i’ve watched a ty video comparing Mariusz Pudzianowski and Kyriakos Grizzly, and it was said that even tho Grizzly had way more pure muscle mass, his powerlifting scores were lower. How is it possible that with more muscle mass he didn’t lift more?
In: Biology
More muscles do make you stronger, but a lot of strength is also coordinating muscle fibers to fire together and some people have better coordinated nervous systems.
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There is a classic saying: It’s not the size that counts, it’s how you use it.
At the risk of repeating the excellent comments already in place, your body’s ability to use those muscles, the placement of the muscle mass, the leverage, and many other factors go into effective use of muscle present.
you can either gain fitness through heavy lifting to gain muscle, which involves growing new muscle cells, aka hypertrophy, or you can get fit through endurance exercise, which involves the cells you have gaining additional mitochondria, and the ability to process more oxygen and deliver more ATP at once.
You won’t neccesarily get bigger, but you get stronger and more fit. (some people would call this “Farmer strength”) but you also won’t burn out nearly as quickly as someone who focuses purely on size.
Muscle size determines the maximum strength you can have. Training determines how strong you actually are. As a bonus, training while eating properly increases the size of the muscles.
Muscle size is a product of diet, pump and training specifically for large muscles. You will still put on muscle by doing a strength routine, but a powerful lifter isn’t really going to be doing bicep curls and leg extensions
It’s the difference between body building and power lifting. While both are very strong, one trains specifically to lift very heavy weight. He trains technique and form, and cycles his training to be able to be at peak strength come competition time. The other trains to build his muscles bigger. The exercises will be different, with some overlap, but the body builder is not focusing on lifting the heaviest weight possible all the time. Instead he focuses on target muscle groups and putting them under tension during a workout.
a) the bodybuilder did not practice using ALL of his muscle fibers at once. He trained them with weight he can lift like e.g. 10 times per set, which makes the muscle grow maximally, but allows the nervous system to change the fibers over time.
The Powerlifter trained to lift an heavy weight as possible exactly once per set. Such training teaches the nervous system to fire all at once, which is very exhausting, and a big strain on joints and tissues, and requires longer rests. So they often only do that in the weeks leading up to their attempt at their record lift.
b) Lifting heavy weights is also a very specific movement skill. A mistake can easily lead to injuries and death! So is requires a lot of technique to even be able to correctly apply all the force the muscles has in theory.
Muscles in different places.. is the simplest way to put it.
(Muscles can get very strong at doing certain actions, make a huge guy climb a wall and you’ll see how ‘strong,’ they are)
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