HGH + Insulin Timing: Why Bodybuilders Stack Them (And You Shouldn't)

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Why Bodybuilders Stack HGH With Insulin Pre Workout, And Why That Logic Does Not Transfer To You

We've answered this question a lot, and this guy's asking again, so we're just gonna hit it real quick.

If HGH is advised to take fasted before bed, why is it combined with insulin pre-workout? One of the things that happens, and this is a common point of confusion for people, is that when I take HGH or growth hormone related peptide, it's gonna create insulin resistance.

Before we get into the timing, walk the whole chain, because that is where the confusion lives.

Growth hormone gets released, and it goes to work on your liver where it drives production of something called IGF-1, which is the growth factor that does most of the actual tissue building that people credit to growth hormone itself. At the same time, growth hormone is pulling fatty acids out of your fat cells and pushing them into circulation, and those free fatty acids compete with glucose for uptake in muscle tissue, so your muscle takes in less sugar for the same amount of insulin. Your pancreas notices, and it puts out more insulin to compensate.

That last step is the piece everyone repeats without the dose attached to it.

This is true and also false, right? The confusion here is in order for HGH to create any meaningful amount of insulin resistance, it's dose dependent, meaning I'm not really gonna see those negative effects that are having an effect on my insulin sensitivity until after 10 IU per day, okay? And this is where the bodybuilders are choosing to do the insulin pre-workout because they're already experiencing the insulin resistance. On the exact threshold, I cannot point you to a study that pins the number at 10 IU, that is what I have seen in practice, and the literature has looked mostly at either replacement doses or at people producing their own growth hormone in excess.

The comparison worth making is against people whose own bodies produce excess growth hormone for years on end. In acromegaly, where a tumor pumps out growth hormone around the clock, roughly a quarter to a third of patients end up diabetic, and the mechanism runs through that same free fatty acid and liver glucose pathway (Esposito 2024). That is a body soaked continuously in its own hormone at levels a bodybuilder's injection never touches, which looks nothing like a single 2 IU shot taken before bed.

So the bodybuilder is not creating a problem with pre-workout insulin. He already has one, and he is deciding where in the day to spend it.

Insulin is what drives amino acids and glucose into muscle, and I have seen it described as the most anabolic hormone there is, though I would frame that as a working idea rather than something the research hasn't been asked to test head to head against other anabolics. And so it makes sense to do a pre-workout because that's the time when you're gonna make use of those resources, we'll say the most.

Training opens up glucose uptake in muscle through a channel that does not need insulin at all, blood flow to the working tissue goes up, and the tissue is primed to take in nutrients. Stacking insulin onto that window is the least dangerous hour of the day to do it.

Fasted before bed is a completely different goal. You are trying to land your growth hormone dose in a window where insulin is already at its floor, because insulin blunts the growth hormone pulse, and overnight is when your own natural pulse fires anyway.

Two protocols, two objectives, and neither one contradicts the other.

For the average guy, number one, you shouldn't really be injecting insulin anyway, right? Unless you're on a super high dose of HGH, in which case I'm assuming you're gonna be at least trying to be a high level bodybuilder.

Research: Esposito D, Boguszewski CL, Colao A et al. Diabetes mellitus in patients with acromegaly: pathophysiology, clinical challenges and management. Published in Nature Reviews Endocrinology during 2024.

References:

Esposito D, Boguszewski CL, Colao A et al.. Diabetes mellitus in patients with acromegaly: pathophysiology, clinical challenges and management. Nat Rev Endocrinol. 2024. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38844688/