes which lead to such aberrant muscularity are somehow deleterious to the propagation of such mutations (ie: reduce the reproductive prospects of such mutants).
We need to better define our terms... the best bodybuilding genetics may well be a genetic predisposition to tolerate the drug regimen required to build the level of muscle mass of a professional bodybuilder, a ratio of muscle mass to skeletal frame that is not seen anywhere else in nature.
Just my two cents... it's ALL DRUGS.
The Luke
PS-no Bigfoot questions please, let's keep this thread on topic.
