Mass and Strength Relative to Bodyweight

Training
21

[quote]mastero wrote:

[quote]flipcollar wrote:

[quote]mastero wrote:
Thanks for your input flipcollar,

Naturally the ideal body composition is different between types of athletes. I’m referring specifically to athletes that would be interested in a high 1RM strength in lifts compared to their bodyweight. For example, in my country “fitness” competitions are common, part of which is bodyweight max repetitions for different exercises.

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Just a couple things:

A high 1rm max does not necessarily correspond particularly closely with the ability to perform max reps on various exercises, even when bodyweight and height are similar. You’re good at what you practice. I’ll give you an example. There’s a guy on here who goes by CSulli who is very close to the same height and weight as me.

He also has similar 1rm’s to me in squat, deadlift, bench press, and weighted pull up. Yet he’s capable of doing 100 pull ups a day with relative ease, and I’ve never done more than 50 in a day. And I can only do that a couple times a week. Hell, my 1rm’s in the big 3 are comparable to many of the top Crossfit athletes, and yet those guys can absolutely destroy me in anything done for high reps.

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Agreed, I do think it corresponds to potential of doing max reps, however, with a small amount of adaptation. While I’ve seen plenty of people with high 1RM that can’t do lots of reps, I haven’t seen one that can do lots of reps but doesn’t have a high 1RM. Working capacity for stuff like pull-ups comes quickly, which is why people see some success with programs like GTG / Armstrong.
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It corresponds, but only loosely. And this is also dependent on how much below the 1rm we’re talking about. My squat max is probably around 470, and I’ve done 315x20. If I competed against someone who can only squat, say, 350, I would certainly win a rep contest at 315, and probably down well below that (maybe down to about 225 with relative certainty). There’s a threshold though (and I don’t know where it is), where conditioning FAR outweighs 1rm. I do not believe I would hold any true advantage if the challenge was unloaded squats for reps. At that point, our difference in 1rm is largely irrelevant.

22

[quote]Ecchastang wrote:
But look at sprinters. They really only work their legs, but most have well developed shoulders and arms as well.[/quote]

The rest of your posts in this thread are very informative and well-written so I don’t mean to nitpick but I would like to clear this up for anyone looking at this. I didn’t sprint at a high level (only 4 years of varsity for 100m in high school at a mid-level school) so I am not elite by any means but we strength trained the whole body along with plyometrics. A lot of force is generated from the upper body during sprinting and that will often be the difference in between two guys with similar leg strength/explosiveness. Upper body strength/power is to sprinting what lockout strength is to the squat, bench or dead.

EDIT: also went to camps/seminars with experienced coaches who talked about training philosophy/technique and upper body training is done at all levels of sprinting, not just our school. sorry, forgot to add

23

[quote]Steel Nation wrote:
The weight of a muscle is not proportional to the cube of its cross-sectional radius. The third dimension you’re looking for is length, which does not change.

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I agree with the above - length comes out of the “cube” as a constant and doesn’t play the kind of direct factor that was implied.

The original post was kind of like saying a heavier vehicle should always be slower than a lighter one. There’s a hell of a lot more going on in any “performance” system than just size and weight.

Specifically though, the cross section area vs. volume argument doesn’t work well when we consider that different muscle density is a thing, and that muscle isn’t made out of one perfectly pure, well-ordered thing (like steel) which allows all the inconvenient shit to be ignored when sticking it into a math equation like that. A group of muscle fibers/filaments with a bunch of extracellular fluid and circulatory system elements in between probably doesn’t scale nice and uniformly with size.

Hell, even within one person, flexing vs. not, the cross sectional area of different parts of each muscle will appear to change, while the total volume “shouldn’t”. Do I temporarily get stronger relative to my mass when I flex my quads, just because the math says I do? This kind of math would only hold up when all other things are kept equal, and it says nothing about how leverages improve as a person gets larger, either.

It’s one thing to try to show “on paper” that there’s a relationship between size and relative strength and that being heavier isn’t always better depending on the movement (which is obvious), but the OP’s model isn’t a great one.

But that’s just like, my opinion.

24

[quote]mastero wrote:
Chris,

Sorry if the math scares you, its purpose is to show you that the function is concave. If the written text illustrated that point well enough, ignore the math.

I’ll remind you that the original post is about the relative strength of an athlete, i.e. for a certain height, at what point of muscle mass will your relative strength decrease from additional mass? It’s not about making a weight class, that’s a different question.

For example, I’m a runner. Obviously additional muscle mass is detrimental to my performance. That’s not the question. The question is, would my strength relative to my bodyweight increase if my muscle mass increased?

I’m not sure why you’re interested in my personal motives for asking the question, perhaps it’s your way to try to attain value (by ad hominem attacks against the posts of others), but I have nothing against telling you. It goes something like:

  1. General theoretical interest into the workings of nature
  2. I saw a tall and heavy guy do loads of pull-ups and questioned conventional wisdom that there is a great advantage being short and light for bodyweight movements
  3. I like gymnastics and bodyweight movements such as pull-ups

Do you have any observations to add to the discussion? E.g. answers (in context) to questions in my OP.[/quote]

There is a great advantage to being short-limbed and light weight for doing bodyweight movements. I don’t understand how this can be debated . . .