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
Fat people have a surplus of nutrients with which to build muscle. Very lean people have to constantly be managing their diet and insuring that they’re getting supplementary nutrition for their muscle growth to build from. That’s why the “bulking” and “cutting” cycle is such a popular and effective way of casual bodybuilding.
Your friends probably don’t have a real mechanism in mind, and also don’t mock your friend, you jerk, but it probably reflects genetics. People who are genetically predisposed to be skinny usually have a concurrent “resistance” to putting on muscle mass. Similarly, people who can put on fat also tend to put on muscle. This is genetic though not well understood – it’s not clear the same genes govern adding both muscle and fat, or if they’re just strongly correlated, or if the body “tracks” weight without regard to whether it’s fat or muscle.
YTA for mocking your “friends” for having consistently engaged in physical exercise, you Johnny-come-lately.
Oops, sorry, wrong sub.
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.
A fat person has more muscle naturally as they are carrying the extra weight. It’s hidden underneath all the fat but it’s there. So a fat person needs to lose fat and they’re left with all that muscle underneath from carrying the extra weight.
A skinny person has minimal fat and muscle. Their body is not used to carrying extra weight nor is it trained up to build muscle so you’re starto from a lower point
You have a higher baseline of muscle, just moving your arms when you are fat is like lifting weights.
A lot of fat people do have the muscles of someone that has went to the gym regularly for years. And if you don’t lose them when losing weight you will be at an advantage compared to someone that never went to the gym before.
Just to add. If you’re skinny you’re naturally eating at a calorie maintenance or deficit and it can be very difficult to add significant calories into your diet if you’re not used to it.
Obviously to gain muscle you need to be eating more calories than you use and if you’re overweight you’ve got 1) calories attached to your body in terms of fat and 2) used to eating in a calorie surplus.
Put simply, if you’re on a proper workout routine, caloric excess, or in simpler terms, eating like a pig, is easily the most important aspect of building strength and muscle. Fat people already too much, so that’s a big positive for gainz.
I can squat 265.
*squat, left*.
See, easy 265. Carry it with me wherever I go.
It’s walking uphill that sucks. I can walk 10+ miles a day repeatedly but going uphill, saps me
I used to be a competitivo Olimpic lifter (at least regionally lol). One thing that gets enphatized a lot is a that mass moves mass, thats why you see soo many elite athletes move up in weightclasses, cause at their level if they don’t bulk up they won’t be able to have more strength. This also carries into non elite sports, if you are already a bigger bodied individual you have more strength from just moving your weight around.
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