As the title says. Why does hypertrophy (growing muscle tissue in size) does not correlate with the strength of the individuals training for strength (as in heavy weight lifting, without growing muscle tissue)?
In: 460
It does correlate, the difference between size and strengh is mostly overblown. For non elite atheltes bigger basicly means stronger
There are some cases that skews how people see this:
– Powerlifter vs bodybuilder: Powerlifters look smaller compared to bodybuilders while they are often way stronger. This is the result of different goals. Bodybuilders want to look big so they train the muscles that make you appear big and muscular. This means they often isolate biceps, chest and shoulder exercises to make them look super big. For powerliftiers theese musces only get trained with compound exercises as they aren’t as important for competitions. Also very important is bodybuilders cut to decrease bodyfat%, and if shirtless a smaller more cut guy may look bigger than a bigger guy with higher bodyfat%. Powerlifters don’t want to get lower on bodyfat as its suboptimal for performance. This is also an example for many other sports vs bodybuilding where they look smaller but can easily be stronger than bodybuilders in their fields.
– Steroids: If steroids are involved size CAN diverge from strength more. A lot of times it does because pushing strength to the limit when using steroids has a higher chance of injury, so athletes may focus on a higher rep lower weight routine for safety.
– Big guys who dont train: Someone might be big but never really trained in which case they are big but quite weak. You need the mind muscle connections to lean how to really use your musces.
Latest Answers