When I was in college back in the 1980's, I was reading something authored by Arnold Schwarzenegger. It said something to the likeness of: "If you want big arms, you have to have a big chest; And if you want to have a big chest, you have to have big legs".

Back then, I didn't really understand how these things were related. I mean, it made sense to me that you trained your arms when building your chest. But you don't really need to use your chest one bit to train your legs.

Well, in 1992 I went to Life Chiropractic College. I read about hormones in Guyton's Textbook of Medical Physiology. This book has been a standard among doctors of all kinds. In the eighth edition on page 825 there is a chart that shows you when growth hormones are secreted the most, like after strenuous exercise.

I learned that when you increase physical stress on the body it creates more growth hormone demand and hence a larger growth hormone release; I also learned that more growth hormones meant better physical strength, greater endurance, more muscle, higher metabolism, and less fat.

After learning this, the words of the terminator made sense. You see, training your legs creates much more physical stress on the body. This creates increased growth hormones that will improve the strength and size of your arms - whether you exercise your arms or not!

So now that I know this, I like to make sure I am first training the larger muscle groups - especially my legs, thighs, gluteals, and lower back muscles - to increase the physical stress on the body to demand a bigger release of growth hormones. And this is a key to greater physical abilities even into our elderly years.

Dr. Michael Haley
Chiropractor in Pompano Beach, Florida 33060
(954) 545-9750