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
Muscle mass sets the upper limit of your strength. Intramuscular (fibers working together in a muscle) and intermuscular (different muscles working together) defines your strength. How many fibers you can activate at once gas a lot to do with genetics.
Cats for example can activate a lot at once that’s why they can make these crazy jumps.
Strength comes from your central nervous systems ability to properly recruit all of that muscle to perform a lift. Muscle size and technique both also play a large role in your strength potential.
Someone who trains purely for strength will have a much more efficient and effective CNS than someone who trains purely for size. They will be able to efficiently recruit all of their muscle fibers, and their technique for a particular lift is honed to such a level that there is no wasted energy in properly getting that weight where it needs to be.
Think of your muscles as a factory that produces strength.
If you train for hypertrophy, you’ll build more and larger factories so you’ll be stronger. The more factories you have, the greater capacity you have for producing strength.
But each of these factories could be more efficient.
So if you trained for strength mainly, you would still build more factories, but make each more efficient. Like having forklifts inside instead of just hand trucks. Or coordination with all the factories so the deliveries all go out at the same time so they can be on the same truck.
Now, it’s important to note you can’t train for either exclusively. You can bias one or the other, but you’ll always gain some size and some strength. And many lifters go through phases or cycles where they target one over the other.
EDIT: Getting more into the details, strength, especially if it’s in something specific like benching is also a skill. Practicing benching more will make you better. Learning lifting “cues”. Getting the central nervous system (CNS) used to heavier weight, using a more optimal bar bath, etc. Tendons also take a much longer time to develop. Steroids don’t really affect them which is why it’s not uncommon to tear a muscle when using them because your muscles are more capable but your tendons still need a while to catch up.
Cns plays a big role in this too, plus grizzly does some very unorthodox lifts so his skills in traditional lifts aren’t as honed as say a Olympic lifter in training
It also depends on the muscles pennation angle.
It doesnt work on all the muscles in the body, in some It works way more, in some way less.
The amount of muscle you can put on depends also on how much stretch mediated hypertrophy you can get.
While “normal” hypertrophy puts new muscles fibers in parallel, smh puts them in series, at a certain point the room on the muscle starts to be filled up and the muscle fibers starts changing their direction, a bigger angle between the muscle and the tendon allows a longer muscle and so a major number of fibers.
Still the force that can be generated by the single fibers stays the same but the more the angle increases the less force goes from every single fiber to the tendon.
This is the reason why many strongmen/powerlifters are way smaller than bodybuilder but are also way stronger.
Because there are different types of muscle with different fiber density. Some people have muscle that retains more fluid so they’re much bulkier for the same amount of strength. This is hugely advantageous in the sport of bodybuilding where muscle size is the only thing that matters and strength is just a byproduct. The guys who train hard and get very strong but just can’t gain much size are called “hard gainers” in bodybuilding. Pro bodybuilding selects for easy gainers who have rapid hypertrophy.
In many sports where strength to weight ratio is critical, being smaller for the same strength is hugely advantageous. For example, there are weight classes in many sports like powerlifting. You want to be the 114 lb dude who squats 600+ lbs to be competitive. In sprinting or jumping, you want to be absurdly strong while not weighing that much. Put an extra 40 lbs of bulky fluid-filled muscles in Usain Bolt and he’d still be a very fast man, but he wouldn’t even make the Olympic trials. These sports self-select for “hard gainers” who would suck in bodybuilding. That’s why they look relatively weak even next to an amateur beginner bodybuilder.
Can’t believe so many people in this thread are talking about bodybuilding vs powerlifting.
Pudzianowski was a strongman, not a powerlifter. That said, strongmen regularly squat and deadlift, in ways at least similar to powerlifting.
Kriakos was an olympic weightlifter, meaning he practiced the clean & jerk and snatch..neither of those are powerlifting movements.
The only difference here is that Pudzianowski was more experienced with the movements.
Muscle size is very important for strength but not only thing. Coordination, muscle fiber distribution, neural drive, where your tendon connects to your bone, even how much energy you have at a given moment, will all make a difference in the total amount of weight someone can lift.
So basically, it’s like having a monster truck but not knowing how to drive it. You look impressive, but when it comes time to lift, you’re just revving the engine in neutral!
Your strength and trained motor patterns are largely sport specific.
Powerlifter will lift more in a powerlifting exercice because he has practiced the specific movements, and techniques necessary for maximum endurance/force production in his specific sport.
Put a elite powerlifter vs. elite strongman in any test of pure strength which neither has ever done before, and the strongman will come off as the stronger one pretty much everytime.
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