Cortisol Control: Too Much or Too small and You Have Problems

By now you must have heard thousands of times how cortisol (C) is catabolic and will break down all your hard-earned muscle. You might even be using discrete drugs or supplements to suppress cortisol release in the hopes that possibly this will help you to get bigger or stronger. Now, on the covering it appears to make sense for you to want to suppress C, after all it is catabolic. There is one puny catch though: Without C many important metabolic reactions become impaired. The result: Muscle frailness and in severe cases death. So, the trick is to train hard adequate to stimulate muscle growth without sending your C levels straight through the roof. Normal, wholesome ranges of C are what we want, not levels suppressed so far down that we can't even portion them.

Cortisol Control: Too Much or Too small and You Have Problems

What Is Cortisol?

Cortisol, or hydrocortisone, is a member of a house of hormones collectively referred to as glucocorticoids. Glucocorticoids get their name from their capability to growth blood glucose levels. While there are other glucocorticoids, C is the key player in wholesome individuals. Let's say you are lifting weights or stressed out from an argument. Both of these examples are types of stress. Stress can be physical, mental, or emotional. Stress stimulates your central nervous system (the brain and spinal cord). In turn, nerve cells, in a region of the brain referred to as the hypothalamus, get excited. They release a protein called corticotropin-releasing-factor or Crf. Now Crf in turn stimulates the former pituitary (a gland in the brain) to secrete adrenocorticotropic hormone or Acth. Acth then stimulates the adrenal cortex to produce C. Cortisol now goes to work by helping to raise your blood glucose levels. It travels in the body either bound to a protein or unbound in a "free" state. While dissimilar proteins can bind C, only one (corticosteroid binding globulin) prevents C from working in the body. The rest of the C in your body is active, meaning it can raise blood sugar, breakdown muscle, decrease inflammation, and control the immune system.

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When C levels get too high, the cells that produce the Crf and Acth become inhibited and less C is produced. This process is referred to as negative feedback inhibition and this is how the body monitors and controls C levels. General ranges vary considerably throughout the day with peak concentrations (280-720 nmol/l) reached in the middle of 7 Am and 9 Am. By 9 Pm to 12 Am levels are considerably lower (60-340 nmol/l). Approximately speaking does this have any point for bodybuilders and power athletes? A relate of a the literature tells us that training in the morning versus training much later in the day will not make a distinction as far as our C responses to exercise. What does make a distinction however, is consistency. By lifting weights on a consistent basis, over time the body interprets this as less of a stress and produces less C as a result. This of course is assuming you are not over-training.

Functions of Cortisol

So now that we know what C is, and where it comes from, what does it do? Let's start with a basic fact: Cortisol is critical for life and is catabolic to all cells in the body except liver cells. Catabolic refers to the capability to breakdown large molecules into smaller molecules. This applies to you in the following fashion: Let's say you just got done with your two-hour leg workout. Cortisol levels will be elevated because you trained a large number of muscle mass very intensely and for a fairly long time. The number of muscle mass, intensity of rehearsal and the period of rehearsal are factors that help to stimulate C yield and release. Cortisol can now cause muscle proteins to be broken down into amino acids. These amino acids can travel to your liver or to the damaged muscle fibers in your quadriceps. In the liver, amino acids can be reassembled into new proteins, converted into glucose or converted into fatty acids. In the quadriceps, the amino acids can be reassembled into proteins that will help to fix the damaged muscle fibers. An sharp side corollary of lifting weights is that it is antagonistic to glucocorticoid induced muscle atrophy. Exactly why this occurs is not clear, but suffice it to say that, as you gain experience with lifting weights, C is less likely to break down that muscle you worked so hard for.

Another function of C -- that most citizen are commonly glad to hear about -- is that it breaks down fat. Fat cells around the body are referred to as adipose tissue. Cortisol helps the fat stored in adipose tissue, called triglycerides, to be broken down into smaller molecules, namely glycerol and three fatty acids. The glycerol and fatty acids can now enter the blood and be used as power sources by other tissues in the body. The point of this is seen during starvation where C levels are substantially elevated. The practical point of this for the bodybuilder is that severely restricting fat will elevate your C levels to in order to breakdown fat and muscle for energy. On a side not it should also be pointed out that low calorie diet also lower your testosterone. Dream having suppressed testosterone levels and elevated C levels. That is exactly the opposite of what we want to build muscle.

What else does C do? For the record, C also helps to: say blood pressure and proper renal (kidney) function; cut swelling and speed up tissue repair; modulate perception and emotion; play a permissive role in the development of fetal organs; and directly corollary bone and connective tissue growth in children. So while we may not want C levels higher than normal, we also don't want them lower than General either. Our bodies use C for a collection of functions and by forcing it below General straight through the use of drugs or supplements, these same functions can be impaired in the body.

While C breaking down fat is a good thing, you don't want to lose your hard-earned muscle with the fat. It is true that C inhibits protein synthesis (making new proteins) and can stimulate proteolysis (breaking down proteins) in your muscles, but remember the literature suggests that lowering C won't help you build muscle any faster because C appears to break down sure proteins preferentially. This means it does not break down functional proteins of muscle or nerve cells. It has also been shown that damaged tissues can use the newly acquired amino acids from the labile proteins to synthesize new proteins for tissue repair. In increasing it takes a back seat to insulin and exercise. This means that eating and training intelligently not only help you look and feel better, but they counteract the catabolic effects of C.

Acute Effects of rehearsal on Cortisol Response

As briefly mentioned earlier, after a workout, C levels can be elevated for up to some hours. Factors that can sway C release are the intensity of the exercise, the number of muscle mass being trained, the distance of the workout and calorie levels in your diet. It is General for C to be released during and after a workout. At this point you may wonder, "Is this is good or bad?" Let's say you just did a heavy chest workout. Damaged muscle cells (fibers) in your chest and assisting muscle groups send out chemical signals. These signals attract special white blood cells called neutrophils. Neutrophils travel to the injured fibers and start breaking them down. In addition, specialized compartments inside of the injured muscle cells called lysosomes rupture and release proteolytic enzymes. These are proteins that will break down your hard-earned muscle. The combination of the neutrophils and enzymes degrading your muscle conduce to the muscle soreness you feel a day or two after training. Cortisol helps to cut the accumulation of neutrophils and stabilize the lysosome compartments so that they don't rupture. Now remember when we mentioned that C stimulates amino acid release into the blood? Well these amino acids can be used to fix the injured muscle fibers. Therefore, dramatically reducing C after a workout may growth muscle soreness and delay muscle recovery.

Chronic Effects of rehearsal on Cortisol Responses

What happens to your C responses after you have been lifting for some months? In a trained lifter the typical C response is lower than an untrained lifter. This holds true for runners as well. In addition, C levels after rehearsal return to their General levels quicker. The benefits of this are that you get the same protective Effects of C against muscle soreness, with less protein breakdown. This assumes of course that you are not over-trained. In over-trained athletes resting C levels can truly remain increased. This can pose a problem because immoderate C levels are connected with a collection of health disorders. The best thing for you to do is take a break from training and not try to artificially suppress your C levels. If you artificially suppress C, in an endeavor to mask your over-trained state, you can unwillingly create other health problems with the adrenal glands that will take months to correct.

Negative Effects of Cortisol Elevation/Suppression

One problem with C is that truly high levels do cause muscle wasting. Any way this is seen only in trauma/burn/injury/disease patients -- not citizen lifting weights. In wholesome people, excess C is not adequate to cause immoderate muscle protein breakdown after a particular workout. an additional one point is that C deficient citizen don't synthesize more protein than General people. In athletes C levels can be used as markers of training status. One presuppose for this is that chronically elevated levels are connected with impaired performance. So the catch is: How do you prevent C levels from being high all the time, without disturbing the important functions that C is involved in? In order to answer this demand let's take a look at what happens when you chronically suppress C (

>Cortisol Control: Too Much or Too small and You Have Problems

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