Sergio really did crush Arnold. Those forearms and triceps are outrageous by today’s standards. Does anyone else notice how long his forearm muscles are? He has unusually long bellies and short tendons for his wrists.
[quote]jak3_dude wrote:
I thought the reason a bigger muscle was more rigid was because you have more muscle “layering” (I guess what you guys call density)
Since muscles are made of long running fibers, which are thickened by trauma (weightlifting), the inner fibers are now thicker pushing against outer fibers which are now thicker as well. this would also pull the outer most layer tight against the inner layers, giving a less flabby look
I don’t know if you can visualize that or if my picture helps (yay MS paint, and I just realised that what I drew doesn’t really reflect what I just said, as I simply added more layers…instead of making them thicker…maybe I’ll make another post tomorrow when I’m less tired)[/quote]
Nice pic, i’d add that rigidity isn’t only apparent fiber density, think of two lengths of iron, one pencil thin and the other an inch thick, with effort you can bend the pencil thick rod but not the other. Density of the material is the same, but rigidity is greater in the thicker one.
^^
Really nice explanation mate. Sergio Oliva had unreal arms. If you ask me to tell you 3 genetic freaks, probably I’ll say Lee Priest, Kevin Levrone and Sergio Oliva (in regards to structure, muscle bellies length, tendon attachments etc).
[quote]Professor X wrote:
Addition, yes, especially with regards to really big guys with 18" arms or bigger, increased glycogen can also play a part as well as increased blood flow. [/quote]
I think another reason might be due to the fascia and connective tissue. If you increase the size of the muscle fibres they will fill and stretch the compartment making it feel harder.
I heard somewhere that there is a small amount of fat stored inside of muscles. Could easily be complete BS, I have no idea. It has no effect on how I train, so I never cared enough to look into it.
Maybe someone here knows something about it though?
[quote]Eric 2.0 wrote:
I heard somewhere that there is a small amount of fat stored inside of muscles. Could easily be complete BS, I have no idea. It has no effect on how I train, so I never cared enough to look into it.
Maybe someone here knows something about it though? [/quote]
You ever seen Japanese beef? they feed them a speacial diet which makes them so obese that the fat is “marbled” through the meat. I guess if humans also got fat in the muscle it would be softer, but I think this would only be significant if you were really overweight and I think it would be more prevelant with age so I don’t think its relevant to this issue.
[quote]desolator wrote:
^^
Really nice explanation mate. Sergio Oliva had unreal arms. If you ask me to tell you 3 genetic freaks, probably I’ll say Lee Priest, Kevin Levrone and Sergio Oliva (in regards to structure, muscle bellies length, tendon attachments etc).[/quote]
I would add Paul Dillett to that list for sure!
I’d think it has to do with muscle activation: as you train, you also improve your ability to activate more muscle fibers at once. Does it make sense?
[quote]xilinx wrote:
I’d think it has to do with muscle activation: as you train, you also improve your ability to activate more muscle fibers at once. Does it make sense?[/quote]
Yes.
Someone with a 15" (lets go with 15 because I think it’s for (some?) people to get to 15 without training) untrained arm will not be able to flex his arm as hard as somoene who has been training for a few years (lol) who also has a 15" arm.
[quote]Eric 2.0 wrote:
I heard somewhere that there is a small amount of fat stored inside of muscles. Could easily be complete BS, I have no idea. It has no effect on how I train, so I never cared enough to look into it.
Maybe someone here knows something about it though? [/quote]
Yes, it is called Intramuscular fat. See wiki:
Apparently athletes tend to have relatively high levels of intramuscular fat because it’s favorable for energy uptake via mitochondria. Although I’m not sure how much this would affect muscle rigidity. I’d say not much if you have relatively low levels of overall body fat.
But it got me thinking… if there was a way to increase intramuscular fat without increasing subcutaneous fat, you could jack up your muscles while still having great striation. Heh…
From personal experience I’ve always felt that when comparing two guys with similar sized arms, the guy who lifted more usually had harder feeling arms. From Eric Cressey’s Maximum Strength page 14:
"When we look inside the muscles of powerlifters and Olympic weightlifters (especially lightweight competitors), we see a greater concentration of contractile proteins than we do in bodybuilders, but smaller amounts of all the other “junk” that increases endurance and cell volume. Since contractile proteins are much denser than the other junk, the muscles of strength athletes take on a dense look, while those bodybuilders look puffier.
Have you ever ate meat from home-grown free range pigs and poultry? I don’t mean the crap from your local supermarket deceivingly labeled as “free range” and fed mostly with GMO soy and corn. I mean the real deal, home-grown animals fed, as much as possible, with all the free and natural things you can get in your surroundings. The meat from those animals is tougher, needs longer cooking time…people are the same, give them crap to eat with no exercising and you get skinny fat and lardass with soft muscle…
I read an article on TMuscle itself that attributed how “hard” one’s muscle feels to their style of training. I believe it had something to do with how training affects different types of muscle fibres which are typically situated at different points in the radius of a muscle belly.
I tried searching for it but found nothing
[quote]bluedog23 wrote:
From personal experience I’ve always felt that when comparing two guys with similar sized arms, the guy who lifted more usually had harder feeling arms. From Eric Cressey’s Maximum Strength page 14:
"When we look inside the muscles of powerlifters and Olympic weightlifters (especially lightweight competitors), we see a greater concentration of contractile proteins than we do in bodybuilders, but smaller amounts of all the other “junk” that increases endurance and cell volume. Since contractile proteins are much denser than the other junk, the muscles of strength athletes take on a dense look, while those bodybuilders look puffier.[/quote]
That sounds dangerously close to that “sarcoplasmic hypertrophy” nonsense. I have not seen to many bodybuilders in CONTEST SHAPE who have “puffy” muscles. Also, considering they will almost always have a lower body fat percentage than the powerlifter at a competition, that sounds more like bias than some scientific observation.