Hormonal
Acute endurance exercise induces a marked increase in plasma follistatin (a myostatin inhibitor) originating from the liver, peaking during recovery rather than during the exercise bout itself.
To maximize the natural release of follistatin (which helps inhibit muscle breakdown by blocking myostatin), engage in sustained endurance exercise (e.g., 3 hours of cycling at moderate intensity). Note that the beneficial hormone levels peak during the recovery period (3 hours post-exercise), not necessarily during the workout itself. This suggests recovery is a critical phase for muscle-protective signaling.
The main finding of this study is that endurance exercise induces increased levels of follistatin in the circulation... The kinetics revealed that plasma follistatin increased markedly during the recovery after exercise both in humans and in mice.
Why this rating
The study uses rigorous human arterial-venous sampling, controlled mouse models, and exclusion of confounding factors (IL-6, epinephrine), though the sample size for human trials is small (n=5-9).
Source
Exercise Induces a Marked Increase in Plasma Follistatin: Evidence That Follistatin Is a Contraction-Induced Hepatokine
Jakob Bondo Hansen et al. · Endocrinology · 2010
DOI 10.1210/en.2010-0868
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