Let's talk about oestrogen

[Tatyana]

There seems to be some confusion about the function of hormones in muscle growth, especially in women.

I think far too many women think that they need to get rid of their oestrogen and boost their testosterone.

Many may be surprised to find that oestrogen is an anabolic hormone.

It is used extensively in cattle production in the USA as it has been found that the combination of testosterone AND oestrogen results in greater muscle growth than just testosterone alone.

The issue that high level competitive female bodybuilders have with oestrogen is that it does have us hold onto more fat than men in those girlie places that most of us want to lose it.

Oestrogen is not the big bad hormone that is going to stop you from getting the body you want.

It is one of the strong triggers for growth hormone, it it cardio-protective by keeping our lipid/fats in the blood at healthy ratios and it keeps our bones really healthy.

Don't fear the sex hormones that made you the woman you are today, they are not going to stop you from getting a great physique.


A little bit of info from Bill Dobbins:

However, research demonstrates that anabolic drugs like steroids give only a small percentage gain to the bodybuilding physique.

This has never been measured in bodybuilders per se –although the actual experience of bodybuilders tends to bear this out - but powerlifters have been shown to achieve less than a 20% increase in performance (and some of this due to the placebo effect) in non-tested competition compared to meets that are drug tested, and it seems that the longer the powerlifter has been training, the more mature the lifter is, the LESS relative benefit he gets from using steroids – often as little as 10%.

That is, the drugs help close the gap between performance and potential, but they don’t actually change the degree of genetically given potential.

So even if bodybuilders are benefiting in their development by a full 20%, this means 80% if what they achieve is "natural."

And if mature bodybuilders, who have been training for decades (which includes most of the pros) only see about a 10% increase, this means 90% of their size and muscularity is due to genetics, hard training, consistency and good diet – and not drugs.

There is no research to indicate that this percentage of increase is any different for women than for men or that anabolic drugs give women significantly greater benefits than males.

Steroids, for example, are simply synthetic analogs of testosterone.

Men have about 100 times the amount of testosterone in their bodies as do women; they are not 100 times bigger or more muscular and women who take male hormones do not develop muscles 100 times larger.

There are a lot more physiological and biochemical factors governing the development of muscle than just hormones.