Through out the years we have definitely seen a change not only in the size of BBers but also the shape and conditioning too. Today it’s very common for guys to “miss their peak”. Years ago this rarely happened at the top level. Todays look has the top guys looking very big and full almost like their muscle were inflated with air. Yes we do see some striations of the muscle groups mainly the glutes and triceps. We see some good separation but long gone are the deep claw like striations that appeared in the shoulders and chest like the guys from the 70’s, 80’s and the early 90’s. They had a granite type look to them. It was a different look back then and I’m guessing that human evolution has little to do with the fact that they look so much different today.
Enter in GH and insulin. I’ve been around this sport for longer than I care to admit been around the heart of it all growing up near Pittsburgh which is NPC country. I’ve trained a few pros and plenty of amateurs over the last 30 years. I say this only to qualify little about what I speak of. OK so back on point and I am going to keep this briefer than what I normally would since I am on this site and don’t really know the text limit.
I’ll first talk briefly about Insulin. Insulin is an aging hormone that also promotes fat storage mainly visceral fat. Normally in in a regular person when they start dieting the first fat to go is the visceral fat or the fat that is mainly stored behind the abdominal wall. If one is using insulin this visceral fat will not go away first and will be very resistant to being used as energy The distended guts that we see so much today is actually fat behind the abdominal wall not enlarged organ growth. If an organ was that inflamed as to make the stomach stick out that far number 1 we would not see it done in such an even manner through out the ab region and number 2 I suspect this person would not live very long simply because such an enlarged organ would not function properly.
So why is it that we are seeing such unevenly distributed amounts of fat on the current guys today? Well there it is a two fold issue. We are seeing striated glutes right? These guys must be dieting hard right? Well in fact most of them are so it has to be genetics right? In a word NO! Look at it this way, when you go to the store to buy a cut of meat some cuts are leaner than others. Some cuts are very void of fat. I’m not talking about the part that the butcher trims off I am talking about the inner part that is marbleized with fat through out the entire cut. Some parts of the cow are leaner than other because of the fat receptors within the muscle itself. It’s the same in a human, certain parts of our anatomy as far as out musculature has a different density and fat receptors within.
With all the insulin that is being used today it is nearly impossible to get completely shredded. Remember earlier when I said that insulin promotes fat storage well it does and it does so in a non discriminatory way. Hence the ripped glutes striated triceps but to a lesser degree more marbilized fat storage within other muscle groups mainly in the torso area and the distended stomachs we commonly see today. So no it is not genetics that allows a person to get down to a very low level of body fat. So yes it really is easier for someone who is natural or has only used steroids to get a more striated look.
To touch upon GH breifly. At first GH does seems to help put on size and make one look better, but if you have noticed after years of long term high dose use a lot of the pros are unable to get back to their extremely lean ripped look they first had in their career. The one thing that GH will do after years of use is thicken the skin. Do I really need to say anymore on that matter? In fact that is one of the main benefits of GH as peoples skin gets thinner as they age.
One last thing about genetics. With all things being equal as far as fat levels go the part that is genetic about striations is the actual pattern of the muscle fibers themselves. Each person will have not only have a certain number of visible rows of fibers but the actual rows themselves will sometimes be more straight and this may make one appear to be more ripped or make a flexed muscle look more impressive while flexed. You see this a lot in the glute tricep and delt area. This is one of the main reasons Doug Miller looks so impressive with a low level of body fat. He was blessed not only with a pleasing muscle shape, but also good muscle fiber placement.
