GHRP2 & GHRP 6 - The next big thing?

Many things have been hailed as "the next big thing" in bodybuilding, but only a rare few live up to the hype and become go to products for bodybuilders everywhere. The best examples of which are whey protein and creatine.

GHRP2 and GHRP6 are possibly the next big thing in bodybuilding, and with growing evidence to suggest they are a cheaper, effective and safer alternative to synthetic human growth hormone (HGH). In order to educate you I'll keep this as basic as I can.

EVERYBODY secretes human growth hormone.  It is produced by the pituitary gland and is anabolic which allows it to stimulate the growth of muscle, cartilage, and bone.

Generally speaking the amount of natural growth hormone released by the pituitary gland decreases as we get older, noticeably so for most people as they hit their mid 30s. Interestingly growth hormone and its anabolic effects on muscle mean that higher circulating amounts in the body allow for quickened recovery between training and less muscle soreness. This is one of the factors that leads to exercise taking longer to recover from as people get older and why young people recover from exercise much quicker than older people.

The pituitary gland secretes growth hormone just once a day and this is during a deep sleep cycle (puts into perspective just why getting a solid nights sleep is so important for any athlete). The pituitary pulses growth hormone into the body for approximately 30 minutes.

Now you may have heard of people injecting human growth hormone. This is stuff produced in a lab, either by a leading pharmaceutical company, or by an underground lab (UGL). Now lets get it straight now, its not just bodybuilders and sports men and women that use this stuff - ALOT of people are turning to HGH, including alot of celebrities and bog standard normal people  (most famously Robbie Williams is reported to have wanted to use it but ended up on TRT due to low testosterone levels). Among its many benefits supplementing with additional human growth hormone just once a day allows users to reduce body fat and to stop the effects of aging (now you see why celebrities like this stuff!). At higher doses HGH is responsible for muscle growth, and in particular for bodybuilders it allows for the growth of new muscle cells. Why is this important you ask.... if we look at steroids briefly (another post for another day!) - they don't grow new muscle cells. The only capability of steroids for a bodybuilder is to either increase existing muscle size or to maintain exsisting muscle tissue in extreme calorie deficits (due to their anabolism). HGH on the other hand actually has the ability to grow brand new muscle cells. Run HGH with steroids in high doses and you get new muscle cells created by HGH that can then be grown by steroids. Add in some insulin and you then get freaky sizing of Jay Cutler, Phil Heath, Kai Green etc.

I've digressed a little but back to GHRP2 and GHRP6. Why important? Synthetic HGH is very expensive, very counterfitted, illegal to purchase without prescription and can cause some issues in regards to shut down of the pituitary gland due to desensitization. GHRP2 and GHRP6 are interesting because they are peptides created to activate the release of your own natural HGH. Although the pituitary gland only secretes HGH once a day it is able to replenish HGH levels within 3 hours. GHRP2&6 take advantage of this because you can effectively every 3 hours up to 6 times a day pulse your own natural HGH. Yes that means up to 6 times the amount of HGH. The same HGH you have had from child to adult. 100% natural HGH produced by your own body. Now 6 pulses a day is excessive. Most research is currently around 1 additional pulse in the evening before bed (for anti-aging effects) , 2-3 pulses for fat loss and muscle growth and injury repair and 3+ doses for muscle growth. Users have reported increased muscle hardness, spot reduction of fat at injection sites, overall fat reduction (often even when eating more food!), quickened recovery from injury, reduction of post exercise soreness and a general sense of well being.

GHRP6 - this is best for muscle gain - users report an aggressive spike in hunger and the ability to consume much larger meals post administration of injection
GHRP2 - this is best for fat loss - users report the same benefits of GHRP6 but without such aggressive hunger pangs.

Current studies show that as GHRP2 and 6 force release your own HGH that there is no desensitization of the pituitary gland. Interestingly this stuff is currently 100% legal for "research purposes only" and can be purchased from a number of internet sites.

This author currently believes this is likely to be the next big thing and one to keep an eye on. The last piece of the puzzle will be to see if the long terms effects of moderate dosing have any negative effects on users. Naturally I would expect abuse of this to cause similar issues to excessive HGH consumption

Todays workout - Shoulders this morning. Got through a lot of work. Routine consisted of:

Rev Pec Dec – Warm up sets and then 140x12 160x10 150x10

Military BB Press – 40kgx10 60kgx10 70kgx6 60kgx10 60kgx8

Quad Set: Seated Lat Raise into Standing Lat Raise into BB Shrugs into Plate Shrugs 18kgs, 14kgs, 140kgs, 50kgs. 10 reps each for 4 sets

Upright Cable Row – 150lbx10 x4 sets

Rope Face Pull – 150lbx12 x3 sets

Standing BB Front Raise – 25kgx10 x4 sets

Seated Reverse Machine Press – 150x12 160x10 180x8 Stack (think its 220)x6

15 mins steady state cardio to finish

Commentary:

Reverse pec dec – I used to do this last, but having seen a number of pro’s doing this as a warm up exercise I recently took the same approach and I have to say it does work really well to get blood into the delts. For me this is about the squeeze at the back of the movement and a slow negative to increase the time under tension.

Military Press – I have not done these in over a year. I had reverted to seated pressing for the additional back support but I do miss the military press and I will testify its effectiveness to the size of my shoulders. Nothing grows my shoulders quite like this and a correctly performed lateral raise! I got up to 90kg for 1-2 reps on this. Along way off this, but anticipate I can up the strength quite quickly on this one.

Quad Set – this is hard and it hurts. I haven’t seen anybody else doing this – I just kind of made this up one day and now use it every 3-4 weeks. It pumps up my shoulders and traps, makes me gasp for air and sweat like a pig. A total of 40 reps (minimum) performed over 4 back to back exercises. I start with the seated lateral raise as sitting makes it difficult to cheat or swing the weight around. I concentrate on a squeeze at the top and ensuring that I am in control of the decent of the weight and that gravity isn’t simply pulling it down. From this I go straight into standing lateral raises with a reduced weight. I reduce the weight by 4kg each dumbbell to ensure I can still perform the reps properly without cheating. I use rest pause where necessary to crank out the last few reps. From this I go straight to the bar to perform shrugs.I have the bar on the safety bars at knee height (this is a shrug not a deadlift!). The only rest is to walk to the bar and to put on my belt. With the bar I go heavy and keep my head pointing up. I try to explode my shoulders and traps up to my ears. From the bar shrugs I pick up a 25kg plate in each hand, hanging them to my sides and with my chin touching my chest (so opposite head position of the bar) concentrate on slowing squeezing my traps up to my ears, holding for a further squeeze at the top and slowly lowering the weights.

Upright Cable Row – Squeeze at the top and slow negatives. Constant tension throughout.

Face Pulls – These are great for the rear delts. I actually saw some guy doing the worst looking version of these ever yesterday. He was so concerned with trying to lift as much weight as possible that he was swinging from the hip, grunting and screaming and I couldn’t tell if he was working his back or hip flexors or what! I wanted to interrupt him but had already had a debate with him about something else which he didn’t take too kindly too so thought I’d let him waste his time some more! Best way to do these without a shadow of a doubt is to site yourself down on a bench. Grasp the rope attachment with palms facing each other and pull it towards your face. Keep your butt in the back of the bench and try to keep your back firmly back against the back rest of the bench. This will ensure that you pull from the rear delts and not your middle back. Sitting, as per any seated exercise) takes out the rocking motion that allows you to cheat through the move. Also ensure you keep middle of the rope attachment coming directly in-between your eyes. The tendancy will be to pull it lower towards neck height – if your elbows drop (which they will if you pull to your neck) then the emphasis moves from your rear delts to your lats as it becomes something akin to a half rep lat pull down.

Seated Reverse Press – Used this as a finisher today. I really like this move as its akin to a behind the neck press in terms of muscle fibre activation but without putting the undue stress on the shoulders should you perform the same move with a bar or smith machine. Simply put this for me as a “finisher” is about blasting the shoulders into oblivion so that they can come back bigger and stronger. I also believe that Phil Heath (reigning 3 times Mr Olympia is a big fan of this as a finishing move – good enough for him then its good enough for everybody!) I keep my chest pressed on the pad  to ensure my lower back doesn’t arch to try and make it a front orientate press and hit out as many reps as I can.