Stength/Power Without Size

You definitely can do this, and your training makes a big difference. It’s not completely dictated by just how much you eat. You still need to eat well. It’s more dictated by whether you’re doing training for power or hypertrophy. And of course, how much cardio your doing.

If you’re playing a lot of basketball in addition to your weighttraining, you will not gain too much size anyway because of all the cardio involved in basketball.

There are tons of athletes who want to do exactly this. Wrestlers, gymnasts, runners. I know this happend for me training for track. I added a lot of strength and power, only 10 lbs of bodyweight in college, and my speed and flexibility all increased. And that didn’t even affect my size too much because a lot of my weight was just some denser muscles. I didn’t even change a jacket size or anything.

One thing that is very important to do during all this training is to maintain your flexibility and mobility. Aside from the weightclass issue, a main reason most people want strength and not size is because they don’t want to lose flexbility and be less mobile.

Also, there’s a perception that the heavier weight will slow people down. This is not true if you are doing the right exercises. If you’re doing full body exercises like squats, deadlifts, and Olympics, then any muscle weight you gain is also going to be muscle weight that will increase your speed above your gained weight.

This is because your weight gain will be in muscles aiding in moving your body, like hips, thigs, core, etc. If you go into the gym and only do arms and upper body, then yes, that might slow you down on the basketball court if you become top heavy.

So don’t shy away from weight training. You definitely still need strength. With a lot of basketball playing though, you’re not going to put on much weight at all. Just make sure your weighttraining is full body and strength/power based.

Brian Schwabb competed in the 148 weight division and squatted 687, benched 503 and pulled 600.

He now competes in the 165s and hit 771, 551, 628. So you can get strong as hell without getting much bigger, it all depends on how you train.

[quote]jtrinsey wrote:
Airtruth wrote:
tGunslinger wrote:
Airtruth wrote:
6 feet? get the fuck outta here.

" = inches.
’ = feet.

ex. I am 6’2" tall.

congratulations, keep it up you might be to 6 feet in 5 years.

What???
[/quote]

I am congratulating him on a 6"inch increase in his vertical which is a very noticable increase, and wishing him the best luck and never give up until he reaches a 6 foot vertical leap.

Keep in mind more than likely while trying to attain a decent increase you will be limiting your time developing your skills as a basketball player and people with a lot less athletecisim will be busting your ass

[quote]Airtruth wrote:
jtrinsey wrote:
Airtruth wrote:
tGunslinger wrote:
Airtruth wrote:
6 feet? get the fuck outta here.

" = inches.
’ = feet.

ex. I am 6’2" tall.

congratulations, keep it up you might be to 6 feet in 5 years.

What???

I am congratulating him on a 6"inch increase in his vertical which is a very noticable increase, and wishing him the best luck and never give up until he reaches a 6 foot vertical leap.

[/quote]

I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about here.

It seemed like you misread jtrinsey’s post a while back, mistaking 6" (six inches) for 6’ (six feet).

You lost me when you went on this tangent.

thanks again guys.

is westside for skinny bastards 2 really a good strength/power based program. (i’m on it right now and its been working, i can do 225 right now with little added size)

however, i wanna know your opinion on this program and if its a good strength based program?

this is kinda off topic but i didnt wanna make another topic:

on the days im not weight training but just running how should i change my diet, or do i even change it at all? (im on the t-dawg diet)…?

[quote]kobe4life08 wrote:
Hey guys this has been bothering for a while now.

i want to gain strength without gaining size. is that possible? some say it is and some say it isnt. ive seen people do it but i dont know whats the background info on it? do you have to increase relative strength for this to occur? ive seen smaller guys than me do more weight, so it seems like its possible…? how do you increase strength/power without gaining size/mass?[/quote]

Heavy lifting-easy eating over the long haul.