[quote]peetpeew wrote:
So the thing that confuses me the most is how I am eating at maintenance and I haven’t lost any fat, or gained much fat or muscle but I am getting stronger. I guess I hadn’t really reached the “heavy” weights until the last 10 days or so as I started off very light and that makes sense.[/quote]
Since no one addressed this, I thought I’d help.
Keep in mind, moving more weights is not necessarily an indication of increased strength. In many cases, especially with beginners, it’s an indication of increased SKILL or proficiency at lifting weights.
Lets talk boxing for a second. If you walked into a boxing gym totally untrained and were told to throw a punch, it would most likely be pretty pathetic. In just 1 hour of training, a competent couch could exponentially increase your punching power. Even though the output is “punch harder”, no one would reasonably believe that, in just 1 hour, the coach made you STRONGER. He simply made you BETTER. He trained you how to use your legs and hips to throw your weight into the punch.
It’s the same with lifting. When you first train a movement, your body is uncoordinated and doesn’t know how to most effectively and efficiently perform the movement. With more practice, your body gets better at the movement, which results in more weight lifted. However, rapid increases in weight moved can usually only be accomplished by rapidly improved skill, as strength is simply a quality that takes a long time to build. Most “newbie gains” are simply rapidly developing the skillset necessary to effectively perform a movement, and when newbie gains are exhausted, it’s at this point that STRENGTH starts getting developed (which, consequently, is when it becomes necessary to start grinding some reps and struggling).
This is why you can see rapid improvements in weight lifted with minimal change in body comp. You didn’t necessarily become stronger, you simply became better at using the strength already available to you.
