What's Wrong, Not BIG!!

Training Bodybuilding
61

[quote]jsbrook wrote:
WeaponXXX wrote:

Also i said that size doesn’t always mean strength, because there are a lot of small guys out there that can lift 10 times heavier than the big guys.

VERY rarely. With that particular exagerration, probably not at all. But as for your general point, VERY rarely. For every Eric Cressey, there’s 1000 small guys who can only put up small weights. And for every big guy who’s put on solid size and miraculously has never gotten strong, there’s 1000 who are putting up big weights. I don’t know where you’re getting your information. Probably the anomalous cases that make the news because the ARE news because they are RARE.

If you did train at a gym around a lot of other people, you would not see very many big guys struggling to bench 200 and you’d find very few, if any, small guys benching 400. And if you shadowned any serious lifter whose gained good size throughout weeks and micro and macrocycles, you’d probably see that they do a mixture of very heavy, high-weight, low rep training, and lower-weight, higher rep work.[/quote]

‘For every Eric Cressey, there’s 1000 small guys who can only put up small weights. And for every big guy who’s put on solid size and miraculously has never gotten strong, there’s 1000 who are putting up big weights’

where did you get this information from?

62

[quote]WeaponXXX wrote:
jsbrook wrote:
WeaponXXX wrote:

Also i said that size doesn’t always mean strength, because there are a lot of small guys out there that can lift 10 times heavier than the big guys.

VERY rarely. With that particular exagerration, probably not at all. But as for your general point, VERY rarely. For every Eric Cressey, there’s 1000 small guys who can only put up small weights. And for every big guy who’s put on solid size and miraculously has never gotten strong, there’s 1000 who are putting up big weights. I don’t know where you’re getting your information. Probably the anomalous cases that make the news because the ARE news because they are RARE.

If you did train at a gym around a lot of other people, you would not see very many big guys struggling to bench 200 and you’d find very few, if any, small guys benching 400. And if you shadowned any serious lifter whose gained good size throughout weeks and micro and macrocycles, you’d probably see that they do a mixture of very heavy, high-weight, low rep training, and lower-weight, higher rep work.

‘For every Eric Cressey, there’s 1000 small guys who can only put up small weights. And for every big guy who’s put on solid size and miraculously has never gotten strong, there’s 1000 who are putting up big weights’

where did you get this information from?

[/quote]

Actually training at the gym. And seeing almost no small guys lifting big weights. Seeing almost all big guys lifting real weight. Competing as an athlete at a high level for years and seeing what kind of weight all my teamates of different sizes were putting up.

Eric Cressey being talked about as the anomaly and being in the very elite level, meaning 99.9% of people in his weight class aren’t putting up that kind of weight. A basic understanding of physiology and the CNS and understanding the improvements in efficiency can only take you so far without added muscle to foster strength gains.

Seeing many friends and trainees who don’t eat enough scratching their heads because they are having little improvements in strength despite training hard. Seeing them ‘miraculously’ have large increases in strength when they get their diet in line.

My own progress and the fact that my strength gains are exponentially better when I’m gaining mass. I could go on. And on. And on…

63

[quote]Professor X wrote:
WeaponXXX wrote:
Also i said that size doesn’t always mean strength, because there are a lot of small guys out there that can lift 10 times heavier than the big guys.

10 times? A lot? Where? The only thing worse is there are a whole lot of small weak guys who truly believe there are tons of little dudes running around all stronger than regular trainers who weigh over 250lbs.

10 times? So if I know a guy who weighes 250lbs and can put up 500lbs on a bench press, there are A LOT of little guys running around who can do TEN TIMES more than that?

LOL[/quote]

Holy shit! So, if I lose 50 lbs and drop to 150, I can increase my bench to 5000 lbs?! Wow. Even if we go by the measure of every big guy being really weak and only benching bodyweight, I can atrophy and be benching 2500 lbs. Sign me up!

64

here is a link that will explain in greated detail where i am coming from:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0KFY/is_3_24/ai_n16125567

however if you only eat up what T-Nation says theen enjoy this:

http://www.T-Nation.com/findArticle.do?article=body_128high

http://www.T-Nation.com/findArticle.do?article=312id2

http://www.T-Nation.com/findArticle.do?article=288id2
(for this one scroll down until you see top five bodybuilding priograms. notice they are all high reps. doh)

65

First link: are you simple enough that you don’t recognize that HIT and HVT are the two extremes of the spectrum?There are a million other approaches. Most here do multiple sets at high intensity, near-failure for whatever weight they’re lifting.

Volume can vary. 10x3-5 works to gain strength and size! 5x10 also adds size! And a million other permutations. Different amounts of volume and different rep and set schemes work to add strength and some. Some better for some people. And NO ONE is saying otherwise.

66

[quote]jsbrook wrote:
Professor X wrote:
WeaponXXX wrote:
Also i said that size doesn’t always mean strength, because there are a lot of small guys out there that can lift 10 times heavier than the big guys.

10 times? A lot? Where? The only thing worse is there are a whole lot of small weak guys who truly believe there are tons of little dudes running around all stronger than regular trainers who weigh over 250lbs.

10 times? So if I know a guy who weighes 250lbs and can put up 500lbs on a bench press, there are A LOT of little guys running around who can do TEN TIMES more than that?

LOL

Holy shit! So, if I lose 50 lbs and drop to 150, I can increase my bench to 5000 lbs?! Wow. Even if we go by the measure of every big guy being really weak and only benching bodyweight, I can atrophy and be benching 2500 lbs. Sign me up![/quote]

Thats not what i meant. strength has more to do with your nervous system than muscular. Those chinese weightlifters are amazingly strong but not as big as bodybuilders, even though they do look thick. strongest men competitiors are very strong but under all that fat, there isnt that much muscle. the only strongest men that looks nearly as big as a bodybuilder is mariuz.

just read the bloody article i sent. i mean if i am wrong prove it with an article or a strong source and not from your own mouth.

67

There are certainly MANY resources other than T-Nation that provide accurate, reliable, helpful training and diet information. FLEX itself isn’t one of them. It’s a terrible magazine which has much misinformation:.

Nevertheless the ‘vaulted’ FLEX in the article you quoted recommended a plethora of approaches and mixing things up. Sounds suspiciously like what I said.

68

[quote]jsbrook wrote:
First link: are you simple enough that you don’t recognize that HIT and HVT are the two extremes of the spectrum?There are a million other approaches. Most here do multiple sets at high intensity, near-failure for whatever weight they’re lifting.

Volume can vary. 10x3-5 works to gain strength and size! 5x10 also adds size! And a million other permutations. Different amounts of volume and different rep and set schemes work to add strength and some. Some better for some people. And NO ONE is saying otherwise.[/quote]

ME NEITHER!!!I NEVER SAID THAT ONE PERSON CANNOT GET BIG WITH HEAVY LIFTING. HOWEVER THERE ARE GUYS OUT THERE WHO ARN’T BIG BUT VERY STRONG.
THE GUY WHO POSTED THIS THREAD DIDN’T SEE ANY MUSCLE GAIN FROM LIFTING HEAVY. SO I WAS SUGGESTING THAT HE SHOULD TRY SOMETHING ELSE, LIKE HIGH VOLUME TRAINING. WHY SHOULD HE JUST STICK TO HIGH INTENSITY IF IT DOESN’T WORK FOR HIM?

69

[quote]jsbrook wrote:
WeaponXXX wrote:
jsbrook wrote:
WeaponXXX wrote:

Also i said that size doesn’t always mean strength, because there are a lot of small guys out there that can lift 10 times heavier than the big guys.

VERY rarely. With that particular exagerration, probably not at all. But as for your general point, VERY rarely. For every Eric Cressey, there’s 1000 small guys who can only put up small weights. And for every big guy who’s put on solid size and miraculously has never gotten strong, there’s 1000 who are putting up big weights. I don’t know where you’re getting your information. Probably the anomalous cases that make the news because the ARE news because they are RARE.

If you did train at a gym around a lot of other people, you would not see very many big guys struggling to bench 200 and you’d find very few, if any, small guys benching 400. And if you shadowned any serious lifter whose gained good size throughout weeks and micro and macrocycles, you’d probably see that they do a mixture of very heavy, high-weight, low rep training, and lower-weight, higher rep work.

‘For every Eric Cressey, there’s 1000 small guys who can only put up small weights. And for every big guy who’s put on solid size and miraculously has never gotten strong, there’s 1000 who are putting up big weights’

where did you get this information from?

Actually training at the gym. And seeing almost no small guys lifting big weights. Seeing almost all big guys lifting real weight. Competing as an athlete at a high level for years and seeing what kind of weight all my teamates of different sizes were putting up.

Eric Cressey being talked about as the anomaly and being in the very elite level, meaning 99.9% of people in his weight class aren’t putting up that kind of weight. A basic understanding of physiology and the CNS and understanding the improvements in efficiency can only take you so far without added muscle to foster strength gains.

Seeing many friends and trainees who don’t eat enough scratching their heads because they are having little improvements in strength despite training hard. Seeing them ‘miraculously’ have large increases in strength when they get their diet in line.

My own progress and the fact that my strength gains are exponentially better when I’m gaining mass. I could go on. And on. And on…[/quote]

cool, im glad it works for you?so int he gym you work in, big guys lift heavy and small guys lift small?well in the gyms i have been in, i have always seen small guys lift heavy and big guys lift light. funny isnt it?

70

T-Nation links: What’s your point? They recommend solid high volume training. No one is saying that high volume doesn’t work and isn’t particularly good for some people some of the time. What I haven’t seen is anything that talks about most small lifters putting up significantly more poundage than big lifters.

Or a single reliable resource that says strength and size aren’t highly related and that a lifter won’t get greater strength gains with hard training and eating to put on size than just hard training. And you won’t be able to show me one. Because it’s just not true.

71

Look Chief,

If you just said that the very biggest guys aren’t always the very strongest and vice versa nobody would be having a problem with what you’re saying.

However, you keep coming off with these hair brained statements like “size has nothing to do with strength” and “some smaller guys can lift 10 times as much as bigger guys”.

People don’t need links to articles to instruct them on subjects that have been well established for decades. Many decades. In fact, in general, maybe for centuries.

72

[quote]WeaponXXX wrote:
jsbrook wrote:
Professor X wrote:
WeaponXXX wrote:
Also i said that size doesn’t always mean strength, because there are a lot of small guys out there that can lift 10 times heavier than the big guys.

10 times? A lot? Where? The only thing worse is there are a whole lot of small weak guys who truly believe there are tons of little dudes running around all stronger than regular trainers who weigh over 250lbs.

10 times? So if I know a guy who weighes 250lbs and can put up 500lbs on a bench press, there are A LOT of little guys running around who can do TEN TIMES more than that?

LOL

Holy shit! So, if I lose 50 lbs and drop to 150, I can increase my bench to 5000 lbs?! Wow. Even if we go by the measure of every big guy being really weak and only benching bodyweight, I can atrophy and be benching 2500 lbs. Sign me up!

Thats not what i meant. strength has more to do with your nervous system than muscular. Those chinese weightlifters are amazingly strong but not as big as bodybuilders, even though they do look thick. strongest men competitiors are very strong but under all that fat, there isnt that much muscle. the only strongest men that looks nearly as big as a bodybuilder is mariuz.

just read the bloody article i sent. i mean if i am wrong prove it with an article or a strong source and not from your own mouth.[/quote]

The elite Chinese lifters are very strong for their size. Again, that is the ELITE. That’s why you’ve heard of them. The average small Joe Schmoe is still putting up less weight than the average big Joe Schmoe. And guess what? Small elite lifters put up less weight than big elite lifters!

As impressive as the lifters you speak of are, they are putting up less weight than the elite who weigh 50 lbs more. And the SMALL lifters would be putting up much more weight if they gained 50 lbs. Their relative strength might not be as good. They may no longer be at the very top. But they would improve the weight they can lift.

73

[quote]WeaponXXX wrote:

cool, im glad it works for you?so int he gym you work in, big guys lift heavy and small guys lift small?well in the gyms i have been in, i have always seen small guys lift heavy and big guys lift light. funny isnt it?
[/quote]

Yes, funny that Bizarro World finally got high speed internet.

74

[quote]WeaponXXX wrote:
Thats not what i meant. strength has more to do with your nervous system than muscular. [/quote]

This is untrue. Strength has more to do with the cross sectional size of a given muscle group. Learning an exercise really well will only take you so far before you need to gain more size to lift more weight. This is what is being explained to you that you seem unable to understand. In fact, instead of even responding to posts directly, you are attempting to create everyone else’s arguments when nothing like what you wrote has been stated.

In the vast majority of weight lifters the world over, strength is very much related to the overall size of the individual. Pointing out anomalies in elite sports that are exceptions does not erase what MOST people will see in the gym. Most little guys are NOT stronger than most serious training larger weight lifters.

I mean, you’re small. Why aren’t you benching more than everyone else here?

75

[quote]WeaponXXX wrote:
jsbrook wrote:
First link: are you simple enough that you don’t recognize that HIT and HVT are the two extremes of the spectrum?There are a million other approaches. Most here do multiple sets at high intensity, near-failure for whatever weight they’re lifting.

Volume can vary. 10x3-5 works to gain strength and size! 5x10 also adds size! And a million other permutations. Different amounts of volume and different rep and set schemes work to add strength and some. Some better for some people. And NO ONE is saying otherwise.

ME NEITHER!!!I NEVER SAID THAT ONE PERSON CANNOT GET BIG WITH HEAVY LIFTING. HOWEVER THERE ARE GUYS OUT THERE WHO ARN’T BIG BUT VERY STRONG.
THE GUY WHO POSTED THIS THREAD DIDN’T SEE ANY MUSCLE GAIN FROM LIFTING HEAVY. SO I WAS SUGGESTING THAT HE SHOULD TRY SOMETHING ELSE, LIKE HIGH VOLUME TRAINING. WHY SHOULD HE JUST STICK TO HIGH INTENSITY IF IT DOESN’T WORK FOR HIM?[/quote]

YOU ALSO SAID THERE ARE MANY SMALL WHO ARE LIFTING 10 TIMES AS MUCH AS BIG GUYS. WHICH IS NOT TRUE AND DEFIES ALL COMMON SENSE, LOGIC, AND EXPERIENCE. AND CANNOT AND HAS NOT BEEN SUPPORTED BY ANYTHING YOU’VE POSTED. AND YOU EITHER IMPLIED OR DIRECTLY STATED THAT THERE IS NOT A STRONG RELATINOSHIP BETWEEN SIZE AND STRENGTH. WHICH IS ALSO UNTRUE AND CANNOT BE SUPPORTED.

THE FACT THAT THERE ARE SOME SMALLER LIFTERS WITH EXCEPTIONAL AND EFFICIENT NERVOUS SYSTEMS THAT CAN PUT UP GREAT WEIGHTS DOES NOT CHANGE THAT. THEY ARE STILL LIFTING LESS THAN THEIR BIGGER ELITE BRETHREN. AND THE AVERAGE SMALL LIFTER IS LIFTING LESS THAN THE AVERAGE BIG LIFTER. AND YOU SHOULD NOT STATE OR IMPLY THAT SOMEONE WHO WANTS TO GAIN SIGNIFICANT STRENGTH CAN DO SO EASILY WITHOUT ADDING SIZE. THAT IS ALSO NOT TRUE.

IT’S CERTAINLY POSSIBLE TO ADD APPRECIABLE STRENGTH WITHOUT SIZE. BUT ONLY TO A CERTAIN POINT AND ONLY SO FAR. AND THE SAME LIFTER WOULD ALSO GET MUCH STRONGER IF EATING TO ADD SIZE. TO IMPLY OTHERWISE MISINFORMS AND IS A DISSERVICE TO ANY UNKNOWLEDGABLE PERSON WHO IS READING YOUR POSTS.

76

Also, many older lifters back off of the weight they use when lifting. They may have benched close to 500lbs when they were younger but now won’t go over 315. That doesn’t mean they are weaker than someone smaller than them. It means they already put the time in under heavy weight, built the size and a solid foundation and are now simply maintaining what they have.

They no longer need to lift as heavy and avoid doing so to avoid injury. If some of you are walking into a gym and thinking you are stronger than some larger guy just because you see him curling a 40lbs dumbbell, you are dumbasses.

I have personally seen some looks from newbies because I warm up smaller muscle groups with a lighter weight before I ever touch a heavier one. If someone were to base their assumption on that alone, they would be wrong about how much I can lift.

77

I think it would be a good thing for you, WeaponX, to ask Eric Cressey–who IS one of a small group of smaller elite lifters putting up big weights as well as a very informed knoweledgeable strength coach–if he thinks there’s a strong relationship between size and strength. And ask him to explain it to you in detail.

78

[quote]jsbrook wrote:
I think it would be a good thing for you, WeaponX, to ask Eric Cressey–who IS one of a small group of smaller elite lifters putting up big weights as well as a very informed knoweledgeable strength coach–if he thinks there’s a strong relationship between size and strength. And ask him to explain it to you in detail.[/quote]

While you’re at it tell him about this twilight zone gym where the small guys are predominantly stronger than the big guys.

79

[quote]WeaponXXX wrote:
malonetd wrote:
WeaponXXX wrote:
stuff

WeaponXXX may be a little off here, but I at least appreciate that he gets his information from more than one source. That’s refreshing and unlike many of the website worshippers on here.

But, he is wrong in this case.

i don’t believe that the only way to get big is do high sets and very low reps. if it was that simple, everybody would get big. i have seen guys at the gym lift ridiculously heavy and never get big. some things work for different people. some will work better with a higher rep range than 3-5.
you guys need to open your minds.

[/quote]

Almost everybody here understands that already. The big thing is that when most people can’t gain weight (diet aside), it’s because they’re lifting pansy weights for high reps. They lack strength in a big way.

Now, maybe the pendulum has swung back too far the other way, but we all understand that you can get very big lifting 8-12 reps. Problem is, that’s all most people do, and then tell us how they can’t gain weight.

Ultimately, you need blocks of heavy training to get really big. And, a lot of bodybuilders get very, very big on lower rep schemes, as do a lot of powerlifters.

We all know that higher rep training builds muscle as well. What we are always trying to tell people with this low rep stuff is that you gotta push yourself up in strength to gain size later sometimes.

Do what works for you.

80

[quote]Professor X wrote:
WeaponXXX wrote:

cool, im glad it works for you?so int he gym you work in, big guys lift heavy and small guys lift small?well in the gyms i have been in, i have always seen small guys lift heavy and big guys lift light. funny isnt it?

Yes, funny that Bizarro World finally got high speed internet.[/quote]

You’ve gotta knock this off, man. I almost spit egg onto my monitor I was laughing so hard.