Follistatin Better Than Steroids

So in our last blog at Striations Fitness we mentioned Follistatin and it's significance regarding muscle building and strength gain. Again we're dealing with a protein but this time we are dealing with an autocrine glycoprotein. These types of proteins are cell signaling proteins that communicate via the endocrine system, through the secretion of hormones/chemical messengers. Follistatin works by binding to and inhibiting

growth factor-β (tgf-β) peptides such as myostatin which is responsible for regulating and limiting of muscle growth (reference week 1 blog for myostatin rundown). C cannot stress how necessary Follistatin is in the human body because without it we would be susceptible to chronic illnesses in organs, muscle tissue, and bone marrow, due to myostatin's regulatory role in skeletal muscle fibrosis (impaired tissue function). So now that you've seen the title of this blog and know a little background on follistatin, let's get into how it affects the gainz. Since Follistatin is such a new protein there is not a lot of evidence of it having the same effects on humans as it does on rodents and animals. Since we humans are in fact mammals naturally containing this protein it is assumed that the effects would be the same for us if we were to externally increase it's dosing in our bodies. Dosing Follistatin is not cheap, costing around 4,500 USD for 1 milligram! Good thing its a naturally produced protein but how can we use our bodies to our advantage to increase strength and skeletal muscle mass? When we workout we make microscopic tears in our muscle fibers and like it has an effect on myostatin levels, it also has an equal and opposite reaction on follistatin levels, yes they increase! This is why we gain lean mass and get stronger when we train for growth through strength or hypertrophy exercises. Follistatin sets our body in an anabolic environment and allows for the increased muscle repair and maintenance needed to grow. It is important to know that Follistatin has no direct effects on weight loss or fat gain. So next time you go to the gym understand that your body has complex systems that help you adapt rather than maintain.