now i understand this might come off as a simple question, but the more i thought about it, it really didn’t make sense. yes theyre eating +6k calories a day, so then why wouldnt it turn into something more useful like dense muscle with all the training their doing?
In: 1990
It’s hard to maximize muscle building without eating a surplus of calories. So whatever amount of energy they burn in training, they make sure to eat more than that.
And in sports where overall weight is not a penalty (or at least not a large penalty) the incentive is to eat more.
Also, although they may be training very intensely, it is not aerobic / cardiovascular training (which burns a lot of calories).
Weight lifting may be tiring and make your muscles sore, but it requires intense effort only for very short periods of time (seconds, not hours), and your average heart rate stays low – so you’re not burning very many calories.
So powerlifters end up with a lot of muscle, large bellies, and generally higher body fat % than other types of athletes.
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