Bit of a weird question. How is it that that people gain strength without getting relatively bigger or more muscle.
Imagine I can bench 100kg or 225lb for a 1 rep max. Now imagine I train hard and now can lift the same weight for 3 reps.
Its unlikely your muscles have gotten three times bigger.
What has actually changed in the body to enable this?
In: Biology
Just to clarify – your initial question is flawed. When you lift the weight for 3 reps instead of 1, you are not 3 times stronger, you are only 9% stronger. And while it’s true that you didn’t gain 9% of your overall weight as muscle, it is very possible for your muscle fibres to have gained some volume from that. But your muscle fibres don’t get stronger just by gaining volume, they also simply adapt and become denser/tougher.
Add to that your body’s way to adapt by making you simply more efficient (via engaging more muscles, providing more stability etc)- and voila, you are 9% stronger by only gained maybe 1-3% volume in your chest.
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