a history lesson in fast gains

[alfresco]

Another post on this forum about an individuals ability to lose and gain
weight was questioned by some. But in reality, the ability to do this is
really not that unusual. The human body is an amazing organism, if
you just give it a chance. Bodybuilders (and other athletes) have been
manipulating their bodyweight to extremes for as long as there has been
exercise and they will continue to do so long after I am six feet under.

While not everybody can do this as successfully as they would like, part
of the problem in my opinion, is that many people "take" so many different
unverifiable things, at so many times, don't keep accurate records, that
they literally have no idea of the cause and effect between everything and
haven't the slightest knowledge of how little or how much of anything is
required to achieve a desired condition.

I'm showing my age here again but the example I'm about to give is the
best, verifiable case that I am aware of that will help illustrate my point.
And while controversial to some, to bodybuilders in general, they were
not that impressed and have openly said that it just an example of "muscle
memory." Which is obviously true. And if you don't think so . . . just try
duplicating these results with a previously untrained individual. Lot's of luck
is all I can say.

Many of the bodybuilders here are well aware of what follows, but for
those you who are not familiar with this, and for those still doubt the
ability of somebody with superior genetics to gain a large amount of
muscular tissue in a short amount of time; over 30 years ago, a very
successful experiment (if you can truly call it an experiment as the
sponsor had a pretty good idea what the results would be) was conducted
at the Department of Physical Education, Colorado State University, in
Fort Collins, Colorado under the supervision of a Dr. Elliott Plese (now
deceased), the then Director of Exercise Physiology Lab.

The subject pictured here is Casey Viator, a previous Mr. America winner.
In this experiment, he increased his bodyweight by ~45 pounds, lost ~17
pounds of body fat, for a total muscular gain in excess of 60 pounds
in 28 days. In retrospect, the sponsor of this study suspects that the total
muscular gain is slightly exaggerated due to the accuracy of the device
used to measure body fat, but the increase in bodyweight is not disputed.
I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

What the subject was experiencing was a clear case of muscle memory
as he was rebuilding previously existing muscle mass, and by his own
admission, aided by an abnormally, artificially low bodyweight. That it's
easier to gain muscular mass the second time around should be no secret
to anybody.

All this was achieved with a total of 14 total body workouts, performed on
a combination of new, prototype machines and with the use of free weights,
using primarily negative only resistance, with an average of 12 total sets per
workout. Not everybody can make these spectacular gains in such a brief
amount of time with such a limited amount of exercise. Attached is a copy of
the 5th workout this subject performed.

(photographs of the Casey Viator, copyright Inge Cook)
(scan of the workout number 5, courtesy of the author)

 

[7_Deadly_Sins]

Good read, thanks for posting it.
Just goes to show you how amazing the human body is.

 

[pesty4077]

We will see I have not trained regularly in over 3 months. Every Monday is my start fresh day LOL!

It is about time, you get your lazy ass back in the gym.

 

[jm425]

I've actually had major surgery done last may. Before that surgery I was 220 15% bf at 5'7. After surgery I was 160. Of course I had complications before my surgery that required me to stay at the hospital receiving no nutrition except for an IV that was in my arm. After more than a year of hard training, dieting and using supplements, I've exceeded my previous weight and now weigh 227 with 15% bf. I guess it's true that the second time around you can leap past your previous best weight.

 

[6.8SPC]

I remember

reading about "The Colorado Experiment" when I bought that Ironman book 'Size Surge' back in high school to put on weight for football. I was so excited that I would blow up just like Casey Viator.

 

[Big_Truck]

I could literally starve myself and not eat, swallow five tape worms and smoke some rock without any exercise and lose 60lbs in probably 2 months.

Then take so much aas/peptides it would make your nuts shrivel up just reading it and gain more back in about the same time frame.


I guess I'm one of these fantasy super humans then.


EDIT- lose & gain 60lbs of pure muscle baby.

 

[bellicose]

i was friends with a guy who knew casey during the experiment. Casey had a bad cut on his finger that got infected and sent him to the hospital. He was very sick for a couple months and didn't eat much. He told me the experiment was done to help sell "supplements and training." Sounds like musclecrap's advertisement philosophy!
Changes the story a little bit, throw a little anabolics in there and i'm sure many people could repeat the same feat.

 

[Chrisco915]

WTF happened to his face? LOL. Even his nose "bulked up".

 

[OuchThatHurts]

The subject pictured here is Casey Viator, a previous Mr. America winner.
In this experiment, he increased his bodyweight by ~45 pounds, lost ~17
pounds of body fat, for a total muscular gain in excess of 60 pounds
in 28 days.

Did you make a mathematical error here? If he increased his bodyweight by 45 lbs and lost 17 of bodyfat then his total net gain would have been approx. 28 lbs which corresponds with the photos.

Not that that still isn't very impressive. I believe this because in high school we would suck weight all the time we could swallow 28 lbs in a few weeks no problem.

Great post BTW Alfresco. I like reading your stuff.

 

[OuchThatHurts]

Attached is a scan of math behind Casey's gains.

This is not all the raw data and the calculations
(which I also have) behind determining his percentage
of body fat.

And thank you, glad you like reading my stuff . . .

(photograph copyright by the author)

My bad. I see what they did there. He went from 167 at 13.8% bodyfat to 212 at 2.4% bodyfat (they better check their calipers on that second read). That would make his initial LBM around 144 lbs and his ending LBM of around 207 lbs. Which means you were right and that's what they are saying.

And I see that written there but the pictures show a fairly lean guy at what looks like 180-190 lbs and an after shot of a guy at about 220-230lbs still maintaining about the same level of bodyfat - but that's just the way it looks to me.

Whatever the case, that's a hell of a mass gain in a short time.

Guy must have genetics from space.

 

[machola]

check out this transformation. dave_19 before and after photos over 6 weeks. unbelievable
http://www.professionalmuscle.com/forums/showthread.php?t=37885

 

[Massive G]

Ahhh yes the colorado experiment sounded like science fiction....
Muscle memory...
Jones was a master at marketing and knew people would freak out to see Casey's transformation after (almost) dying from an infection after an accident while working on an oil rig required a partial finger amputation and he shrunk down to 168.
Jones knew he's blow back up to a huge weight when pounding the food and heavy weights and he probably was jacking a little cycle too.
Some of this stuff was laughable about diet and frequency of training and muscle growth...written below..

Saturday, September 15, 2007
# Casey Viator and The Colorado Experiment


Casey Viator gained 63 Pounds of Muscle in 28 Days

In the early 1970's, Arthur Jones wrote a series of articles for Iron Man magazine outlining some of his unique training ideas...

These training articles were like nothing anyone had ever seen before... Arthur simply gave a name to some ideas about training that had always been "true" -- and while they were simple, and involved common sense and self-evident truth they rocked the strength world to its knees.

He had, in the previous years, put his ideas into practice and the results were tremendous, but what he needed was close supervision and justification for his ideas in a controlled setting where the results could be monitored and recorded.

In 1973, he got his wish and "The Colorado Experiment" began at the Department of Physical Education, Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado and supervised by Dr. Elliott Plese, Director of Exercise Physiology Lab.

Over the course of one month, with himself and Casey Viator as the subjects, training ideas would be put into practice and studied extensively.

For an article in the September 1973, Volume 32 Number 6 of Ironman Magazine, Arthur wrote up his thoughts:

PURPOSE of the EXPERIMENT . . . it is the author's contention that the growth of human muscular tissue is related to the intensity of exercise; increases in strength and muscle-mass are rapidly produced by very brief and infrequent training ... if the intensity of exercise is high enough.

It is the author's second contention that increasing the amount of training is neither necessary nor desirable . . . on the contrary, a large amount of high intensity training will actually reduce the production of strength and muscle mass increases.

It is the author's third contention that "negative work" (eccentric contraction) is one of the most important factors involved in exercise performed for the purpose of increasing strength and muscle-mass.

It is the author's fourth contention that nothing in the way of a special diet is required . . . so long as a reasonably well-balanced diet is provided.

It is the author's fifth contention that the use of the so-called "growth drugs" (steroids) is neither necessary nor desirable ... on the contrary, repeated tests with animals and double-blind tests with human subjects have clearly demonstrated that the use of such drugs is strongly contraindicated.

It is the author's sixth contention that maximum-possible increases in strength and muscle-mass can be produced only by the use of full range, rotary form, automatically variable, direct resistance.

And the results:

First subject (Casey Viator), 28 days
Increase in bodyweight........45.28 pounds
Loss of bodyfat..............17.93 pounds
Muscular gain.................63.21 pounds

 

[Massive G]

Also remember Casy was a freak he won the Mr America at 19 and the Mr USA at 18...incredible for back then...dbol or not!

 

[denimcho]

Is there more info on the diet plan - calories, grams of protein/carbs/fat?

 

[notsobig32]

I am with you. Regardless of muscle memory, casey was a freak. very impressive transformation. Thanks for sharing the info.

 

[Dad]

Another post on this forum about an individuals ability to lose and gain
weight was questioned by some. But in reality, the ability to do this is
really not that unusual. The human body is an amazing organism, if
you just give it a chance. Bodybuilders (and other athletes) have been
manipulating their bodyweight to extremes for as long as there has been
exercise and they will continue to do so long after I am six feet under.

While not everybody can do this as successfully as they would like, part
of the problem in my opinion, is that many people "take" so many different
unverifiable things, at so many times, don't keep accurate records, that
they literally have no idea of the cause and effect between everything and
haven't the slightest knowledge of how little or how much of anything is
required to achieve a desired condition.

I'm showing my age here again but the example I'm about to give is the
best, verifiable case that I am aware of that will help illustrate my point.
And while controversial to some, to bodybuilders in general, they were
not that impressed and have openly said that it just an example of "muscle
memory." Which is obviously true. And if you don't think so . . . just try
duplicating these results with a previously untrained individual. Lot's of luck
is all I can say.

Many of the bodybuilders here are well aware of what follows, but for
those you who are not familiar with this, and for those still doubt the
ability of somebody with superior genetics to gain a large amount of
muscular tissue in a short amount of time; over 30 years ago, a very
successful experiment (if you can truly call it an experiment as the
sponsor had a pretty good idea what the results would be) was conducted
at the Department of Physical Education, Colorado State University, in
Fort Collins, Colorado under the supervision of a Dr. Elliott Plese (now
deceased), the then Director of Exercise Physiology Lab.

The subject pictured here is Casey Viator, a previous Mr. America winner.
In this experiment, he increased his bodyweight by ~45 pounds, lost ~17
pounds of body fat, for a total muscular gain in excess of 60 pounds
in 28 days. In retrospect, the sponsor of this study suspects that the total
muscular gain is slightly exaggerated due to the accuracy of the device
used to measure body fat, but the increase in bodyweight is not disputed.
I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

What the subject was experiencing was a clear case of muscle memory
as he was rebuilding previously existing muscle mass, and by his own
admission, aided by an abnormally, artificially low bodyweight. That it's
easier to gain muscular mass the second time around should be no secret
to anybody.

All this was achieved with a total of 14 total body workouts, performed on
a combination of new, prototype machines and with the use of free weights,
using primarily negative only resistance, with an average of 12 total sets per
workout. Not everybody can make these spectacular gains in such a brief
amount of time with such a limited amount of exercise. Attached is a copy of
the 5th workout this subject performed.

(photographs of the Casey Viator, copyright Inge Cook)
(scan of the workout number 5, courtesy of the author)

This bullshit story has come up many times. I trained at Nautilus Sports Medical in Deland, FL, in the mid-80's before Jones sold the company. I also knew Mike Mentzer, and here's the real story on this:

Casey had quit weight training and was working on an oil rig. He managed to drop his weight down into the 170's due to hard manual labor, eating a lot less, and no weight training. THen he sustained a serious injury and ended up in the hospital for awhile, which brough his weigh down into the 150's.

When he was ready, Jones took him and stuffed him full of food, drugs, and let him train and rest only. He ended up re-gaining the muscle mass he'd once had, NOT anything new. It's called muscle memory.

This is a bullshit example often used to tout the, as Mike put it, "One and only valid method of training," meaning the Jones/Nautilus/SuperSlow/Mentzer takes on HIT.

The only thing this demonsrates is muscle memory and great genetics.

 

[Dad]

Just so everyone is clear - I am NOT saying that Alfresco is bullshit!

What I am saying is that this story is often used by the Mentzer/Jones/SuperSlow camp to claim that 60+ lbs of muscle can be added in a brief time using their methods.

If it's RE-GAINING 60+ lbs of muscle yuo once had, possibly. But if yuo think those methods (or any method) will add 60+ lbs of NEW muscle to yuo or anyone else in 14 or so workouts, yuo're dreaming. THis wasn't new muscle for Casey.

This misrepresentation is often called The Colorado Experiment, and has reach mythic proportions in the HIT circles.

 

[joeyrods]

fast gains= lots of stretch marks