this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2025
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Same reason chimps are built like trucks without having to train a lick. Superior genetics baby.
I was looking into that recently, specifically gorillas, just because it’s such a common sentiment that humans have to work so hard and eat so particularly to build muscle but gorillas are naturally jacked.
It turns out they have a lot going for them in that regard
So first of all they low key do actually strength train. They use their strength to break and process vegetation. These dudes will straight up rip a tree apart with their bare hands. It’s pretty crazy. It’s also how they spend most of their time.
Like they literally wake up at 6am, do a crazy workout, eat a ton, take a nap, then do another crazy workout, eat another ton, then go to bed. Every day. It's basically the same routine Arnold ran when training for the olympia.
The other thing that comes up is how they mostly eat plants but humans need tons of protein. This part is the most fascinating to me.
So humans have a concept of “essential amino acids (essential proteins)”. There’s like over 500 aminos in general, and for the most part if we need one for any particular bodily function, our bodies can just make them out of whatever. EDIT: this has caused some confusion further down, apologies. As I explained to another user I wanted to be selective about the depth of every specific biological mechanism for the sake of brevity. However I should mention the aminos are not created out of thin air, but through the breakdown of other proteins consumed in the diet. The exceptions are these 9 particular aminos which we require, but cannot create ourselves, so we have to get them directly from our diets.
Humans also have relatively pathetic digestive systems. There’s an entire large category of plant matter we consume that we simply cannot process, and it passes through us. We call this material “fiber”, and it’s still very important for us to eat, but nonetheless it is simply not broken down into energy or other building blocks.
Gorillas do not suffer from either of these limitations. Their bodies can produce all necessary amino acids, and they can break down fiber.
So with all this, when you look at their diet as a whole, (which is about 40lbs per day of plants, and keeping in mind the plants are simply more nutritive to them biologically, and their neutrality towards the specific amino profile of their food), when you crunch the math, they actually end up eating slightly higher than the daily protein value recommended for high level human bodybuilders.
That coincidence totally blew my mind. Like we’re so closely related and require the same basic conditions for muscle growth, but achieve it in such parallel yet unrelated ways. Totally awe inspiring
What the fuck? There's 20 amino acids. And I'll bet you anything that the same amino acids are essential to gorillas and humans. We are weird creatures and our genetics stand out among the great apes but that's too much difference.
Gorilla digestive systems are longer and they have this special thingie that I've forgotten the name of to help with plant matter digestion. They aren't like ruminants so they can't really digest fiber but also don't think they are coprophages like rabbits.
Humans have massive brains that suck up a bunch of energy. We use the brain so our bodies don't have to do as much work. Carrying around more muscle than you have to is a recipe for being out-competed (e.g. Neanderthals). But if something like the myostatin gene is knocked out or it's expression is reduced by generic mutation then we also build a lot more muscle. The only issue is that we don't have millions of years of evolution for that situation to match the rest of our bodies.
Hey,
So the confusion here comes from the application of the term ‘essential’
The reason humans differentiate between essential/not is because it is “essential” for us to ingest those amino acids directly in our diet, because we cannot synthesize them ourselves.
Gorillas do not have a separate “essential” category because they can synthesize everything they need. This is not to suggest they do not physiologically “need” the ones we deem as essential, simply that they can make them.
As an aside, the special thing you’re thinking of is just their gut bacteria. There’s a ton of specific biological information I left out as the comment was already getting too long, and I didn’t really feel like the exact mechanism of action there was critical
I just wanted to let you know that I found your comments very interesting! Also, what would happen if adding human got a fecal transplant from a gorilla? Asking for a friend
Maybe when they throw their poo at you, they're simply trying to share their superior gut biome
Thank you! Most likely the human would not inherit gorilla powers, although it’s certainly worth investigating
For those unaware, emerging research on fecal transplants is crazy! Very worth looking into. It seems like to some extent, characteristics can be transferred from one person to another. Like giving a transplant from a fit person to an untrained overweight person can spontaneously result in weight loss and increased muscle mass, for a period of time. The world is truly an incredible and mysterious place!
What are you talking about. Pretty much every animal lacks the ability to synthesize certain amino acids. No animal can rearrange the carbon skeletons of 11 out of the 21 amino acids relevant to animal protein (cysteine, histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan, tyrosine, and valine), so the ability to synthesize certain amino acids necessarily relies on the presence of the amino acids that share the same carbon structure. See here, which talks about the essential/non-essential categorization as being outdated and needing to be understood as a sliding scale in which synthesizing even non-essential amino acids carries a cost, and that eating complete proteins in a species-appropriate ratio is still necessary for animals to thrive.
Gorillas consume something like 20-30% of their calories from protein depending on the ratio of low protein fruit to high protein leaves in their diets. Their plant food sources just don't have all that much in the way of energy, so even the small amounts of protein in any given leaf is made up for the fact that they're eating up to 40 kg of food per day.
The truth is, gorillas do consume quite a bit of protein. Plant matter, like pretty much any living organism, has protein. Leaves are relatively high in protein compared to other plant foods. Let's not forget, broccoli has more protein per 100 calories than steaks do.
So no, gorillas are not capable of freely synthesizing the amino acids they need. The truth is that they're eating a lot of protein from various sources at different amino acid ratios and using those amino acids pretty efficiently.
Why are people so rude when critiquing a bodybuilding gorilla post on a shit posting community?
Anyway, as I have apologized to the other user who took umbrage with my glossing over of a particular biological detail, so now I apologize to you. Yes, you are correct that the essential amino acids are not synthesized out of just anything, but through a specific process which requires other amino acids acquired through the breakdown of protein consumed in the diet. I have edited my post to provide specific clarify to this point.
Have you read my post? Because the back half of your comment simply restates what I was saying about their diet. Thank you for providing supporting links.
Finally, you should edit your own post to clear up some misconceptions you may be spreading. The researchers in your link argued (ineffectively, as the current paradigm of essential/non-essential is still being printed in textbooks more than a decade later) against the concept because they believed it would be better to also include many non-essential aminos in a new category called “functional” amino acids. It should also be made clear that this proposed paradigm exists in the context of optimizing chicken feed, and at no point rebuts the fact that the essential amino acids are themselves ultimately essential
I'm taking issue with your claim that no specific amino acids are essential for gorillas. That's wildly implausible, given that pretty much any animal studied has shown that animals all have essential amino acids, and that mammals generally require the same 9 amino acids as nutritionally essential. Even ruminants, whose gut microbes can synthesize many of the essential amino acids, still have issues if they don't separately consume enough of those amino acids, because the rumen microbes can't actually provide enough for their metabolic needs.
Yes, essential amino acids are essential. No, gorillas are not some kind of sole exception in animals to that general principle. They just get enough from their relatively high protein plant diets.
You are simply factually mistaken about the nature of herbivores generally. You are also, intentionally or not, engaging in equivocation between the concepts of what is nutritionally required to eat and what is biologically required to function further down the line. You are also engaged in an ongoing adjustment of your argument, apparently just for the sake of argument, without addressing the serious issues with your argument as it was originally presented.
For these reasons I’m not terribly interested in an ongoing dialogue with you on this topic. It’s simply not a productive use of my time to keep on reading large papers you link to but haven’t read yourself, then correcting the claims you make that the evidence you provide doesn’t support. I also do not feel any need to directly address the false claims you falsely accuse me of making, when my above posts already clearly contradict them. I trust that readers with a genuine interest will be able to navigate these posts without issue, and then delve into the textbooks worth of fully unsimplified research if it strikes their fancy to do so.
Have a good day
The question was: how do gorillas get so muscular on a mostly plant based diet?
The correct answer is: they eat a shitload of protein that is present in the plants they eat, by consuming 20-30% of their calories from protein and eating 25-40kg of food per day.
Your answer included factually incorrect claims about how gorillas can synthesize any amino acid so that the concept of nutritionally essential amino acids don't apply to them.
The statement of fact you hold in contention can be confirmed by any doubtful reader by numerous sources that appear in a quick web search
No?
Like, read this article:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/20095763
If their bodies were able to synthesize all the amino acids they need they couldn't get an amino acid deficiency syndrome.
Apologies, yes, the non-essential aminos need to be synthesized from protein specifically, which gorillas typically consume in abundance. Edited my post to clarify this issue, thank you
To add to what carnelian replied, there are actually more than 20 amino acids. Archaea and bacteria domains use a couple different ones, making 23 or so known amino acids used. There are also tons of possible and some (like 700+, that I remember being taught, lol) documented examples of different amino acids, because all that it takes to be an amino acid is the basic carbon structure with the carboxylic acid and the nitrate group in their correct positions, with an R group that defines which amino acid you're dealing with.
Gorillas aren't bacteria, archae, or chemists.
Gorillas do selectively engage in coprophagy in certain situations, depending in large part on their nutrition and diet. Certain fruits in their diet, and the accompanying seeds in their shit, increase the likelihood that they'll go back for seconds.
So you’re saying that the theory about über und unter mensch is real, but that the über mensch isn’t white and proud but rather blackish and hairy?
I'd like to have a gorilla digestive system now. 🥲
It could be handy but I think I’d rather not have to eat forty pounds of leaves every day! +termites sometimes
TIL - thank you for sharing!
Yup. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blubber