eli5: why is it that fatter/bigger people in general have an easier time gaining strength and putting on muscle than skinny people?

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This is not the place to give any measurements, so I’ll just say I was fat 7 months ago and I’m not anymore.

I put on a lot of muscle mass while losing quite some fat, so I can lift rather heavy (on my own perspective), but when I mock my friends about lifting more than them even though they’ve been training for years they all go “well, you used to be fat” or “that’s easier for you because you were bigger” and I have come to understand that’s just how it works because of the Internet too, but I don’t really know why.

I don’t know if it’s the language causing a misunderstanding here, but when I say “mock” I mean we joke with each other playfully in a way that everyone’s comfortable with.

In: Biology

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Other than the things already mentioned. Fatter/bigger people up to a certain point often already have quite a bit of muscle just because they need that muscle to move the bigger body in the first place. Ofcourse this stops at the point where you weight so much that you cant move anymore.

The real “test” for heavy people is doing cardio/gaining stamina because that is something you most likely dont have and that is easier for people that start out slim.

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