I’ve seen so many different builds on the “muscular” spectrum, ranging from barrel-shaped power lifters, to wiry, waifish dancers and acrobats, to really chiseled and defined bodybuilders. I know they’re all strong and ripped in their own way, but what’s the difference as far as approach and training?
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You pretty much answer your own question. Power lifters need to have high force output which is accomplished by large muscles, dancers need long, lean, fast twitch muscle for quick movements and lots of flexibility. Your primary training is always by doing the activity you are training for, weight lifters lift larger weights, runners run, climbers climb. Each group targets strength training in a similar philosophy as the sports they are training for.
There are two types of muscle fibers, slow-twitch and fast-twitch. Slow twitch are going to help you for long distance running and fast-twitch are going to be more for bursts of strength/speed. However, this probably isn’t the majority of what causes differences in appearance between different athletes. Most of that is just going to come down to different fat/muscle ratios and different amounts of muscle mass and muscle mass in different places. Power lifters aren’t going to care if they have some extra fat on top of the muscle, and it’s much easier to build muscle if you have a calorie surplus. For a long distance runner, every pound of bodyweight is a pound they’ve got to carry around so they’re looking to be pretty low bodyfat and even relatively low muscle mass compared to some athletes. For workouts you’re generally looking at something like this:
Strength: lifts with high weight, low reps
Muscle mass: lifts with low weight, high reps
Endurance: long distance running
By and large the best bet to get yourself the specific type of strength/endurance you need for an activity is just to do the activity. If you look at something like the Navy Seals, the 3 hardest things they have to do is long distance swimming with fins, dragging boats onto shore, and long distance travel with large packs; so what do they do for exercise, they swim long distances with fins, drag objects across the beach, jog long distances with heavy packs.
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