Strength = Size?

Bicep_craze · July 19, 2009, 3:11pm

the fuck guys? Whatever works for ya. I like chocolate.

winkroar3 · July 19, 2009, 3:40pm

[quote]younggully wrote:
Just a thought, If you trained hard and heavy but didn’t eat enough quality foods ie protein etc. You wouldn’t get the results from your efforts right? So somebody that’s naturally strong and didn’t eat to be big wouldn’t get big right, just asking.[/quote]

Or look at it another way. Training for bulk but eating a high protein, low fat diet.

Nominal_Prospect · July 20, 2009, 12:06am

[quote]dankid wrote:
I agree with a part of what you said. But I also STRONGLY disagree with a few things.

-What do you mean by maximizing leverage?
-And if someone goes from benching 200 to benching 300 this isn’t from a sublte improvement in technique.
-And if someone goes from weighing 180lbs to weighing 200lbs, this isn’t JUST fluid. Sure it is primarily fluid, but there still is contractile hypertrophy.

So neurological strength gains, and myofibril hypertrophy are NOT rare.
[/quote]

In both cases, it depends how they got there. And significantly, how long it took them.

Anyone who has run a quick and dirty oral AAS cycle can attest to just how much fluid hypertrophy can contribute to size and weight gains.
And so can anyone who has ever gone on a strict carb elimination diet after eating junk food for a long time. It’s not uncommon for people to gain or lose 20-30 lbs. in weeks under such circumstances.

I don’t want to sit here and tell you that contractile hypertrophy and neurological (i.e. “true strength”) gains don’t exist, because I think they do, only that most people misunderstand them and fail to grasp the amount of effort it takes to bring about these phenomena.

Now, here’s Arthur Jones in 1986:

1:20 - 2:15

Equipment and leverages are a huge part of powerlifting. Lifters who learn this too early often wind up fat and weak. Lifters who learn this too late wind up playing catch-up as they lose to lifters who are more technically proficient, but not as strong. As is the case with many things in life, you need to find a happy medium. -EC

Also watch Dave Tate’s videos on this site where he claims that he can put 50-70 lbs. on most people’s benches just by fixing their technique in one day.

GluteusGigantis · July 20, 2009, 2:19am

Wow, go away for work for a week and come back to a thread like this.

Good bullshit being spouted in here, neurological and myofibril hypertrophy being treated like some rare phenomenon, LOL…(sighs)

dankid · July 20, 2009, 3:50am

[quote]Nominal Prospect wrote:
dankid wrote:
I agree with a part of what you said. But I also STRONGLY disagree with a few things.

-What do you mean by maximizing leverage?
-And if someone goes from benching 200 to benching 300 this isn’t from a sublte improvement in technique.
-And if someone goes from weighing 180lbs to weighing 200lbs, this isn’t JUST fluid. Sure it is primarily fluid, but there still is contractile hypertrophy.

So neurological strength gains, and myofibril hypertrophy are NOT rare.

In both cases, it depends how they got there. And significantly, how long it took them.

Anyone who has run a quick and dirty oral AAS cycle can attest to just how much fluid hypertrophy can contribute to size and weight gains.
And so can anyone who has ever gone on a strict carb elimination diet after eating junk food for a long time. It’s not uncommon for people to gain or lose 20-30 lbs. in weeks under such circumstances.

I don’t want to sit here and tell you that contractile hypertrophy and neurological (i.e. “true strength”) gains don’t exist, because I think they do, only that most people misunderstand them and fail to grasp the amount of effort it takes to bring about these phenomena.

Now, here’s Arthur Jones in 1986:

1:20 - 2:15

Equipment and leverages are a huge part of powerlifting. Lifters who learn this too early often wind up fat and weak. Lifters who learn this too late wind up playing catch-up as they lose to lifters who are more technically proficient, but not as strong. As is the case with many things in life, you need to find a happy medium. -EC

Also watch Dave Tate’s videos on this site where he claims that he can put 50-70 lbs. on most people’s benches just by fixing their technique in one day.[/quote]

Ya, but there is a big difference between some moron (with horrible technique) going from 150 to a 200 lb bench and a “serious trainer” (with good technique) going from 200 to 300. Not to mention that changes in technique and motor program ARE a part of neural changes anyways.

As for “fluid hypertrophy” I agree that people greatly underestimate its extent. As I said somewhere else, it makes up something like 70% of muscle gain. And you see people who go on diets like the v-diet and claim to have started losing muscle, when they were really experiencing temporary “fluid muscle” loss.

But to say that neural strength gains and contractile hypertrophy are “rare” IS JUST PLAIN WRONG.

Otherwise, what you are saying is that there is NO CORRELATION whatsoever between strength and size. Basically Dave Tate could take a a 140lb guy and a 250lb guy, and coach them on bench, and they’d both do about the same weight. (Because according to you, most of the 250lb guy’s muscle is just “unfunctional” fluid.)

Nominal_Prospect · July 20, 2009, 8:09am

But you must know that it would take years for a serious trainer to add 100 lbs. to any lift by way of strength gains.
Dave Tate said exactly the same thing in his benching tutorial video.

Of course, if someone only benches 200 lbs, they probably aren’t very serious about benching.

Now, perhaps the type of gains I mentioned aren’t quite “rare” but they certainly aren’t as common as people think. How’s that?

There are correlations between size and strength but any statements made in this domain must be qualified due to the ambiguity of the concept of “strength” in the first place. The problem, you see, is that no one knows what “strength” is, for there is no such thing as “pure strength”. People only know the quality when they see it applied to specific tasks. You can’t just say someone is “strong” without citing his performance in some lift. And that raises the dilemma of having to account for factors such as leverage and technique. Not to mention, how to judge the “overall strength” of individuals who compete in different lifts? Fundamentally, you can’t.

Basically, the concept of strength as it is used in common parlance has very little to do with the force generation capacity of a human individual, which is the theoretical definition of strength.

The vast majority of the people who use the term on a regular basis have no idea what they’re talking about.

Lifting progressively heavier weights is not necessarily an indication of strength increases.

You may think I’m being pedantic, but I’m not. Assumptions are the mother of all fuck-ups. If a 16 year old kid increases his squat from 250 to 300, is it because he’s improved his maximal force generation capacity or is he simply using reduced ROM? More likely than not, it’s the latter. There are so many variables to consider when dealing with “strength” that the entire concept is basically a spook.

However, most individuals who specialize in “strength” have thick skulls and aren’t too keen on subtlety.

Ergo, fatboys love powerlifting because “they just want to lift heavy shit”. And they call their ability to do that, “strength”.

Nominal_Prospect · July 20, 2009, 8:27am

[quote]dankid wrote:
Basically Dave Tate could take a a 140lb guy and a 250lb guy, and coach them on bench, and they’d both do about the same weight. (Because according to you, most of the 250lb guy’s muscle is just “unfunctional” fluid.)[/quote]

Forgot to address this. I wouldn’t necessarily say that’s true, because non-functional mass still contributes to leverage advantages, whether it’s fluid or adipose tissue. Weight lifters know that anything you can do to reduce your active ROM is going to make the lift easier.

Hence, the running gag about powerlifters “training” at Krisky Kreme.

That’s why fat guys can almost always put up more weight (note that I didn’t call them “stronger”) than slim guys, regardless of whether they have any muscle on them.

Gregus · July 20, 2009, 10:27am

No fluid in the muscle adds a great deal of strength. So loosing it will result in a short term strength loss.

Some people are also genetically gifted and store fat in their muscles as well. Those individuals can gain muscle very easily by training and eating alot of good food. Their bulks are more effective because of this too. They partition their nutrients differently. That has ALOT to do with how people respond.

Bodybuilding, even though i love it, is a cosmetic sport. Some guys are born looking like BB or respond to training right away. Those are the natural born BB. Yes they work hard and all that but it’s still their Genetics for appearance that make them what they are.

Like women being born models. No wide hipped naturally fat chick is going to be a cindy crawford no matter how much she diets or workouts she tires. The same analogy applies to men in BB.

dankid · July 20, 2009, 6:01pm

[quote]Nominal Prospect wrote:
But you must know that it would take years for a serious trainer to add 100 lbs. to any lift by way of strength gains.
Dave Tate said exactly the same thing in his benching tutorial video.