how can muscles be big but not strong, like body builders vs rock climbers?
In: Biology
1. You are confusing pure strength with strength to weight ratio. Body builders are pretty strong and definitely stronger than most climbers, but the extra muscles in their legs are just extra weight that lowers their strength to weight ratio on a climbing wall
2. Body builders are usually smaller than you would expect compared to strong men. They cut calories to get the ripped appearance, but that has a cost in terms of muscle growth. Strongmen almost always have a bit of a gut because they are focused on maximizing muscle growth at all cost. Strongmen are also ridiculously large human beings. The average strongman you see on TV is much larger than almost all body builders you see
3. Strongmen and body builders train slightly differently that results in slightly different structures in the muscle itself. Resulting in the body builder being slightly weaker relative to the size of a given muscle than a strongman
Latest Answers