Strength Before Size? Why?

Training
121

The one thing I don’t see mentioned and that’s extremely relevant is the fact that there are 2 distinct types of hypertrophy. The type of training is directly related to the adaptation response from your body (i.e. the type of hypertrophy induced by the stress) although there would obviously be overlap betwen the two.

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Ther are two different types of muscular hypertrophy: sarcoplasmic and myofibrillar. During sarcoplasmic hypertrophy, the volume of sarcoplasmic fluid in the muscle cell increases with no accompanying increase in muscular strength. During myofibrillar hypertrophy, actin and myosin contractile proteins increase in number and add to muscular strength as well as a small increase in the size of the muscle.

Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy is characteristic of the muscles of certain bodybuilders while myofibrillar hypertrophy is characteristic of Olympic weightlifters. These two forms of adaptations rarely occur completely independently of one another, one can experience a large increase in fluid with a slight increase in proteins, a large increase in proteins with a small increase in fluid, or a relatively balanced combination of the two.

Strength training
Strength training typically produces a combination of the two different types of hypertrophy: contraction against 80 to 90% of the one repetition maximum for 2?6 repetitions (reps) causes myofibrillated hypertrophy to dominate (as in powerlifters, olympic lifters and strength athletes), while several repetitions (generally 8 ? 12 for bodybuilding or 12 or more for muscular endurance) against a sub-maximal load facilitates mainly sarcoplasmic hypertrophy (professional bodybuilders and endurance athletes). The first measurable effect is an increase in the neural drive stimulating muscle contraction.

Within just a few days, an untrained individual can achieve measurable strength gains resulting from “learning” to use the muscle. As the muscle continues to receive increased demands, the synthetic machinery is upregulated. Although all the steps are not yet clear, this upregulation appears to begin with the ubiquitous second messenger system (including phospholipases, protein kinase C, tyrosine kinase, and others). These, in turn, activate the family of immediate-early genes, including c-fos, c-jun and myc. These genes appear to dictate the contractile protein gene response.

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122

[quote]jskrabac wrote:
Can we just eliminate the words “size” and “strength” from all newbs’ vocabulary and replace it with the word “progress?” [/quote]

I found the least shitty post in the thread! I found it!

I know that everybody has different goals, and that’s totally cool, but some people seem to want only to get bigger and seem to think that any strength gains they make could have instead been size gains. I’m not saying that everybody needs to hit 400/300/500 before they start focusing on size, but if a 135 deadlift seems like a pipe dream, I would say that even size-oriented beginners (and yes, a sub-135 deadlift means you’re a beginner) should focus on bringing that up before they worry about that stubborn brachioradialis. It would be akin to a beginner guitarist working on sweep picking before he could play a G major.

If adding curls at the end of a session doesn’t impact recovery and makes the program more palatable, that’s fine. Some may argue that it’s a waste of time, but it probably isn’t a waste of recovery capacity.

And yeah, having somebody with a half-bodyweight squat do power cleans probably isn’t brilliant.

Basically, OP, the best program is the one that you stick with and the one that gets you to the gym.

By the way, I’m 6’3", 250 and total 3200 with 30" biceps, so I must be right.

123

[quote]MikeTheBear wrote:

[quote]countingbeans wrote:
When OP comes back with a block torso, no delts, and a 500lbs pull with 15" arms, YOU can help him. I’m fucking done. [/quote]

Seriously? Do you not know basic physiology?

Here’s a True or False quiz:

The triceps contribute to bench pressing.

The triceps contribute to overhead pressing.

The deltoids are used in both bench pressing and overhead pressing.

The biceps contribute to rows.

I should note here that Rippetoe’s program recommends both overhead pressing and rowing (for those who don’t power clean).

Show me a guy with a big bench, overhead press, and row who has skinny arms and no delts.

If 4 sets of curls will make you and the OP happy, that’s fine, throw in some curls. What he doesn’t need is a whole entire “arm day.”[/quote]

CT has written about the fact that your body does not necessarily engage it’s muscles equally during a compound lift. It lifts the bar in the most efficient way it can, which means the muscles that are the strongest/in the most advantageous position will get the most stimulus. That is why people actually train their arms for them to grow. Someone with long limbs may find the bench a great chest exercise, but a very shitty delt and triceps one (I’m in this group).

Also, ignoring entire muscle groups is a quick way to create weak points and slow down potential strength gains. Like a poster already said, ignoring triceps movements lead to his bench stalling at the point where the tri’s actually take over. When he added the tri exercises, his bench increased.

Why is it that everyone who supports/pushes the idea of “Do Rippetoes (or similar program) and don’t do isolation work” jumps to extremes when trying to reason their argument?

Who the hell is saying a newb should do tons of biceps exercises and ignore squats? Why do the proponents of Rippetoes so often think that a bodybuilding routine has “tons of isolation exercises on machines”?

Maybe I’m a dumbass, but I just cannot understand how ignoring muscle groups can lead to optimal growth, especially if gaining size is the priority. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Common sense would thus dictate that a beginner should train everything.

124

Squats are indirect leg work. Just food for thought.

125

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
Squats are indirect leg work. Just food for thought.[/quote]

lol

elaborate.

126

[quote]Terrax wrote:

CT has written about the fact that your body does not necessarily engage it’s muscles equally during a compound lift. It lifts the bar in the most efficient way it can, which means the muscles that are the strongest/in the most advantageous position will get the most stimulus. That is why people actually train their arms for them to grow. Someone with long limbs may find the bench a great chest exercise, but a very shitty delt and triceps one (I’m in this group).

Also, ignoring entire muscle groups is a quick way to create weak points and slow down potential strength gains. Like a poster already said, ignoring triceps movements lead to his bench stalling at the point where the tri’s actually take over. When he added the tri exercises, his bench increased.

Why is it that everyone who supports/pushes the idea of “Do Rippetoes (or similar program) and don’t do isolation work” jumps to extremes when trying to reason their argument?

Who the hell is saying a newb should do tons of biceps exercises and ignore squats? Why do the proponents of Rippetoes so often think that a bodybuilding routine has “tons of isolation exercises on machines”?

Maybe I’m a dumbass, but I just cannot understand how ignoring muscle groups can lead to optimal growth, especially if gaining size is the priority. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Common sense would thus dictate that a beginner should train everything.[/quote]

Dude, get out of here with this common sense and solid reason.

Here is the thing, it doesn’t fucking matter. All the people talking about avoiding entire muscle groups in this thread WON’T be here to help the kids that come back and look like blocks with twig arms, or with major shoulder problems due to imbalances, or elbow problems, etc etc etc.

Whoever a newb listens to, there is a 90% chance he is going to quit anyway. Out of the other 10%, half will just plug along like retards and never make substancial progress, the other half will understand your post on thier own by the time they fix the hole they dug themselves listening to crazy talk.

127

[quote]Terrax wrote:

CT has written about the fact that your body does not necessarily engage it’s muscles equally during a compound lift. It lifts the bar in the most efficient way it can, which means the muscles that are the strongest/in the most advantageous position will get the most stimulus. [/quote]

Yes. That is why form is so important. The body only lifts the bar in the most efficient way it can if you let it. Actually I’m not sure ‘efficiency’ is the correct term here, but I’m pretty sure I get what you are saying.

For instance, the body often wants to round the lumbar spine when deadlifting. People find it easier to lift the weight that way. That isn’t the way to train the exercise, however. We consider rounding the back (when training rather than max efforting) to be bad form. In this case because of injury.

The body also often wants to start the deadlift with a high hipped position in order to deload the legs. Most people want to use hip hinge with a lot of back rather than knee extension for the first part of the movement. If you deadlift without knee extension then deadlifts won’t train your legs the way they would if you forced yourself to use leg extension / sucked it up and reduced the weights so your body was able to train leg extension.

I suppose we can say that bodybuilders typically care about the mind-muscle connection with respect to properly activating various muscle groups. I suppose we can say that powerlifters typically care about moving the weight already no matter how it is moved. But of course the truth lies in the middle. Using the correct muscle groups gives you the advantages of training those muscle groups which will in fact enable you to move more weight at the end of the day.

If it is one problem that I have with suggesting a starting strength type program for beginners it is that they won’t have the exercise technique down very well while they are trying to make linear progressions on it. If you have a coach on site to keep you honest then that is well and good. I do worry a little about it for those who don’t, though. Which is why I tend to recommend stronglifts rather than starting strength… A poorly executed row doesn’t make my eyes bleed quite the way a poorly executed powerclean does…

128

With the properly executed compound movements…

I thought the idea was that they were good exercises precisely because they should recruit things basically how they should be recruited…

I mean… Glutes and hammies are bigger muscle groups. They do most of the work. Calves and spinal erectors a bit less so. Ditto for biceps and forearms. What muscle doesn’t a deadlift work? Chest?

I think there are problems with either / or thinking. And with ‘bodybuilders train like this…’ and ‘powerlifters train like this…’ I think we have a lot to learn from different training styles.

For me a big deal was chin-ups. I really really wanted to be able to do one (I am a girl so it is a bit harder for me).

Two broadly different schools of thought:

  1. Pull your ass over that bar no matter how you do it!
  2. Lighten up the load and really get the hang of contracting your lats hard to pull your elbows down!

I did both. Sometimes start with 2 for activation (but couldn’t really use it for 1 since the muscles weren’t strong enough). Sometimes start with 1 then move to 2 (to make sure my lats actually got trained).

Not sure that I would have progressed as fast if I’d just have stuck to one strategy.

Similarly when I’m doing my compound movements I often find that something isn’t pulling its weight. Can do a couple sets of activation exercises for whatever isn’t doing its job to get things working properly. Often have to reduce the weight and really focus on proper activation / movement.

Focusing on parts to the exclusion of movements won’t help you co-ordinate your muscular recruitment on movements.
But focusing on movements to the exclusion of parts won’t help you co-ordinate your muscular recruitment on movements either.

Sure there are differences in bodybuilding vs strength training… But aren’t there more similarities really? Especially for beginners??

  1. Learn to recruit your muscles properly.
  2. Learn the basic movements.

In no particular order…

129

Show me the kid with the sick back - but twig arms. Here’s the thing, that mythical creature you have invented for the sake of your argument doesn’t exist.

And you argue is that if you’ve squatted, done some rows, some weighted-chins, well now you must have energy/the capacity to recover for some curls. Well what if you fucking don’t? What if you have x amount of potential and you use it ALL - you throw it all at the deadlifts, rows, and chins, would it be better to go easy on the chins to save yourself for some curls?

130

Anyway I think the important point here is that the OP wants to continue making gains. He didn’t say, ‘oh shit I’ve got this massively well developed back, but no biceps’. Chances are its his back that needs to grow the most. And anyone who’s lifted weights knows the back is a stubborn area. Whereas the biceps, for most people, are easy to improve on. The mind muscle connection is very strong, and the arms can be pumped easily.

It basically comes down the the difference between the guy who regularly blasts his trophy triceps/biceps and the man who has been training big lifts for some time - one has big arms, and the other looks STRONG. I guess the message here is ‘less is sometimes more’. A man with arms in proportion to his back will always look strong and big.

131

Oh my god, kid, you are little and weak as shit. And that’s okay, everyone starts somewhere. But assuming you’re not a troll (I think you are), How exactly do you propose you get bigger without getting fucking stronger? Do you SERIOUSLY believe you will get substantially more muscular while deadlifting under 100 damn lbs? Stop this over-analyzing bullshit, eat some food, focus on adding weight to the bar each session, repeat…for a couple years. The most important, basic fundamentals of making progress WAY above and beyond most people are SIMPLE, but not EASY.

132

[quote]yarni wrote:
, that mythical creature you have invented for the sake of your argument doesn’t exist. [/quote]

So I don’t exist? You’re assuming you have a clue as to what you’re talking abotu and you don’t.?

Have you read anything I wrote? [i]I[/i] am the example I have been using, and you are now the third person to say it isn’t possible. Guess what, you all are wrong. You’ve drank the cool-ade and read way too many books. Sorry that real life trumps an internet article, but it does.

You forgot to address the massive imbalance issues you are setting up for someone. Care to do that?

Then you are a pussy or have larger problems than whether you should curl or not.

Again, if someone can’t recover from or doesn’t have the energy to do 4-6 fucking sets of curls a week, they are either being a pussy, or have some sort of medical issue that needs addressing.

[quote] What if you have x amount of potential and you use it ALL - you throw it all at the deadlifts, rows, and chins, would it be better to go easy on the chins to save yourself for some curls?

[/quote]

YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT FUCKING CURLS! We are not talking about saving yourself for reverse band deadlifts at 220% of max here. We are talking about fucking 4 sets of curls after you squat. If you have to back off any major compound, as a newb or intermediate, in order to do 30 fucking reps of curls with a fucking dumbbell at the end of your workout then you sure as shit arent’ destined to have a big total or a good looking body.

I can not believe reasonable adults actually think: Squat 3 times a week while adding 5-15lbs to your 5RM each week? Easy to recover, stop being a pussy. Curl for 6 sets a week? Nope, no fucking way you can recover from that, shit what are you superman?

This place is a joke lately.

133

[quote]yarni wrote:
It basically comes down the the difference between the guy who regularly blasts his trophy triceps/biceps and the man who has been training big lifts for some time - one has big arms, and the other looks STRONG. I guess the message here is ‘less is sometimes more’. A man with arms in proportion to his back will always look strong and big. [/quote]

jesus h christ.

For the 400,000th time:

No one here is saying to place more emphasis on curls and tricep extensions than squats and deads, no one, ever.

All we are saying, is after your 600th squat session of the week, if you are concerned about your appearance, a couple sets of curls and lateral raises can’t hurt you. If fact, curls and rear delt work might just save you from shoulder and elbow problems in the future…

Is that really that hard to understand? Is teh curl that fucking evil to you that someone literally can’t fathom tossing them in at the end of a workout?

134

[quote]kaisermetal wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
Squats are indirect leg work. Just food for thought.[/quote]

lol

elaborate.[/quote]

The direct vs indirect thing is stupid.

If you want to grow a body part and an exercise grows that body part, do it. If the exercise isn’t hitting what you want it to, find something else.

Worrying about if an exercise is “direct” or not is dumber than worrying if it’s “functional”.

Like I said, squatting is indirect work for your legs, but no one is going to claim you can’t get big quads from squatting.

Start with the basics, keep going with what works, replace what doesn’t. All the other criteria for getting rid of or adding exercises are pointless.

135

[quote]countingbeans wrote:
YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT FUCKING CURLS! We are not talking about saving yourself for reverse band deadlifts at 220% of max here. We are talking about fucking 4 sets of curls after you squat. If you have to back off any major compound, as a newb or intermediate, in order to do 30 fucking reps of curls with a fucking dumbbell at the end of your workout then you sure as shit arent’ destined to have a big total or a good looking body.[/quote]

LOL

Ah, I remember the newbie days here on T-Nation of me trying to convince those “stupid” big bodybuilders that they’re doing it all wrong.

I remember having just discovered the merits of heavy compound movements (ranting on about them 24/7) and thinking that anyone not doing the squat/DL/row etc 3 times a week was somehow neglecting the basics and being a pussy.

Partly it’s to do with the splits (aside from certain over-analysing authors trying to make bodybuilding “functional”). Most people who recommend the heavy basics at the expense of other bodyparts can’t seem to get around the fact that your split determines how many exercises you can do per session and that you can hit bodyparts reasonably frequently (with not too much volume) as a newbie doing a “bodybuilding split” gasp!!!

The “go for the absolute basics” crowd can’t seem to get it into their head that training arms/delts/lats etc more directly doesn’t = this…

Mon:
Barbell Rows
Bench press
Pullups
Shoulder press
Incline press
Chinup
Side laterals
Tricep extensions
Barbell curls
Tricep pushdowns
Dumbell curls

Wed:
Squat
Deadlift
Leg press
Hack squat
Leg extensions
Leg curls
Standing calf raises
Seated calf raises

Fri:
Same retarded workout as Monday

Of course you couldn’t manage that ^ LOL

This is why bodybuilders SPLIT things up! But somehow the basic 3 or 4 way split done 4-6 times a week doesn’t pop into their heads even though the bodypart frequency is high enough for newbies and weekly volume is not extreme.

136

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]yarni wrote:
It basically comes down the the difference between the guy who regularly blasts his trophy triceps/biceps and the man who has been training big lifts for some time - one has big arms, and the other looks STRONG. I guess the message here is ‘less is sometimes more’. A man with arms in proportion to his back will always look strong and big. [/quote]

jesus h christ.

For the 400,000th time:

No one here is saying to place more emphasis on curls and tricep extensions than squats and deads, no one, ever.

All we are saying, is after your 600th squat session of the week, if you are concerned about your appearance, a couple sets of curls and lateral raises can’t hurt you. If fact, curls and rear delt work might just save you from shoulder and elbow problems in the future…

Is that really that hard to understand? Is teh curl that fucking evil to you that someone literally can’t fathom tossing them in at the end of a workout? [/quote]

My point is that if a person really wants to get and look bigger, they will probably need to start training their back so that it is proportionally sized to their arms. Luckly, most exercises which hit the back involve using the arms to hold the weight. Chin-ups, deadlifts, overhead pressing, etc, are great exercises for strengthening and growing the back/shoulder muscles, but if you manage to successfully progress in getting stronger in the lifts, although they’re not arm focused movements, the arms will have to grow also. This, for a novice lifter, is optimal because the emphasis is on building the back (or more generally big neglected muscles: glutes, hamstrings, etc). The back (or shall we say posterior chain) should be proportionally stronger than the arms, and in a novice lifter the ratio is normally way off. Performing curls (although no one will argue that bigger arms is a BAD thing) is doing nothing but pushing the ratio even further out. Perform, for instance, weighted chinups and you get a good bicep session WHILE building the rear delts/upper back.

Now of course some people are just genetically bigger. Some people naturally have big backs. My points above are concerned with the typical pencil-necked individual who decides to lift weights to get bigger (his biceps are among the last of his concerns).

And of course curls aren’t evil, the question here is are they NECESSARY? And as for injury prevention, that’s not a valid point. Specific mobility work (for instance) does the same job (and better). And if someone wants to lift high-rep lightweight curls I support that. It wont impact recovery. And please dont tell me you think heavy curls are good for injury prevention? I would say curling near-max/max weights is close to encouraging injury.

137

[quote]yarni wrote:
My point is that if a person really wants to get and look bigger, they will probably need to start training their back so that it is proportionally sized to their arms.[/quote]
Now you’re just making stuff up. Why would noobs have great arms and shitty backs?

Now you’re just making stuff up. Why would they have strong arms and weak backs?

And a few sets of curls after this is a bad idea because…?

To build big and strong arms quickly, yes.

Now you’re just making stuff up. Apples and oranges. Mobility work will do nothing to make my biceps strong enough to not tear when I do deadlifts.

[quote]And if someone wants to lift high-rep lightweight curls I support that. It wont impact recovery. And please dont tell me you think heavy curls are good for injury prevention? I would say curling near-max/max weights is close to encouraging injury.
[/quote]
Were you assuming that beans was recommending curl singles?

Playing catch up because you neglected body parts for years FUCKING SUCKS, there’s not other way to describe it. Do you really think I shouldn’t have done curls?
[photo]34269[/photo]

138

[quote]yarni wrote:
but if you manage to successfully progress in getting stronger in the lifts, although they’re not arm focused movements, the arms will have to grow also.[/quote]

No, they don’t HAVE to grow also. Again, for the 600th time, the shit you have been reading in articles is, in fact, shit. That isn’t going to be true, and I’ve seen quite a few people on here that, like ME, didn’t get shit for arm growth until we started training them like everything else.

Yeah, no shit. I’ve been saying the same thing. They fact that you don’t understand that is because you are so stuck on dogma you can’t bring yourself to admit it.

Doing arm work doesn’t prevent this from happening. That is where you get your head twisted up.

You need, along with quite a few people in this thread, to un-drink the Kool-aide man.

Assuming what you are claiming here is true, I don’t believe it is, but lets assume it is for a second…

To be honest this above sounds borderline retarded, because I’ve never seen anyone that can curl a weight that they can’t pick up, but…

So, let me get this straight:

a) You claim back work, things like weighted chins, are good enough stimulus to grow the arms and make them strong.
b) You claim most novice lifters have stronger arms than backs
c) You claim the curl will make that ratio worse, and shoudl be avoided for things like weighted chins, which in A you said were as effective as curls at making the arms strong and big.

hmmmm

So according to you, as long as you condone the exercise it is cool, and won’t fuck up the ratio, but if you don’t it won’t hurt it?

Why, because you get to dictate to him what his goals are?

Getting bigger all over includes the arms.

Mobility work will prevent injury caused from muscle imbalance?

This is the most moronic bullshit I’ve ever read. I swear to christ you have to be joking here. You are honestly, with a straight face, going to try and tell me that mobility work will prevent imbalance injury?

My shoulders used to ache after pressing, they were sensitive and I had to be very careful with them. Then, I stopped ignoring my rear delts because I stopped listening to the ignore muscle groups crowd, and guess what, when my rear delts started getting stronger and bigger, my shoulders stopped hurting.

Your dumb ass would have me doing “mobility work” and I’d be having surgery next week.

Got to be fucking kidding me…

Okay, so someone is going to struggle recovering from curls in your world, but have plenty of time and energy to do mounds of mobility work to make up for the handful of imbalance issues they are creating ignoring muscle groups?

Stupid statement is stupid.

[quote] And please dont tell me you think heavy curls are good for injury prevention? I would say curling near-max/max weights is close to encouraging injury.
[/quote]

A) At this point, you know as well as I do, that you aren’t smart enough to play the “let me twist your words to win an argument” game. So don’t even try.

B) Who the fuck ever said to do triples and doubles on curls? News Flash, you CAN get stronger in the 8-12 rep range. It is possible.

C) A curl is no more likely to injury someone than squatting and pulling their 5 rep max 382 times a month.

139

I can’t seem to find a good pic of someone beating a dead horse…

140

I think it’s funny when people talk about curls and front raises “interfering” with recovery on your “main lifts.”

About two months ago I started training isolation work for the very first time. In addition to adding size to my arms and delts, I also saw a spike in my overhead press and bench press.

So yes, it interfered with my compound lifts…in a very nice way =)