Shouldnt large people be jacked just from simply moving around with the extra weight? Im talking about muscle mass here and not fat content. Thanks
In: Biology
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Fat guy here, and in addition to what other people have said, I just want to point out that when we talk about how muscular someone is, we are often thinking about body parts that have relatively little to do with moving around. It’s not like my upper body has much to do with moving around, and how much muscle there is up there primarily depends on my exercise routine and not my daily life. On the other hand, my legs have a lot more muscle, especially my thighs, because that is what I’m moving around with, and if you put me on a leg press machine, I can do a lot more weight than the average person. But thighs tend to be the least visible part of a person’s body, and someone who is overweight may also have an extra layer of fat on them, so you may not even realize that they are particularly muscular there. Also, even then, if someone doesn’t spend much time standing or walking, there’s nothing to say they will have much extra muscle even from that. If your life is bed, office chair, couch, bed, you’re not moving around much.
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They could be somewhat more muscular, assuming that they’re moving that weight around a lot. Which they typically aren’t. Sometimes you can tell when they do start going to the gym, and they have a head start over skinny guys. That’s also a bit misleading, because skinny guys need to eat a lot to gain muscle, which they usually don’t, and fat guys don’t have that problem.
But there’s a limit to how much extra muscle you get. They’re moving the same amount of weight all the time. If you go to the gym and pick up some dumbbells, your body will adapt to that stress over the next couple of days. If you go back and do the same amount of the same exercise with the same dumbbells, eventually your body won’t adapt to it anymore because it’s not a new amount of stress. Kind of like how the same half-hour of sun a day eventually stops making you darker.
If you want to get stronger at standing up from a chair, you might have to squat in 3 sets of 5 repetitions, adding 5 lbs three times a week. Getting your muscles visually bigger usually takes heavy sets of 10-12 reps. That’s not a natural amount of standing up for a sedentary person, even ignoring the fact that they’re always using the same weight.
Extreme high volume at the same low intensity isn’t always the answer either. That’s what marathon runners do, and their muscles don’t get big at all.
Reminder: Top-level comments (direct replies to OP) are reserved for explanations. Personal anecdotes at the top-level will be removed.
Also, please remember to **Be Nice**. The fatpeoplehate sub was banned a long time ago and that kind of attitude has no place here.
Obese people use those muscles to do exactly what you said, OP: move around a lot of extra weight. So it’s like asking someone to run while already carrying a cupboard . It’s too much.
That’s why some trainers ask people who have lost some weight to carry that same weight in a backpack for a mile: just to realize how much was weighing them down is eye-opening and helps them keeping the extra pounds away.
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In absolute terms they’ll have more muscle mass, yes.
A lean, athletic 65kg person who consists of 42% muscles has 27kg of muscle mass. A fat 120kg person is going to have something like 35% muscles, even when sedentary. That’s 42kg of muscle mass. That’s why heavier people can generally lift more weight (again, in absolute terms. And keep in mind that training can improve the efficiency of muscles a lot). However, while the 65kg person probably has something like 10% body fat (6.5kg) the fat person will have something like 40% body fat (48kg). That’s why they still look very fat and it’s still unhealthy.
It depends largely on activity levels. Myself for example, I’m 6ft 250 and regularly hit the gym but I eat like there’s no tomorrow so I’m still chunky but I’m pretty strong, repping 275 on the bench press and squatting close to 500. On the other end I’ve met many people who are fatties who just lay around all day and get very little excercise and the excercise they do get is generally just a little walking, I’m vastly stronger than they are. Yeah sure carrying extra weight can make you stronger but your still gonna be pretty weak with no excercise.
To answer your question, yeah they usually are a lot stronger.
But keep in mind that your lungs don’t get any bigger; moving more weight means exerting more energy, which means more oxygen demand. So while fat people are generally pretty strong, they don’t have the same level of endurance.
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