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Why does muscle growth slow down or stop?

You know what it’s like you train hard for months and make some progress in muscle size and strength, but after a while the results seem to taper off and gains seem to be slow or non-existent!

But why?

There can be a number of reasons why muscle gains slow. Firstly let’s look into each possibility a little further to assess the most likely causes.

Muscle size is directly related to muscle strength. The stronger a muscle becomes the bigger that muscle will grow, this is one of the reasons why many bodybuilders train for strength in the off season as any gain in strength will mean a gain in muscle mass. Equally any loss in strength will often mean a loss in muscle mass, although this will be a small loss and usually goes unnoticed, the problem is if you are in a catabolic state (body breaking down more protein than being deposited) then you cannot be in an anabolic state (building up) which means you WON’T be gaining muscle. The fact is big muscles can only be built if the body is in an almost constant state of anabolism.

But if you are training hard then surely muscle gains should be constant, right? Wrong!

Let’s go through some reasons why strength and thus muscle gains slow:

Muscle recovery has not occurred before the next workout

Not enough quality nutrition

Not enough energy stores of carbohydrates in muscles

Incorrect training / incorrect application of training

Illness or injury

Emotional stress

1. Muscle Recovery
Muscle recovery is one of the most overlooked principles in muscle building, it is also one of the most important because if a muscle is not fully recovered then you cannot possibly make further muscle gains no matter how scientific the training. Muscles can only grow bigger AFTER they have fully recovered. The reason for this is because muscles actually break down when they are worked hard, protein filaments within the muscle fiber shatter under the stress of the workload. After a workout the muscles are a little smaller than before the training – yes, when we train muscles do seem larger but this is caused from the increased blood in and around the working muscle. The blood is needed to remove waste products from energy metabolism (Lactic Acid) as well as fragments from the breakdown of protein. – Now all lost protein within the cells must be replaced and this occurs during rest. ONLY AFTER full recovery do our muscles become larger through an over-compensation process where the cells take in more protein than the pre-workout state. It does this because if the muscle ever goes through that same level of stress again there will be more protein available to break down, at this stage the muscle has adapted to the stress. The result of muscles containing more protein is a greater volume of fluid within the cells, thus muscles are bigger.

Muscle growth slows when we don’t give them enough time to fully recover. It is also important to state here that the more muscle you build the longer recovery takes, simply because you will be training harder. When I was at my peak of strength in squatting I could only train on squats once every ten days unless I reduced the poundage of course!

2. Not Enough Nutrition
The most important principle in muscle building is nutrition. Many top bodybuilders have stated that at least half the battle in their bodybuilding career is learning about their individual nutritional needs and making sure the body is nourished with the right amounts to support muscular growth. The timing when providing certain nutrients has also got to be right or these nutrients may be used for many other processes rather than protein deposition.

After training has stimulated muscles to grow all the cells must gain sufficient nutrients as well as energy for the chemical reactions necessary for growth to occur. If the correct nutrients are not present the muscles cannot deposit the extra protein for recovery and growth. Think about this analogy, a new house cannot possibly be built properly if there are not enough bricks available. Only when the builders receive enough bricks can the house grow into full development!

The same diet
Many weight trainers stick to the same diet and believe that just because they are eating a healthy diet with good quality protein their muscle will keep growing after each successful workout. The problems here are that the body requires high quality protein and extra energy constantly throughout the day for all basic bodily needs as well as for muscular growth. The fact is that once you build some muscle you must supply extra nutrition (mostly protein and energy) in order to grow additional muscle mass. Think about those huge bodybuilders who consume over 6000 calories per day they never started bodybuilding by consuming that amount of nutrition they simply worked up to it as their body and strength levels grew. Additional growth will require additional nutrients, if you think about the house analogy again; a bigger house will always need more bricks – nutrients are the bricks!

Protein Usage
As just stated some protein will be used to maintain muscle that has already been built from previous workouts, protein will also be needed to maintain all other tissues and other types of muscle, such as smooth muscle and cardiac muscle, also our body needs proteins to make antibodies and thousands of enzymes everyday to help with numerous chemical reactions including those reactions that actually build the muscle. If the same diet is used over months or even years the protein intake must be used for many other chemical reactions because these reactions are more important for survival than building muscle to look good, thus there won’t be enough protein left for further muscular growth. Sticking to the same diet simply means the muscles can only recover back to the pre-workout state without any additional growth. One trick is to adjust the diet by consuming more quality protein and calories every time you increase your strength levels by about 5%.

Nutritional Rules
However it’s not as simple as eating more food there are “nutritional rules” that need to be applied in order to maximize the effects of your nutritional intake. For maximum effects around 30 grams of high quality protein must be supplied every 3 hours in order to keep the body’s amino acid pool topped up full. This doesn’t include time asleep, although many top bodybuilders actually set an alarm during the night and have a protein meal ready to eat. This may help some people who through work/responsibility issues find it hard to eat enough meals during the day; however this tactic won’t be necessary if the amino acid pool is kept high during the day as there will be sufficient protein available for muscles to grow during sleep.

It’s not an easy answer to simply eat more protein either because the body also needs the correct nutritional and energy supply to help along the chemical reactions required for muscle cells to lay down additional protein. For fast muscular growth the body also needs to be supplied with quality nutrients at regular intervals throughout the day and in the correct quantity in order to limit possible fat storage. There needs to be a fine balancing act to maximize growth from the training but also to limit fat weight gains.

But how do I obtain so much protein without feeling stuffed?
You may believe that constantly increasing protein and energy intake may mean eating more food than your stomach can handle but there are some tricks to use so you don’t need to keep eating expensive meats or fish. It’s possible to obtain high quality protein sources by combining cheap vegetable food sources together within a meal. Some vegetable sources are only classed as poor quality protein because they lack one or two of the nine essential amino acids in its structure. However if these foods are combined with another vegetable food source that contains the missing essential amino acids in high amounts then the protein can be transformed into a high quality source if eaten at the same meal.

3. Limited Energy (carb) stores in muscles
Weight training is anaerobic exercise which means muscles will burn carbohydrates for energy during the exercise. The muscle cells can only store a limited amount of this energy source, and if these levels are lower than normal it will affect the strength levels on all exercises. Even though the muscles will probably not be smaller because the problem is energy related and not loss of protein, it may result in a poor workout and reduce the chance of stimulating muscular growth. Low carb levels will render any workout ineffective for stimulation of muscle growth, one reason why you should never do aerobic exercise before weights. Stretching and lighter sets of the same exercise should be enough to warm up a muscle. Sufficient energy must be present in cells in order to generate enough intensity of effort during the exercise. The intensity level is what actually causes stimulation of growth. If you are only just maintaining the muscle previously built then muscle growth will slow.

4. Incorrect training
Incorrect training is a common reason why results start to diminish. In fact it’s more often incorrect application of the training rather than simply doing the wrong exercise. Intensity of effort is the key to stimulating muscular growth, which means you need to train the muscles harder at each workout, this is necessary because the muscles always adapt to the last level of stress by becoming stronger and bigger. If you can perform ten repetitions but last session only managed eight before reaching failure then your muscle have grown and become stronger, you train for strength it’s as simple as that!
Many experts believe that too much high intensity training will eventually stop growth and I agree, but it is not the process of constantly training harder which is the problem, it is more to do with the issue of recovery. As a muscle is trained harder it always takes longer to recover, remember the statement above “the more physical stress a muscle receives the more it is broken down!”

This is the reason why many top coaches make athletes train in cycles, the body gets chance to recover fully at the end of each cycle. The human body tends to adapt better in cycles and this type of training usually brings constant results over the whole course of the cycle. Strength and muscle gains are a classic example of this phenomenon. When Power lifters start a new cycle they attempt to push the level of intensity up at a gradual rate until they peak just in time for a competition. Many rest for a whole week or more after peaking.

5. Illness and Injury
Having an illness such as the common cold will often cause the muscles to weaken and become slightly smaller. The reason is because protein turnover is directed more towards creating antibodies for the defence against the illness. Defending against a virus is more important for survival than building muscle thus it is inevitable that our body will take some protein from muscle and use it for the manufacture of antibodies. It must be stressed that this is not a direct process; it’s a case that antibodies are created from the amino acids that circulate in the blood pool, thus the body tends to break down muscle protein to keep the pool maintained. The net result is less protein within muscle cells giving a weakened state, and of course slightly smaller muscles.

An injury can have a similar effect on muscle loss. The protein turnover is increased and directed more towards repairing the injury with the net effect of muscle protein being broken down to maintain the bloods amino acid pool.

6. Emotional Stress
Relationship problems, family issues and many other forms of emotional stress can cause an indirect loss of muscle. Stress of this type can result in a loss of appetite and/or force the body to use up more energy than the regular diet provides, energy used up by constant worrying or the way many people cannot settle when something is on their mind. Ok this may seem like very slight energy usage, indeed it is, but because it is usually a constant process over days it adds up to a lot of calories. In cases of emotional stress any gradual loss in muscle will result from insufficient nutritional intake as discussed above.

In conclusion to the issues of slow muscle growth I believe the most important factor from the list is adequate nutrition, after all it’s sometimes possible to gain muscle even if we lose out on some sleep but if nutrition is down then the body must use proteins from our stores.

Building muscle mass is so much more complicated than just visiting the gym a few times each week, it’s a science, and if you want to maintain constant muscular growth you must use scientific principles, not only the correct principles in training but also the use of correct nutritional needs for each individual. If you’re training hard then you’re half-way there and no reason why you should not be building muscle at a constant rate, if muscle growth slows then you'll need to recalculate and adjust the diet accordingly.

Good Luck & never give up!

beautiful post...

:D

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Originally Posted by ashimmatthan

beautiful post...

Read it again, bro...

So much of this is just common sense (that's okay, I guess); much of it is dead wrong.

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any gain in strength will mean a gain in muscle mass.

Wrong. A person can realize somewhat substantial gains in strength through CNS adaptations alone.

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Muscle recovery has not occurred before the next workout

Many think, as I used to, that if you trained a muscle before it was fully recovered then that recovery process would cease and you would lose any potential growth from the previous training bout. No. It is not necessary for a muscle to be fully recovered before you train it. Even if you insist on believing this is the case recovery certainly doesn't take as long as stated above.

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It is also important to state here that the more muscle you build the longer recovery takes, simply because you will be training harder. When I was at my peak of strength in squatting I could only train on squats once every ten days unless I reduced the poundage of course!

Absurd. This belief could be based on a couple of factors, I think. It is not about muscle. One is failure or beyond failure training. People go back and can't improve or even lift the same as before and think it is because the muscle is still recovering. It is much more likely that the CNS has not recovered. They are waiting for what they think is muscle recovery and are probably losing the gains they got in the process.

Some of this, also, I think is based on the idea that complete systemic recovery (enen in the absence of failure training) has to take place before muscle recovery or growth begins. They are not mutually exclusive processes. Muscle recovery begins immediately.

The time course for elevated muscle protein synthesis following heavy resistance exercise.

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MacDougall JD, Gibala MJ, Tarnopolsky MA, MacDonald JR, Interisano SA, Yarasheski KE.

Department of Kinesiology, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario.

It has been shown that muscle protein synthetic rate (MPS) is elevated in humans by 50% at 4 hrs following a bout of heavy resistance training, and by 109% at 24 hrs following training. This study further examined the time course for elevated muscle protein synthesis by examining its rate at 36 hrs following a training session. Six healthy young men performed 12 sets of 6- to 12-RM elbow flexion exercises with one arm while the opposite arm served as a control. MPS was calculated from the in vivo rate of incorporation of L-[1,2-13C2] leucine into biceps brachii of both arms using the primed constant infusion technique over 11 hrs. At an average time of 36 hrs postexercise, MPS in the exercised arm had returned to within 14% of the control arm value, the difference being nonsignificant. It is concluded that following a bout of heavy resistance training, MPS increases rapidly, is more than double at 24 hrs, and thereafter declines rapidly so that at 36 hrs it has almost returned to baseline.

Since 0311 has been over this time and again, I think I would be remiss not to quote him.

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Originally Posted by 0311

The real deal:

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Originally Posted by 0311

It is not uncommon for delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) to last four or even five days after the completion of an intense weight-training session; however, many studies have concluded that complete metabolic recovery occurs within 48 hours of exercise. If metabolic recovery has taken place, a muscle can be worked again via the same training method, even if the musc]le is still sore from a previous session. Moreover, numerous studies have shown that training a muscle while it is still recovering does not adversely affect recovery.9,10,11,12

Therefore, even if complete metabolic recovery has not yet occurred, the muscle can be trained again. There are two ways to effectively go about working a muscle for a second time within 48 hours of a previous session:
Conduct an "active recovery" session. Many strength-training gurus, including Muscle Media’s own Pavel Tsatsouline, recommend conducting a light, less taxing training session after a heavy, demanding session in order to facilitate recovery, decrease DOMS, and actually maximize strength gains. Pavel notes, "As long as you keep stimulating the nervous system with the stimulus, even if your body is not totally recovered, you’re going to make much better gains." An example of this would be to execute three sets of six reps with a 12RM load (half of what is possible) in the squat on Wednesday after conducting a high-volume squat session on Monday.

Change the stimulus and go all-out again. Since your muscles are still recovering, it would not be advisable to train a given muscle via the same training method before recovery has taken place. Although studies have shown that doing so will not substantially affect metabolic recovery, it will not be of benefit either. However, what will be of benefit is training in a different rep range; this will stimulate different muscle fibers and will yield a different overall physiological response. For example, if you conducted five sets of 10 in the bench press on Monday, you may want to shoot for 10 sets of five, or four sets of 15 come Wedesday.
Obviously, you cannot use the above approach for every muscle group, but it should be utilized to bring up a lagging body part or to accelerate growth in an area you are highly motivated to train.

Strength coach Chad Waterbury points out, "Your body will only increase recovery if you force it to work more frequently. Initially, you may still have residual soreness from the previous workout, but don’t worry. Instead, work through it and the body will improve its recovery rate to the point where soreness will subside." In essence, increasing the frequency of your training will cause you to experience less soreness in the long run.
References This pertains to you.

9 Nosaka K, Clarkson P.M. Muscle damage following repeated bouts of high force eccentric exercise. Med. Sci. Sports Exrc., 27(9):1263-1269,1995.
10 Smith LL., Fuylmer MG., Holbert D., McCammon MR., Houmard JA., Frazer DD., Nsien E., Isreal RG. The impact of repeated bout of eccentric exercise on muscular strength, muscle soreness and creatine kinase. Br J Sp Med 28(4):267-271, 1994.
11 Chen, TC and S.S. Hsieh. The effects of a seven-day repeated eccentric training on recovery from muscle damage. Med. Sci. Sports Exrc. 31(5 Supp) pp. S71, 1999.
12 Nosaka K and M Newton. Repeated eccentric exercise bouts do not exacerbate muscle damage and repair. J Strength Cond Res. 2002 Feb;16(1):117-22.

__________________

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Originally Posted by WantingMuscle7

Muscle size is directly related to muscle strength.

I disagree. Look at HST, muscles increase in size, but not strength.:rolleyes:

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Muscle size is directly related to muscle strength.

Damn, Eric and Kane, you guys beat me to the punch!

I only wish that the original post had a shred of proof or fact. It would make things very black and white..And a whole lot easier!

Squatting once every ten days is the worst thing i've ever heard..Ever..

This is of course contrary to some of the IFBB pro's not being able to bench press 315 lbs....Yet are bigger than sin!

Wanting, did that post come from somewhere like xtrememass.com?? :D :D :D

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Originally Posted by 0311

Damn, Eric and Kane, you guys beat me to the punch!

Just trying to do our part, however small it may be :D .

Notice I tried to leave some stuff for others!

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Originally Posted by 0311

Damn, Eric and Kane, you guys beat me to the punch!

that's why I didn't say anything. I don't think I could contribute too much more that hasn't already been said. i'll just sit back and watch this one.:cool:

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Originally Posted by 0311

Damn, Eric and Kane, you guys beat me to the punch!

You learn from the best, to be the best :D

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Muscle size is directly related to muscle strength.

Muscle size does not always directly relate to muscle strength

An article by Jamie Hale that I think explains the basic relationships well. Please feel free to point out any inaccuracies or inconsistencies you find.

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One day when you're in the gym, a freak of nature walks in. This guy has massively ripped muscles from head to toe. As you watch the specimen, he approaches the squat rack. You begin to get excited as he loads the bar in the squat rack. You are wondering how much this guy squats. He begins going through his warm-up sets. He starts with 135 and then 225. He puts 295 on the bar and begins his decent. Guess what? He is stuck at the bottom.

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The next day at the gym you notice a short chubby guy walk in that you have not seen before. You watch as he approaches the squat rack. He begins to go through his warm-up sets. He starts his warm-up sets with 135 then 225 and then 315. You are very suprised. This guy's physique development does not even come close to the level of the freak that was in the gym yesterday. This guy is now squatting 405 with ease. Eventually he moves up to 500lbs. for 3 reps. This is a common scenario.
How do we explain the chubby guy squatting more than the lean muscular machine?

The same way we would explain the comparison of powerlifters to bodybuilders.

There is a noticeable difference in physique development. The bodybuilders show supreme muscular and physique development in comparison to the powerlifters; but powerlifters are usually stronger.

There are numerous factors that contribute to the supreme strength displayed by the powerlifter. These factors include mechanical advantages such as limb length and tendon insertions. A higher rate of fast twitch muscle fibers and better neural efficiency can also contribute to the disparity of strength between the two athletes.

In this article we will look at sarcoplasmic hypertrophy, and myofibrillar hypertrophy.

Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy (common in bodybuilding) involves the growth of the sarcoplasm (fluid like substance) and non contractile proteins that do not directly contribute to muscular force production. Filament area density decreases while cross-sectional area increases, without a significant increase in strength.

Myofibrillar hypertrophy occurs due to an increase in myosin-actin filaments. Contractile proteins are synthesized and filament density increases (Zatsiorsky 1995). This type of hypertrophy leads to increased strength production. Sarcoplasmic Hypertrophy Muscle fibers adapt to high volume training by increasing the number of mitochondria (organelles in the cell that are involved in ATP production) in the cell. This type of training also leads to the elevation of enzymes that are involved in glycolytic and oxidative pathways. The volume of sarcoplasmic fluid inside the cell and between the cells are increased with high volume training.

continued:

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This type of training contributes little to maximal strength while it does increase strength endurance due to mitochondria hypertrophy. Growth of connective tissue is also present with sarcoplasmic hypertrophy.

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Myofibrillar hypertrophy occurs due to increases in the number of myosin/actin filaments (sarcomeres) inside the cell. This leads to increased strength and size of the contractile unit of muscle.

Ultimately this means greater force production. This is often referred to as functional muscle, while sarcoplasmic hypertrophy is referred to as non-functional muscle. ATP and Muscular Growth As we said earlier, increasing the number of mitochondria in the cell means increased ATP production.
ATP is required for protein synthesis to occur. Low levels of ATP will halt muscular growth as well as inhibit other metabolic functions that take place inside the muscle cell. Siff and Verkhoshansky have shown that it is possible to increase your muscles contractile unit faster than the mitochondria’s ability to compensate for this growth. When actin/myosin filaments out grow the number of mitochondria, growth of elements besides the sarcomere is inhibited. The insufficient quantity of ATP results in the bodies inability to promote protein synthesis.

Size vs. Strength

In general, bodybuilders are more muscular than powerlifters, but powerlifters are stronger.

How does training with weights that are 90% of 1RM develop strength and power, but do very little for hypertrophy?

Studies have shown an intense set of 5 reps involves more fibers than an intense set of 1rep. Research has shown that using loads in the 90% range causes failure to occur before a growth stimulus has been sent to the cells. Therefore other factors besides muscle fiber fatigue result in termination of the set. The muscle simply does not have sufficient time under tension to stimulate the growth process. High rep training produces high levels of phosphate and hydrogen Ions which enhance the growth process.

Research has shown heavy lifting enhances neural efficiency ( improved motor recruitment, and firing rates) which enhances strength , but does not necessarily result in muscular growth.
With this information you can see why the strength, and size levels are different between bodybuilders and powerlifters. There are powerlifters that possess muscularity comparable to bodybuilders. There are also bodybuilders who have equal or greater strength than powerlifters. Do not misinterpret this article to mean there is no relationship between strength and size. If you gain 30lbs. of lean tissue you will probably become stronger. The basic idea presented in this article is there is a relationship between size and strength , but strength increases can occur due to other reasons. Just as size increase can occur with a non-linear strength increase.

References
The Weight Trainer(2001)
Muscle Growth part 1811: Why, And How Does A Muscle Grow and Get Stronger?
http://weightrainer.virtualave.net/
training/growth/.html
Zatsiorsky,V.(1995) Science
and Practice of Strength
Training. Human Kinetics.

Reexamining the Sarcopenia Hypothesis: Muscle Mass versus Muscle Strength

M. VISSER, A. B. NEWMAN, M. C. NEVITT, S. B. KRITCHEVSKY E. B. STAMM,B. H. GOODPASTER and T. B. HARRIS FOR THE HEALTH, AGING, AND BODY COMPOSITION STUDY RESEARCH GROUP

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The association of muscle mass and muscle strength with lower-extremity performance, as measured by timed repeated chair stands, was investigated using preliminary data from 3,075 Black and White participants (70-79 years old) in the Health, Aging, and Body Composition Study. Leg muscle mass (LM) was measured by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (Hologic QDR 4500). The maximal isokinetic torque of the leg extensors (LS) was measured at 60°/s using a Kin-Com isokinetic dynamometer. Men were stronger, had greater LM, and better performance than women. As expected, low LS was associated with poorer performance after adjusting for race, study site, and body fat. Low LM was associated with poorer performance in men and women, with a potential threshold effect in women only. When LS and LM were modeled simultaneously, only LS remained independently associated with performance. In conclusion, muscle strength, but not muscle mass, is independently associated with lower-extremity performance.

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One trick is to adjust the diet by consuming more quality protein and calories every time you increase your strength levels by about 5%.

See above. Depending on your training your strenth could increase without an appreciable increase in muscle mass. This is why we go by lean body mass other more dependable and accurate guidelines such as basal metabolism rate to determine nutrient needs.

That is not to say that pure strength athletes do not need higher protein intake!

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For maximum effects around 30 grams of high quality protein must be supplied every 3 hours in order to keep the body’s amino acid pool topped up full.

This is the only information given as to how much protein is needed. Someone with an lbm of 140 probably get enough if he ate 7 meals a day. Again, not a good formula.

aahh...

see, i firstly didn't read the post fully coz i got bored mi-way...

next, i presumed the first 5 lines to be true and therefore, the entire post is true....

now, when i open this post and read it for the first time... your right eric:

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Originally Posted by Eric3237

So much of this is just common sense (that's okay, I guess); much of it is dead wrong.

and muscle size is NOT proportional to strength AT ALL...!

forget HST, we have a live example of someone like that right here: me..!
i'm like 170 lbs @ 5'7.... waist 31", chest 42"... and i deadlift what... 130 kgs..!!!
next, look at dave... as per what he's been saying he isnt big AT ALL... but if you notice his lifts in his journal... you'll see that he can DEFINITELY hold his own...
lastly, lets look at 0311... the guys HUGE @ 5'9... AND he's strong...
so, whats being proven here?: size is NOT proportional to strength...

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Originally Posted by 0311

Wanting, did that post come from somewhere like xtrememass.com??

ha ha ha ha ha aha ha aha ha

lol my post got ripped to peices and to answer your question of where I got it I can't find out my history only works for 2 days so it deleted the site. Uhm sorry about the post being so inaccurate but it gave you guys something to do. I don't know as much as some of you on this so some of it made sense to me and i beleived that the article was true then.

Speaking for myself, Wanting, I was only ripping up the article, not you. Next time, though, you might want to provide your source.

But this kind of thing is what the site is all about, and it's a good learning experience.

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Originally Posted by WantingMuscle7

Uhm sorry about the post being so inaccurate but it gave you guys something to do. I don't know as much as some of you on this so some of it made sense to me and i beleived that the article was true then.

no problem and you dont need to apologoze.... the post was good because the discussion that followd it weill help others find out the real truth... :)

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Originally Posted by Eric3237

Speaking for myself, Wanting, I was only ripping up the article, not you. Next time, though, you might want to provide your source.

yes, please provide your source next time... and i don think anyone meant to rip YOU... but yes, the article got ruined.. :D

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Originally Posted by Eric3237

But this kind of thing is what the site is all about, and it's a good learning experience.

that it is... that it is...

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Originally Posted by ashimmatthan

and muscle size is NOT proportional to strength AT ALL...!

Well, let's not go too far. Gotta watch those absolute statements. I had stated that it is not always directly related. Strength gains through other adaptations can only go so far. For instance, neural efficiency can only increase so much before more muscle has to be called into play in order for strength to continue increasing.

In other words, you can gain muscle without gaining a proportionate amount of strength, but you can't continue to gain strength without eventually gainig more muscle.

While trying to banish one myth, let's not created another ;) .

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Originally Posted by Eric3237

While trying to banish one myth, let's not created another ;) .

ha ha ha :D

no, but have you ever noticed some really really really thin guy who looks like a pile of sticks with only bones walking into a gym and benching like 300 lbs with ease...?

i have and its shocked me to the core..! :eek:

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Originally Posted by ashimmatthan

no, but have you ever noticed some really really really thin guy who looks like a pile of sticks with only bones walking into a gym and benching like 300 lbs with ease...?

Oh, absolutely. I am not debating that kind of phenomenom at all. Some people have great natural strength. And it's even possible that that person could increase his strength without noticing substantial muscle growth. We've established that.

What I am talking about is the limits of strength increase without substantial muscle growth. If a really skinny guy can already bench 300 with ease, I don't think you'll often see that guy increasing that strength considerably without more muscle. Let's not forget that it is the muscle that, in the end, is doing the work!

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There are powerlifters that possess muscularity comparable to bodybuilders. There are also bodybuilders who have equal or greater strength than powerlifters. Do not misinterpret this article to mean there is no relationship between strength and size. If you gain 30lbs. of lean tissue you will probably become stronger. The basic idea presented in this article is there is a relationship between size and strength , but strength increases can occur due to other reasons. Just as size increase can occur with a non-linear strength increase.

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Originally Posted by Eric3237

point noted sir.. :D

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Originally Posted by WantingMuscle7

It's all good man. We are all here to learn. Now we have a post for people to look at if they have the same question. I'm glad you posted this. It makes people think and talk.

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Originally Posted by ChinPieceDave667

It's all good man. We are all here to learn. Now we have a post for people to look at if they have the same question. I'm glad you posted this. It makes people think and talk.

i agree with dave...

don take a thrashing of a post of yours as you getting thrashed, but as a learning experience...

oh, btw... i was gonna make a similar post a while ago... but wanting, u beat me 2 it.. :)

I agree with Dave also, wholeheartedly.

I think this was a great post and here's why:
1) Most people are uneducated when it comes to BB'ing etc. and they believe everyone's bullshit as soon as the argument sounds somewhat scientific. So I'd rather have someone post something that is completely wrong (this post isn't completely wrong btw, this is just an example) and then have members of the site stick to their guns and say "fuck no, that's wrong"
2) I think that the best way to learn (speaking from my own experiences) is to be presented with something entirely wrong and then figure out what's wrong. Sometime's it is easier to find out why something doesn't/wouldn't work rather than prove that it does.
and lastly 3) This post got ALL of us to think!

IMO this was a great addition to the training forum :cool: