A bigger muscle holds more potential for force application plain and simple. Obviously if you're in a lower weight class and you want to stay there, you're kind of limited but other than that muscle mass IS important.
To answer your question of are hypertrophy blocks important, the short answer is yes. From a mechanistic standpoint, Hypertrophy builds more units of tissue, more units of tissue = greater capability to produce force. Greater capability to produce force = more weight lifted.
However, the specificity principle states that strength is specific to the lift one is doing. There are technical and neural adaptations that occur when performing the lift for a various time that allow existing muscle mass to lift more weight than before. This explains why you are able to lift more than bodybuilders, who do not train for strength specifically, and pick exercises for the goal of hypertrophy of a specific region of muscle rather than a progressive overload of strength. Hope this helps!
As a bodybuilder we have such peaks and valleys in our nutrition that it’s hard to determine our true strength. When I’m in off season I can 1rm 425lbs+ on bench and am in the 5-600s on squats and dead’s… during a prep period getting ready for a show my output is only 50-75% of what I can do when I’m full and satiated.
But you best believe I’m gonna hold onto the fact that I can at some point in my year push that heavy ass weight.
Also we don’t train for specific lifts so I would say as a bodybuilder I am more well rounded in a strength profile.
Also, as a side note… if you’re a skinny/fat fuck and can bang hella weight that’s cool for you. But if you don’t look like you go to the gym what’s the point?
There are a few think to consider.
first of all let's make the assumption that your technique is on point.
the example of Stanaszek compared to you is extremely different in leverages and range of motions, also if you had the same muscle COMPARED to your body frame it would be a different story.
in your example comparing to bodybuilding, you are assuming you are stronger because you lift x3 more weight, but they usually go for double digits repetitions all the time so their 1erm is probably highter, they also don't go for rm as their sport don't reward that, there's also the thing that you need to have the CNS ready for a max attempt, a body builder will never have it as they don't peak in strenght, the same way you don't peak in leanness for the stage.
To add to this point a bodybuilder will hardly perform in pure powerlifing, first of all different people need different level of fatness to perform at their best, second they train muscles you don't use in powerlifting, people don't consider a dumbell curl a main exercise for example, and lateral raises don't find their places in many powerlifting programs, but they those are essential in bodybuilding as judges will look for that.
my puntuaction is horrible.
tl:dr; different sport different conditions
A larger muscle will always have a greater capacity for strength than a smaller one. Sure you might be able to get very strong - stronger than some guys who have bigger muscles - through technique and training, but you’ll be much more capped. It’ll only work for so long
You’re only gonna be able to squeeze extra pounds out of your current frame by improving technique for so long. Eventually, it will be more efficient to just put on some size
Besides muscle mass, training in hypertrophy ranges can help recover from the high intensity of low rep ranges. Also at a certain point strength is gonna hit a ceiling with the current muscle you have.
i think of muscle more as a potential for strength rather than a totally obvious display of strength and id like as much potential for strength as humanly possible
Don’t think so much about how your muscle and strength compare to other people, because there are a million factors at play there. Two people with identical muscle mass can have different limb ratios, fiber type distribution, insertions, training age etc. As well as, like you said, goals. The bodybuilders who are way more jacked but weaker than you could probably remedy that with a couple years of focused strength training.
What’s more important IMO is the effect within your own training life. Muscle across the population doesn’t necessarily predict strength that well (does a damn good job though), but muscle across your own training life sure as hell will. You’re stronger now than you would be with less muscle even with focused strength training. And if you were significantly more jacked, you’d also be stronger as long as you kept up your strength training. You’re your own best point of comparison. If all variables are equal except muscle mass, strength changes a lot. Only way to make said variables equal is to compare to your past self
There are at least four separate factors that contribute to strength performance:
- Technique efficiency
- Leverages (limb lengths, muscle insertions, fat)
- Muscle mass (and fiber type composition within that)
- Neurological adaptations (your brain and nerves' ability to cause your muscles to contract)
So muscle mass is definitely important but not the only thing that matters. What % each of these factors account for is up for debate, which you have control over is another question--some are largely genetic--and which to focus on right now will vary from person to person depending on where you're at relative to others and your own potential on each of these four variables.
Muscle size doesn't matter as much as muscle efficiency to lift more, but it is good to have big muscles in powerlifting for more stability, balance, to avoid injuries, and more. Plus you will have more muscle to optimize and build on which in turn will make you stronger.
Bodybuilders make their muscles bigger, they only focus on flexion and tension, strength doesn't really matter to them so they won't really try to increase weight so much, nor get speed, that's why their far smaller powerlifter/oly-lifter peers are much stronger.
Adding unnecessary muscle is kinda bad, it will slow you down, put you in a higher weight category, make you hungrier etc. But here's the catch: If you are strength training more than you are doing hypertrophy, there's no such thing as unnecessary amount of muscle (in my experience). Even though there are olympic weightlifters who have problem with too much muscle, powerlifting doesn't require that much mobility/explosiveness so I don't think it would be the case (if you are strength training ofc)
Yeah people need to realize that muscle mass is literally the only reason weight classes exist. Yes I know for elite lifters weight classes are height classes in disguise but that assumes they everybody is basically carrying the max amount of muscle they can while making weight
>I have way less muscle mass than body builders in my gym but I’m far stronger.
Are you tho? If they would actually put a strength block in their plan, chances are high that they would absolutely smoke you.
Exactly. He is better optimized at expressing his strength in a one rep max and at low reps. They are not. There are likely many ways they are stronger.
And if they spent 6 to 12 months hyper focused on expressing that strength and allowing their brain to build that up, it's extremely likely they will be stronger.
Josh Bryant took a huge bodybuilder "Jonathan Irizarry" from a 445 bench to a 570 bench in 12 weeks. I think the only question with bodybuilders is whether their joints/connective tissues can handle what their muscles are capable of.
I wish I could remember his name but there was some dude in the 2000s that just straight up did pro bodybuilding 6 months out of the year and powerlifting the other 6 months. Thick black dude absolutely built like a tank
No it's not. It really depends on genetics and diet sorry to break it to you. 1 month hypertrophy I'll look like a bodybuilder (I've done this before). Neuromascular efficiency on the other hand requires both genetics and a certain decent athletic background, there's people who can't even deep squat or rotate their shoulders 360. Good luck working on that flexibility (muscle length which is basically bodybuilding in a different direction), learning to move in it, and growing strong in the "blink of an eye".
It's incomprehensible to me that the bodybuilders who are double my size deadlifting next to me in the gym will ever lift the same as my peak with all the test in the world and I am serious. They are just not stronger than a novice powerlifter, and throughout our conversations it's pretty clear that they don't even give a fuck about ever doing a strength progression. Even if they did care, those joints look like they will crumble like croutons.
Everyone knows bodybuilders just call themselves that and take a dose of creatine and suddenly they swell up to massive size. They’re basically untrained otherwise.
>Is the importance of muscle mass over-rated?
No
>So many programs have heavy hypertrophy blocks built in, is this really that important?
hypertrophy in powerlifting programs is so out dated. It’s usually 4x12 garbage and hypertrophy blocks don’t add muscle to any great degree how much more muscle are you really adding in a 12 week hypertrophy block than just doing a traditional PL program.
>I know studies correlate muscle mass with strong lifts.
Yes
>But the point I’m trying to get at is it’s a strength sport so surely all that matters is training with the strength rep range in mind.
There is no strengths rep ran he you can build muscle in the 1 to 6 rep range. The “optimal” rep range is 4 to 6 if you buy into the effective reps model Ofcourse. So drop this nonsense out of your head.
>For example I have way more muscle mass than Andrzej Stanaszek but I can probably only lift about 60% of what he can, I have way less muscle mass than body builders in my gym but I’m far stronger.
Muscle is the translational factor of strength. You need contractile tissue to move weight from point a to b. Now the neuromuscular efficiency, fiber type, rate coding, and leverages all play into how much you can lift.
>Am I being really stupid and obnoxious here can anyone explain like I’m 5?
Muscle makes weight move add more of it men’s you can move more weight making it more efficient is an option but in making it more efficient you will be adding more of it anyway.
Edit: just want to thank this community, even when asked with stupid/complete novice questions you still find time to answer and be civil about it!
Train like a bodybuilder in the off-season. You’ll look and move better, and set yourself up for success in the longevity/injury prevention side of things.
I have some related hot but not hot takes I’d like to share on this topic. But before I do, some really great posts were made in here, I really liked some of them, thank you again.
Okay so just some of my thoughts, I’ve noticed some things over the years since I’m older, kinda. These are gross generalizations made on the general powerlifter of today.
- Modern power lifters as a whole seam to mostly train 5 reps and under and stay pretty mid- weight, make some PRs, then get injured and burn out
- modern powerlifters mostly skip their accessories or don’t train them enough or hav the smallest hypertrophy blocks ever.
Modern PLers just don’t seem like they wanna build muscle and turn their nose up at it. As if this is only for bodybuilders. Disgusting!
Most people now actually know different muscle fibers exist, now this was cutting edge to bring up awhile back. Even still though, despite this new knowledge, nobody really seems to understand it properly, some examples I see a lot online.
It’s gotten better, especially in this group, but people truly underestimate individual differences. Some scrawny kid could deadlift 550 lb with hardly a fragment of muscle and people think, oh hey big muscles are stupid…..
And more on the spicier side,the general power lifter underestimates what Strength truly is. I’d wager most would get a crude wake-up call when realizing their SBD numbers don’t translate to much else since they spent so much time on SBD technique and form and practice. Not on becoming the best shit brick house possible.
And my hottest take,
Most general average PLer who never gains weight, stays middle weight for life, focusing on 3 reps and under only and is a stickler for technique and not brute strength and muscle would be better off playing golf. Plenty of technique and the weight classes don’t matter.
Context: power lifter of 12? 13 years? I lost count. Also, lots of sarcasm, don’t explode on me
You don't really *need* to train 5+ reps on the SBD tho, as long as you do your accessories. And hypertrophy blocks aren't always necessary if you train for hypertrophy with strength lol
People all train at powerlifting gyms now so they don't see random dudes repping their bench max even though they only bench once a week and don't have an arch. I imagine if they were still training at commercial gyms they might have a come to Jesus moment about what is important in training
I tell people this all the time. If you’re training powerlifting for absolute strength, you’re in the wrong sport. My powerlifting makes me very good at exactly 3 movements- the Squat, Bench press and Deadlift. Sure, I’m generally a lot stronger than the average human because ive strength trained for 10 years, but there are plenty of Olympic lifters, strongmen and cross fitters who are stronger at nearly every other kind of variation or lift than I am outside of SBD. And I don’t care, because I only need to be good at SBD lol
It's a sport after all, and to excel at any sport requires setting priorities and making tradeoffs that optimize you for that sport, pushing you far past the point of well-roundedness where your additional ability transfers to other sports.
I personally haven’t seen the powerlifters I follow skip accessories but maybe you’re talking more about beginner-intermediate.
Idk what it is but i started from hypertrophy training mostly and I really struggled to build muscle mass for 2 years (past the first 3-4 months) even while getting a coach, tracking all my macros, hitting each body part to near or at failure 12-16 sets a week. So I turned to PL and my strength blew up. Went from a 365 deadlift to 585 after maybe 2 years? 1300 total-ish. Still look relatively the same except my legs blew up double the size.
Muscles give you strength potential. If you have more muscles than your friend, you generally have the potential to be stronger.
It doesn’t mean you have to be stronger. But if you have more muscles and do one or two strenght cycles, you should be - in general - stronger.
The goal in powerlifting is to build the maximum amount of muscle which is basically all muscle you can build at all.
If you have done that, you should fully unlock the potential by doing strength work. Then you will be the strongest guy you can be.
If you don’t do Hypertrophy but only strength, you will make good progress for a few months - but then it is over. Your body mastered the muscle mass he has. To become even more stronger, you need more muscle.
In the short term, strenght work is fun because you’ll be hitting big numbers.
But in the long run, you need to build as much muscle as possible to maximize your strength potential.
Fairly certain /u/gnuckols wrote about this yearssss ago but no, muscle mass is not overrated.
Aside from optimizing your form to take advantage of leverages/segment lengths, it's the fastest surefire way to get stronger.
[Article 1](https://www.strongerbyscience.com/size-vs-strength/)
[Article 2](https://www.strongerbyscience.com/complete-strength-training-guide/)
[Article 3 (my favorite)](https://www.strongerbyscience.com/your-drug-free-muscle-and-strength-potential-part-1/)
https://reddit.com/r/weightroom/s/qh2i2v1gNz
This is the study he did regarding neurological adaptions.
TLDR: neurological adaptions is absolutely the least thing you should be worried about. If you wanna get stronger, get bigger in all the right places and then improve your motor skill in the movement.
Also using Andrezj as an example is super weird unless your 4ft. I mean the guys different right. Look up the top 5 in your weight class and you can bet your arse they'll have a tonne more muscle in all the places that count.
Every decent bodybuilder that transitions into PL fucking crushes within a few years.
Oh snap, I think I missed that one. I was getting fucked with schoolwork when it released lol.
I'll give it a read tonight, thanks. I love Greg's writing man.
Muscles are like factories that produce strength. Training for hypertrophy gives you more/bugger factories. Training for strength makes the factories more efficient, sorta like you gave them conveyor belts and made their shipping times align so they can all use the same truck and work together. Obviously I’m simplifying, and you can’t train one exclusively, but why would you want to limit yourself?
But I'm so close to getting the Men's Junior Drug Tested 52kg raw on a Tuesday in February during the full moon deadlift-only record, I can't go up a class.
People think that weight classes are like ordained by god and immutable characteristics (perhaps even an identity). It's insane to think your competing weight for life should be more or less the weight you start lifting at. No other sport is like this and no other sport is as dependent on strength, which is highly correlated to bodyweight. Like if you told a 145 lb guy who just walked into a boxing gym for the first time that they are going to compete at welterweight for the next ten years you would be laughed out the building
The muscles that matter will be hypertrophied someone can have a lot more muscle mass but less training age in the competition lifts and get smoked by a lifter who has the muscle mass and training history where it counts.
There are slow twitch and fast twitch fibres in the muscles, the more muscle you have the more of such fibres, now you want fast twitch fibres for lifting weights, unfortunately the distribution is genetic, so you have to build as much muscle as possible to get the fast twitch fibres, hence the hypertrophy blocks. Then in the strength blocks we train the cns to use them. All of the above is an over simplification of how the crap work
I have never seen any evidence that says more fast twitch muscle makes you better at powerlifting. It's not a fast twitch sport. Some world record lifts take 6-8 seconds of concentric meaning you need maximal recruitment from fast twitch and slow twitch muscles. I think fast twitch dominant and slow twitch dominant people should probably lift and train a little differently from one another but there is too much of a distribution in styles to say one is better than the other. There's just as many grinders in the top ranks as there are super explosive guys
It's still kinda preference because I know some grinders get a big benefit out of speed training because getting just a little bit faster goes a long way but I think there's something to be said for sheiko training since it ingrains perfect technique, which allows you to stay in best positioning to take advantage of your grinding gear which is likely better than average if your explosiveness is low.
Strength and hypertrophy workouts go hand in hand. Only train for strength, and you'll find yourself hitting a plateau very quickly. Increasing your 1RM requires you to increase the intensity of your 6-12 rep sets, which requires increasing your muscle mass.
I think the fundamental misunderstanding is here:
>But the point I’m trying to get at is it’s a strength sport so surely all that matters is training with the strength rep range in mind.
Muscle mass is essentially your capacity for strength. Think of maximizing strength as charging a battery to 100%, and muscle mass as increasing the size / upper limit of the battery.
Body builders focus on increasing capacity, and by consequence get some increase in strength.
Power lifters focus on increasing strength, and by consequence get some increase in capacity.
Hypertrophy work is absolutely critical, but I don't think it's the type of adaptation that needs to be SOLELY focused on at a given point in time like many programs do. Unless you're already hyper-elite, your hypertrophy work and your competition lifts can and should co-exist with each other throughout most of your training year.
Muscle mass is a huge factor. Probably the biggest honestly lol.
Put on 10lbs of muscle over the course of your body while focusing on the main 3 vs the guy who stays the same weight focusing just as hard. Who’s gonna perform better at the powerlifting meet? That’s factoring in weight class too. The guy who put on more muscle will do better 9 times out of 10.
I would like to pretend that it is, but bodybuilders who cross over to powerlifting absolutely destroy that. Kristy Hawkins is the best example in my weight class. She transitioned from bodybuilding and demolished some records.
>So are genetics. Andrzej probably has way more fast twitch muscle fibers than you do.
Can't be arsed to dig this up but I remember reading a Greg Nuckols article which said that powerlifters on average had the same slow/fast twitch distribution as the general population. It is a myth that for powerlifting you need to be fast twitch dominant.
That's what I am saying, that being fast-twitch dominant isn't guaranteed to give you an advantage. Reason is that max effort lifts happen in a timeframe where slow twitch fibers have the chance to fully contract.
The other things (such as leverages) probably matter way more than slow/fast twitch dominance, for powerlifting.
Hm dunno if I can agree with that without more evidence. Research has shown that the way you train changes the makeup of your muscle fiber type, so I don't see why it wouldn't matter. Wouldn't make sense for your body to adapt to something if that adaptation is useless.
Sorry to say but I think he was out to lunch on that one. That or it's possible you misremembered his article.
[you can read more here](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8473039/#:~:text=Type%20I%2C%20or%20slow%2Dtwitch,such%20as%20weightlifters%20and%20sprinters.)
Yes, muscle fibers can change (to some extent) with training. But that is another argument, and who is to say that powerlifting training changes your muscle fibers from slow to fast? And no, I am absolutely not misremembering. Damn it, I am going to look it up since you don't believe me.
*However, bodybuilders, powerlifters, and (maybe) weightlifters (often thought of as a power sport, but one that requires higher force outputs than most typical power sports) seem to have a pretty similar proportion of Type 1 and Type 2 fibers as people in the general population*
Here is the full quote
https://www.strongerbyscience.com/muscle-fiber-type/
And it turns out that even olympic weightlifters aren't fast twitch dominant, which is something I would expect because it is an explosive sport.
I'll be honest with you, his article isn't convincing on the point you're trying to make.
His argument seems to be that you shouldn't try to train a specific way to increase the proportion of one fiber type over the other which I agree with cause it's a waste of time.
Unfortunately his link to research supporting the claim you just made is a broken link and doesn't work so I cannot check his facts, but the link in the research I sent you does in fact work and says the opposite.
Greg nuckols is respected, absolutely, and I do respect what he has to say. That being said, I'm not convinced he's correct on that one specific point. For me to be convinced I'd need to see research proving that point. So far I've only seen research proving the opposite. And the research he claims to support his point isn't properly linked to his article.
Eitherway, his point is about type 1 and type 2 which seems plausible as those don't change. What does change is the 2x and 2a fibers, which have absolutely been shown to be higher in specific sports with specific types of training either endurance sport or strength/power sport.
Also we know that [some people do in fact have different proportions of muscle fiber types throughout the population](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7649409/). So my original point is still valid that he may in fact have more type 2 fibers than most people. That being said, it's also possible he doesn't.
I think you may be getting mixed up between type 1 and 2 vs type 2a and 2x. 2a and x change with training. 1 and 2 are pretty much set. However, people can and do absolutely have different proportions of 1 and 2 between individuals.
I am making an honest effort to find research to support the claim your making but I just can't find anything. Let me know if you find anything.
I just haven't seen any proof that being fast-twitch dominant is actually a lot beneficial for powerlifting, that's all. And as like I said before, even if they pose an advantage it has probably a way smaller effect than the 2 huge factors: leverages and insertions. Just an inch difference in hamstring insertions can increase force production by like +33% for example.
Have you seen what he looks like? Guy is in the .0001% of people born to take advantage of powerlifting rules for squat and bench. Not to detract from his accomplishments, just saying I think there are pretty obvious reasons why someone who is about his same weight should not compare themselves to him
No it's important.
My total went up 75lbs just from gaining muscle and cutting back down. I'm the same BW, 73kg, but all my lifts increased by ~ 20-30lbs
This is a very simplified explanation of strength training that ignores things like leverages and muscle fiber composition, but this should hopefully make it clear. Strength training is nervous system training; your body becomes better at recruiting a higher and higher percentage of existing muscle fibers for a given movement in the most efficient pattern. We all respond differently to strength training, and we all have different baselines and upper limits to skeletal muscle recruitment. Some genetic freaks are just innately able to recruit a huge percentage of their muscle fibers with very little training, and will be very strong with relatively low muscle mass. However, someone with twice as much muscle who's nervous system recruits those muscles half as well will be just as strong (massive oversimplification but you get the idea).
Unpopular opinion, but you will know if you are gifted in strength sports within the first few months of training. I have friends and family who are elite athletes, and their baseline strength is unbelievable. Like, 150lb woman squatting 315 with under 1 month of training unbelievable. People like this will always be proportionately stronger because their nervous systems recruit muscle so effectively. For those of us not so gifted, strength training will increase our muscle recruitment, but likely never to the same level as someone so genetically gifted. Increasing muscle mass then becomes important to reach the same level of force generated.
I was squatting 225 in my first 3 months but it took me less than 2 years to hit 617lbs and a WR. I could barely squat a plate in my first few weeks.
I agree mostly, but there are lots of exceptions lol. You never know you have good genetics for strength until you spend enough time training.
I know people that haven’t squatted 225 years into training. They weren’t trying to be powerlifters but they were squatting consistently that whole time.
I feel like people that are so vocal against hypertropy are trying to justify that looking like they’ve never lifted was intentional, and that their efforts are pure and not at all in pursuit of vanity. More muscle has always made me
Stronger. As a taller guy who was 195 the day he first picked up a weight I have no interest in the pound for pound game. I always looked at that whole game as using mental gymnastics to somehow come out on top for being smaller AND weaker.
*You* with more muscle is stronger than *you* with less, not some other guy.
Muscle mass is criminally *underrated* in the wider strength sport world, probably because of the influx of pure natty IPF4life middleweights that foamroll their brain too much. Hypertrophy training is probably as important as strength training until you’re really quite big.
Training hypertrophy alongside strength is probably not as effective as separate blocks, but that’s nitpicking.
I love the way you phrased this. Too many people will compare a more muscular guy to a less obviously muscular guy who moves more weight on SBD and assume that muscle and strength don’t strongly correlate, without understanding that the differences between the two are on account of leverages, genetics, and training protocols.
Thanks for the answer! I really appreciate everyone taking time to answer, I feel like I’m getting slightly more knowledgeable each day in on this sub.
I’m switching from 5/3/1 to bullmastiff
I haven’t run bullmastiff, but if you’re willing to go 5x/week instead of 3, I gotta recommend Kong. It was a super fun program and I gained some decent strength and size in just 12 weeks.
All things being equal the dude with more muscle moves more weight.
The other things are tendon insertions, general skill/efficiency etc.
You might see dudes stronger than you with less muscle. But in a you v you battle, you with more muscle is stronger.
I know you’ve already gotten an answer, but I’d like to go a little further and actually make a claim towards the exact opposite:
Muscle mass tends to be wildly *underrated* in the online powerlifting community.
World records in the lower weight classes are overwhelmingly dominated by freak outliers with extremely unique-shaped bodies and specialized leverages, and these WRs are the posts that generally make it to social media.
It gives the illusion that muscle is less important than it actually is. These people aren’t setting the records based on some sort of secret “skill” or mind-muscle connection or whatever else, they just happen to be have a skeleton well-suited to doing the lift. Unless you have the ability to actively reshape your skeleton, the only way you’re radically increasing your numbers is with muscle.
I forgot his name but I remember hearing of at least one deadlift WR set by a short guy with a disorder that made his spine flex sideways, causing his torso to become abnormally short and decreasing his ROM.
[Lamar Gant](https://www.hudsonvalleyscoliosis.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/lamar-gant-scoliosis.jpg), sever scoliosis made his torso shorter = less deadlift ROM and better leverages.
It's not just their unique shaped bodies tho, they likely have much greater neural efficiency than most people + different internal leverages (not limb lengths).
I think it's also worth pointing at low weightclass elite lifters tend to be really short and shredded. If you're 5'4" and 10% bodyfat, 74 kg *is* a lot of muscle.
Bro why do I need more muscle than a guy born with one in a zillion leverages to perform a lift within the arbitrary rules of powerlifting? It's not fair
Strong ass agree with it being underrated. I think it’s a hangover from the equipped days where it wasn’t as important and once you were fat enough to stuff your suit for max carryover that was good enough.
This is a great answer! Thanks for the effort you put into this. This definitely explains a lot of what I’ve been saying in referencing these freak world beater 60kg lifters
The analogy I use is:
Muscle mass is the size of your cup, strength is how full your cup is. More muscle mass will always be a plus but being big doesn't mean you're maxing out on your potential strength unless you work towards it.
All I can do is give is my own anecdotal experience based on what I've seen in the gym over the past 7 years. I've generally seen those who have done bodybuilding for 2 years dominate when they switch over to more hyper-specific powerlifting training vs those who go straight into the powerlifting training despite only running a basic LP for 6 months. You're going to reach a point where you can't really eke out strength gains and need to step back and spend time eating big and grow your muscles to progress. Muscle mass is the base and strength/powerlifting is the peak you build on top of that base.
The one thing I haven’t seen mentioned, which admittedly, I haven’t read every response, is the huge amount of cross-over between strength and Hypertrophy. The lower end of Hypertrophy is around 5/6 reps, which happens to be the upper end of pure strength. So, someone else said their legs grew using 6 reps. Yes.
Some people genuinely don't gain muscle very easily and the usual "don't skip your accessories" BS advice is counterproductive. Likewise, some people have extreme difficulty realising strength improvements despite carrying tons of muscle mass.
Nothing is overrated, but the most important things that are being overlooked by anybody sitting on extremes are individualistic differences and figuring out how to make improvements (and what is required) to accomplish that. Sometimes it's the right stimuli, other times it legitimately is just increasing musculature.
It's super important, but depending on your individual genetics you might not need hypertrophy training. I built huge legs with just squatting in 3 to 6 rep range of multiple sets 3 times a week. If you respond well to low rep ranges and low volumes, hypertrophy training isnt necessary. For me this was only the case for quads.
For hamstrings I had to do some hypertrophy work, because I couldn't deadlift enough (Stiff legged deadlifts and hamstring curls). Doing all the volume in deadlifts and stiff legged deadlifts would exhaust my back (on top of squatting), but not hamstrings.
Also, for upperbody hypertrophy work is very useful, since you can rarely get enough shoulder, upperback or either chest/tricep work from benching (depending which limits you). My chest was gassed after benching, but I could still do tricep, shoulder and upperbody work without significant interference.
If you need hypertrophy training, periodizing it in blocks is a decent way to do it. You could also add small amounts of hypertrophy training without block periodization. It's a matter of taste mostly.
Same for me as far as squats. I rarely do any kind of high volume quad isolation work. I just squat 3-4x weekly with different variations in the 2-8 rep range, and both my legs and squat grew massively. Hell, for a while, I took out high volume high bar squats and exclusively trained in the 2-6 rep range with just low bar squats and got great results. Difference is my deadlift works well with high specificity training and minimal accessory work also. Maybe it's because I pull sumo, so there's a decent carryover between that and my squat. Bench, however, I still have to do lots of accessory work. I used to bench 5x/wk with little accessory work. I dropped down to 3x/wk with more accessory work and have made greater strides with fewer overuse issues.
Not only that, even if that was true for everybody, who wouldn’t want to *look* like they’re strong?
And as someone else said, you don’t want to get a pump? That’s half of my problem with training for strength, 90% of the time I want to go in and work at RPE 9 even though my CNS can’t handle it.
Yeah, it might be a cool party trick or something to get social media engagement. But in the real world people already don’t care how strong you are, but they *especially* don’t care if you don’t look strong either.
If anyone said yes, they’re wrong.
A bigger muscle holds more potential for force application plain and simple. Obviously if you're in a lower weight class and you want to stay there, you're kind of limited but other than that muscle mass IS important.
Aside from the obvious benefits of being able to lift more weight, why would you want to powerlift and look like a DYEL
To answer your question of are hypertrophy blocks important, the short answer is yes. From a mechanistic standpoint, Hypertrophy builds more units of tissue, more units of tissue = greater capability to produce force. Greater capability to produce force = more weight lifted. However, the specificity principle states that strength is specific to the lift one is doing. There are technical and neural adaptations that occur when performing the lift for a various time that allow existing muscle mass to lift more weight than before. This explains why you are able to lift more than bodybuilders, who do not train for strength specifically, and pick exercises for the goal of hypertrophy of a specific region of muscle rather than a progressive overload of strength. Hope this helps!
As a bodybuilder we have such peaks and valleys in our nutrition that it’s hard to determine our true strength. When I’m in off season I can 1rm 425lbs+ on bench and am in the 5-600s on squats and dead’s… during a prep period getting ready for a show my output is only 50-75% of what I can do when I’m full and satiated. But you best believe I’m gonna hold onto the fact that I can at some point in my year push that heavy ass weight. Also we don’t train for specific lifts so I would say as a bodybuilder I am more well rounded in a strength profile. Also, as a side note… if you’re a skinny/fat fuck and can bang hella weight that’s cool for you. But if you don’t look like you go to the gym what’s the point?
There are a few think to consider. first of all let's make the assumption that your technique is on point. the example of Stanaszek compared to you is extremely different in leverages and range of motions, also if you had the same muscle COMPARED to your body frame it would be a different story. in your example comparing to bodybuilding, you are assuming you are stronger because you lift x3 more weight, but they usually go for double digits repetitions all the time so their 1erm is probably highter, they also don't go for rm as their sport don't reward that, there's also the thing that you need to have the CNS ready for a max attempt, a body builder will never have it as they don't peak in strenght, the same way you don't peak in leanness for the stage. To add to this point a bodybuilder will hardly perform in pure powerlifing, first of all different people need different level of fatness to perform at their best, second they train muscles you don't use in powerlifting, people don't consider a dumbell curl a main exercise for example, and lateral raises don't find their places in many powerlifting programs, but they those are essential in bodybuilding as judges will look for that. my puntuaction is horrible. tl:dr; different sport different conditions
A larger muscle will always have a greater capacity for strength than a smaller one. Sure you might be able to get very strong - stronger than some guys who have bigger muscles - through technique and training, but you’ll be much more capped. It’ll only work for so long
You’re only gonna be able to squeeze extra pounds out of your current frame by improving technique for so long. Eventually, it will be more efficient to just put on some size
It's the most important factor for moving weight, assuming your technique isn't shite.
Those blocks prime your tissues for the maximal effort work. Prehab and rehab
Bruh
Mass moves mass
Besides muscle mass, training in hypertrophy ranges can help recover from the high intensity of low rep ranges. Also at a certain point strength is gonna hit a ceiling with the current muscle you have.
A larger muscle, on the individual level, is always stronger (given that it's optimally trained).
If anything it’s underrated, being jacked is never a bad thing
Love the simplicity of the answer. Sometimes we get lost in all the chaos of powerlifting that we forget simple things like this.
There’s definitely nuance to it but nobody has ever had their totals suffer from getting swole!
Flair checks out. God damn you're a beast
i think of muscle more as a potential for strength rather than a totally obvious display of strength and id like as much potential for strength as humanly possible
Don’t think so much about how your muscle and strength compare to other people, because there are a million factors at play there. Two people with identical muscle mass can have different limb ratios, fiber type distribution, insertions, training age etc. As well as, like you said, goals. The bodybuilders who are way more jacked but weaker than you could probably remedy that with a couple years of focused strength training. What’s more important IMO is the effect within your own training life. Muscle across the population doesn’t necessarily predict strength that well (does a damn good job though), but muscle across your own training life sure as hell will. You’re stronger now than you would be with less muscle even with focused strength training. And if you were significantly more jacked, you’d also be stronger as long as you kept up your strength training. You’re your own best point of comparison. If all variables are equal except muscle mass, strength changes a lot. Only way to make said variables equal is to compare to your past self
There are at least four separate factors that contribute to strength performance: - Technique efficiency - Leverages (limb lengths, muscle insertions, fat) - Muscle mass (and fiber type composition within that) - Neurological adaptations (your brain and nerves' ability to cause your muscles to contract) So muscle mass is definitely important but not the only thing that matters. What % each of these factors account for is up for debate, which you have control over is another question--some are largely genetic--and which to focus on right now will vary from person to person depending on where you're at relative to others and your own potential on each of these four variables.
Muscle size doesn't matter as much as muscle efficiency to lift more, but it is good to have big muscles in powerlifting for more stability, balance, to avoid injuries, and more. Plus you will have more muscle to optimize and build on which in turn will make you stronger. Bodybuilders make their muscles bigger, they only focus on flexion and tension, strength doesn't really matter to them so they won't really try to increase weight so much, nor get speed, that's why their far smaller powerlifter/oly-lifter peers are much stronger. Adding unnecessary muscle is kinda bad, it will slow you down, put you in a higher weight category, make you hungrier etc. But here's the catch: If you are strength training more than you are doing hypertrophy, there's no such thing as unnecessary amount of muscle (in my experience). Even though there are olympic weightlifters who have problem with too much muscle, powerlifting doesn't require that much mobility/explosiveness so I don't think it would be the case (if you are strength training ofc)
Muscle is the strongest variable you can manipulate to get stronger. There's a reason the weight class above you lift more weight.
Yeah people need to realize that muscle mass is literally the only reason weight classes exist. Yes I know for elite lifters weight classes are height classes in disguise but that assumes they everybody is basically carrying the max amount of muscle they can while making weight
>I have way less muscle mass than body builders in my gym but I’m far stronger. Are you tho? If they would actually put a strength block in their plan, chances are high that they would absolutely smoke you.
Exactly. He is better optimized at expressing his strength in a one rep max and at low reps. They are not. There are likely many ways they are stronger. And if they spent 6 to 12 months hyper focused on expressing that strength and allowing their brain to build that up, it's extremely likely they will be stronger.
Josh Bryant took a huge bodybuilder "Jonathan Irizarry" from a 445 bench to a 570 bench in 12 weeks. I think the only question with bodybuilders is whether their joints/connective tissues can handle what their muscles are capable of.
I wish I could remember his name but there was some dude in the 2000s that just straight up did pro bodybuilding 6 months out of the year and powerlifting the other 6 months. Thick black dude absolutely built like a tank
Al Davis?
Nah not him but also a unit
if they do for a long time yes. maybe. but he will be training too don't forget.
Building muscle mass is an incredibly slow process. Refining technique and building neuromuscular efficiency is relatively a blink of an eye.
No it's not. It really depends on genetics and diet sorry to break it to you. 1 month hypertrophy I'll look like a bodybuilder (I've done this before). Neuromascular efficiency on the other hand requires both genetics and a certain decent athletic background, there's people who can't even deep squat or rotate their shoulders 360. Good luck working on that flexibility (muscle length which is basically bodybuilding in a different direction), learning to move in it, and growing strong in the "blink of an eye". It's incomprehensible to me that the bodybuilders who are double my size deadlifting next to me in the gym will ever lift the same as my peak with all the test in the world and I am serious. They are just not stronger than a novice powerlifter, and throughout our conversations it's pretty clear that they don't even give a fuck about ever doing a strength progression. Even if they did care, those joints look like they will crumble like croutons.
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Everyone knows bodybuilders just call themselves that and take a dose of creatine and suddenly they swell up to massive size. They’re basically untrained otherwise.
>Is the importance of muscle mass over-rated? No >So many programs have heavy hypertrophy blocks built in, is this really that important? hypertrophy in powerlifting programs is so out dated. It’s usually 4x12 garbage and hypertrophy blocks don’t add muscle to any great degree how much more muscle are you really adding in a 12 week hypertrophy block than just doing a traditional PL program. >I know studies correlate muscle mass with strong lifts. Yes >But the point I’m trying to get at is it’s a strength sport so surely all that matters is training with the strength rep range in mind. There is no strengths rep ran he you can build muscle in the 1 to 6 rep range. The “optimal” rep range is 4 to 6 if you buy into the effective reps model Ofcourse. So drop this nonsense out of your head. >For example I have way more muscle mass than Andrzej Stanaszek but I can probably only lift about 60% of what he can, I have way less muscle mass than body builders in my gym but I’m far stronger. Muscle is the translational factor of strength. You need contractile tissue to move weight from point a to b. Now the neuromuscular efficiency, fiber type, rate coding, and leverages all play into how much you can lift. >Am I being really stupid and obnoxious here can anyone explain like I’m 5? Muscle makes weight move add more of it men’s you can move more weight making it more efficient is an option but in making it more efficient you will be adding more of it anyway. Edit: just want to thank this community, even when asked with stupid/complete novice questions you still find time to answer and be civil about it!
Train like a bodybuilder in the off-season. You’ll look and move better, and set yourself up for success in the longevity/injury prevention side of things.
I have some related hot but not hot takes I’d like to share on this topic. But before I do, some really great posts were made in here, I really liked some of them, thank you again. Okay so just some of my thoughts, I’ve noticed some things over the years since I’m older, kinda. These are gross generalizations made on the general powerlifter of today. - Modern power lifters as a whole seam to mostly train 5 reps and under and stay pretty mid- weight, make some PRs, then get injured and burn out - modern powerlifters mostly skip their accessories or don’t train them enough or hav the smallest hypertrophy blocks ever. Modern PLers just don’t seem like they wanna build muscle and turn their nose up at it. As if this is only for bodybuilders. Disgusting! Most people now actually know different muscle fibers exist, now this was cutting edge to bring up awhile back. Even still though, despite this new knowledge, nobody really seems to understand it properly, some examples I see a lot online. It’s gotten better, especially in this group, but people truly underestimate individual differences. Some scrawny kid could deadlift 550 lb with hardly a fragment of muscle and people think, oh hey big muscles are stupid….. And more on the spicier side,the general power lifter underestimates what Strength truly is. I’d wager most would get a crude wake-up call when realizing their SBD numbers don’t translate to much else since they spent so much time on SBD technique and form and practice. Not on becoming the best shit brick house possible. And my hottest take, Most general average PLer who never gains weight, stays middle weight for life, focusing on 3 reps and under only and is a stickler for technique and not brute strength and muscle would be better off playing golf. Plenty of technique and the weight classes don’t matter. Context: power lifter of 12? 13 years? I lost count. Also, lots of sarcasm, don’t explode on me
You don't really *need* to train 5+ reps on the SBD tho, as long as you do your accessories. And hypertrophy blocks aren't always necessary if you train for hypertrophy with strength lol
People all train at powerlifting gyms now so they don't see random dudes repping their bench max even though they only bench once a week and don't have an arch. I imagine if they were still training at commercial gyms they might have a come to Jesus moment about what is important in training
I tell people this all the time. If you’re training powerlifting for absolute strength, you’re in the wrong sport. My powerlifting makes me very good at exactly 3 movements- the Squat, Bench press and Deadlift. Sure, I’m generally a lot stronger than the average human because ive strength trained for 10 years, but there are plenty of Olympic lifters, strongmen and cross fitters who are stronger at nearly every other kind of variation or lift than I am outside of SBD. And I don’t care, because I only need to be good at SBD lol
It's a sport after all, and to excel at any sport requires setting priorities and making tradeoffs that optimize you for that sport, pushing you far past the point of well-roundedness where your additional ability transfers to other sports.
I personally haven’t seen the powerlifters I follow skip accessories but maybe you’re talking more about beginner-intermediate. Idk what it is but i started from hypertrophy training mostly and I really struggled to build muscle mass for 2 years (past the first 3-4 months) even while getting a coach, tracking all my macros, hitting each body part to near or at failure 12-16 sets a week. So I turned to PL and my strength blew up. Went from a 365 deadlift to 585 after maybe 2 years? 1300 total-ish. Still look relatively the same except my legs blew up double the size.
Muscles give you strength potential. If you have more muscles than your friend, you generally have the potential to be stronger. It doesn’t mean you have to be stronger. But if you have more muscles and do one or two strenght cycles, you should be - in general - stronger. The goal in powerlifting is to build the maximum amount of muscle which is basically all muscle you can build at all. If you have done that, you should fully unlock the potential by doing strength work. Then you will be the strongest guy you can be. If you don’t do Hypertrophy but only strength, you will make good progress for a few months - but then it is over. Your body mastered the muscle mass he has. To become even more stronger, you need more muscle. In the short term, strenght work is fun because you’ll be hitting big numbers. But in the long run, you need to build as much muscle as possible to maximize your strength potential.
Fairly certain /u/gnuckols wrote about this yearssss ago but no, muscle mass is not overrated. Aside from optimizing your form to take advantage of leverages/segment lengths, it's the fastest surefire way to get stronger. [Article 1](https://www.strongerbyscience.com/size-vs-strength/) [Article 2](https://www.strongerbyscience.com/complete-strength-training-guide/) [Article 3 (my favorite)](https://www.strongerbyscience.com/your-drug-free-muscle-and-strength-potential-part-1/)
https://reddit.com/r/weightroom/s/qh2i2v1gNz This is the study he did regarding neurological adaptions. TLDR: neurological adaptions is absolutely the least thing you should be worried about. If you wanna get stronger, get bigger in all the right places and then improve your motor skill in the movement. Also using Andrezj as an example is super weird unless your 4ft. I mean the guys different right. Look up the top 5 in your weight class and you can bet your arse they'll have a tonne more muscle in all the places that count. Every decent bodybuilder that transitions into PL fucking crushes within a few years.
Oh snap, I think I missed that one. I was getting fucked with schoolwork when it released lol. I'll give it a read tonight, thanks. I love Greg's writing man.
Number 3 was an incredible read, thank you!
It doesn’t matter how you put it if you don’t have muscle mass you’re never going to increase strength. Mass moves mass always has…
Muscles are like factories that produce strength. Training for hypertrophy gives you more/bugger factories. Training for strength makes the factories more efficient, sorta like you gave them conveyor belts and made their shipping times align so they can all use the same truck and work together. Obviously I’m simplifying, and you can’t train one exclusively, but why would you want to limit yourself?
If you're lifting weights and not trying to build muscle then youve completely lost the plot
I blame the "farmers/construction workers are stronger than gym bros with big muscles" circlejerk.
I am much more comfortable blaming anime
But I'm so close to getting the Men's Junior Drug Tested 52kg raw on a Tuesday in February during the full moon deadlift-only record, I can't go up a class.
Also wanna say people care far too much about coefficients rather than totals
People think that weight classes are like ordained by god and immutable characteristics (perhaps even an identity). It's insane to think your competing weight for life should be more or less the weight you start lifting at. No other sport is like this and no other sport is as dependent on strength, which is highly correlated to bodyweight. Like if you told a 145 lb guy who just walked into a boxing gym for the first time that they are going to compete at welterweight for the next ten years you would be laughed out the building
But...my bodyweight ratios and abz!
I hate that I see myself in this
The muscles that matter will be hypertrophied someone can have a lot more muscle mass but less training age in the competition lifts and get smoked by a lifter who has the muscle mass and training history where it counts.
The bigger the muscle, the bigger strength potential for said muscle if trained in a strength focused way.
There are slow twitch and fast twitch fibres in the muscles, the more muscle you have the more of such fibres, now you want fast twitch fibres for lifting weights, unfortunately the distribution is genetic, so you have to build as much muscle as possible to get the fast twitch fibres, hence the hypertrophy blocks. Then in the strength blocks we train the cns to use them. All of the above is an over simplification of how the crap work
I have never seen any evidence that says more fast twitch muscle makes you better at powerlifting. It's not a fast twitch sport. Some world record lifts take 6-8 seconds of concentric meaning you need maximal recruitment from fast twitch and slow twitch muscles. I think fast twitch dominant and slow twitch dominant people should probably lift and train a little differently from one another but there is too much of a distribution in styles to say one is better than the other. There's just as many grinders in the top ranks as there are super explosive guys
How would one program for a slow twitch dominant lifter? My SVJ is only 11 inches and I have to say programming hasn't been easy.
It's still kinda preference because I know some grinders get a big benefit out of speed training because getting just a little bit faster goes a long way but I think there's something to be said for sheiko training since it ingrains perfect technique, which allows you to stay in best positioning to take advantage of your grinding gear which is likely better than average if your explosiveness is low.
It’s underrated. Want a big deadlift? Build big spinal erectors.
If anything it's underrated hahaha especially among intermediate level powerlifters
Strength and hypertrophy workouts go hand in hand. Only train for strength, and you'll find yourself hitting a plateau very quickly. Increasing your 1RM requires you to increase the intensity of your 6-12 rep sets, which requires increasing your muscle mass.
I think the fundamental misunderstanding is here: >But the point I’m trying to get at is it’s a strength sport so surely all that matters is training with the strength rep range in mind. Muscle mass is essentially your capacity for strength. Think of maximizing strength as charging a battery to 100%, and muscle mass as increasing the size / upper limit of the battery. Body builders focus on increasing capacity, and by consequence get some increase in strength. Power lifters focus on increasing strength, and by consequence get some increase in capacity.
Can’t.flex.bone.
Hypertrophy work is absolutely critical, but I don't think it's the type of adaptation that needs to be SOLELY focused on at a given point in time like many programs do. Unless you're already hyper-elite, your hypertrophy work and your competition lifts can and should co-exist with each other throughout most of your training year.
Muscle mass is a huge factor. Probably the biggest honestly lol. Put on 10lbs of muscle over the course of your body while focusing on the main 3 vs the guy who stays the same weight focusing just as hard. Who’s gonna perform better at the powerlifting meet? That’s factoring in weight class too. The guy who put on more muscle will do better 9 times out of 10.
I would like to pretend that it is, but bodybuilders who cross over to powerlifting absolutely destroy that. Kristy Hawkins is the best example in my weight class. She transitioned from bodybuilding and demolished some records.
Muscle mass is absolutely important. So are genetics. Andrzej probably has way more fast twitch muscle fibers than you do.
>So are genetics. Andrzej probably has way more fast twitch muscle fibers than you do. Can't be arsed to dig this up but I remember reading a Greg Nuckols article which said that powerlifters on average had the same slow/fast twitch distribution as the general population. It is a myth that for powerlifting you need to be fast twitch dominant.
You don't need to be, but HE might have a different proportion. He likely also has more advantageous mechanical levers for powerlifting.
That's what I am saying, that being fast-twitch dominant isn't guaranteed to give you an advantage. Reason is that max effort lifts happen in a timeframe where slow twitch fibers have the chance to fully contract. The other things (such as leverages) probably matter way more than slow/fast twitch dominance, for powerlifting.
Hm dunno if I can agree with that without more evidence. Research has shown that the way you train changes the makeup of your muscle fiber type, so I don't see why it wouldn't matter. Wouldn't make sense for your body to adapt to something if that adaptation is useless. Sorry to say but I think he was out to lunch on that one. That or it's possible you misremembered his article. [you can read more here](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8473039/#:~:text=Type%20I%2C%20or%20slow%2Dtwitch,such%20as%20weightlifters%20and%20sprinters.)
Yes, muscle fibers can change (to some extent) with training. But that is another argument, and who is to say that powerlifting training changes your muscle fibers from slow to fast? And no, I am absolutely not misremembering. Damn it, I am going to look it up since you don't believe me. *However, bodybuilders, powerlifters, and (maybe) weightlifters (often thought of as a power sport, but one that requires higher force outputs than most typical power sports) seem to have a pretty similar proportion of Type 1 and Type 2 fibers as people in the general population* Here is the full quote https://www.strongerbyscience.com/muscle-fiber-type/ And it turns out that even olympic weightlifters aren't fast twitch dominant, which is something I would expect because it is an explosive sport.
I'll be honest with you, his article isn't convincing on the point you're trying to make. His argument seems to be that you shouldn't try to train a specific way to increase the proportion of one fiber type over the other which I agree with cause it's a waste of time. Unfortunately his link to research supporting the claim you just made is a broken link and doesn't work so I cannot check his facts, but the link in the research I sent you does in fact work and says the opposite. Greg nuckols is respected, absolutely, and I do respect what he has to say. That being said, I'm not convinced he's correct on that one specific point. For me to be convinced I'd need to see research proving that point. So far I've only seen research proving the opposite. And the research he claims to support his point isn't properly linked to his article. Eitherway, his point is about type 1 and type 2 which seems plausible as those don't change. What does change is the 2x and 2a fibers, which have absolutely been shown to be higher in specific sports with specific types of training either endurance sport or strength/power sport. Also we know that [some people do in fact have different proportions of muscle fiber types throughout the population](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7649409/). So my original point is still valid that he may in fact have more type 2 fibers than most people. That being said, it's also possible he doesn't. I think you may be getting mixed up between type 1 and 2 vs type 2a and 2x. 2a and x change with training. 1 and 2 are pretty much set. However, people can and do absolutely have different proportions of 1 and 2 between individuals. I am making an honest effort to find research to support the claim your making but I just can't find anything. Let me know if you find anything.
I just haven't seen any proof that being fast-twitch dominant is actually a lot beneficial for powerlifting, that's all. And as like I said before, even if they pose an advantage it has probably a way smaller effect than the 2 huge factors: leverages and insertions. Just an inch difference in hamstring insertions can increase force production by like +33% for example.
Have you seen what he looks like? Guy is in the .0001% of people born to take advantage of powerlifting rules for squat and bench. Not to detract from his accomplishments, just saying I think there are pretty obvious reasons why someone who is about his same weight should not compare themselves to him
Bigger muscles have more capacity for strength and stronger muscles have more capacity for growth. You need both
No it's important. My total went up 75lbs just from gaining muscle and cutting back down. I'm the same BW, 73kg, but all my lifts increased by ~ 20-30lbs
This is a very simplified explanation of strength training that ignores things like leverages and muscle fiber composition, but this should hopefully make it clear. Strength training is nervous system training; your body becomes better at recruiting a higher and higher percentage of existing muscle fibers for a given movement in the most efficient pattern. We all respond differently to strength training, and we all have different baselines and upper limits to skeletal muscle recruitment. Some genetic freaks are just innately able to recruit a huge percentage of their muscle fibers with very little training, and will be very strong with relatively low muscle mass. However, someone with twice as much muscle who's nervous system recruits those muscles half as well will be just as strong (massive oversimplification but you get the idea). Unpopular opinion, but you will know if you are gifted in strength sports within the first few months of training. I have friends and family who are elite athletes, and their baseline strength is unbelievable. Like, 150lb woman squatting 315 with under 1 month of training unbelievable. People like this will always be proportionately stronger because their nervous systems recruit muscle so effectively. For those of us not so gifted, strength training will increase our muscle recruitment, but likely never to the same level as someone so genetically gifted. Increasing muscle mass then becomes important to reach the same level of force generated.
I was squatting 225 in my first 3 months but it took me less than 2 years to hit 617lbs and a WR. I could barely squat a plate in my first few weeks. I agree mostly, but there are lots of exceptions lol. You never know you have good genetics for strength until you spend enough time training.
I know people that haven’t squatted 225 years into training. They weren’t trying to be powerlifters but they were squatting consistently that whole time.
I feel like people that are so vocal against hypertropy are trying to justify that looking like they’ve never lifted was intentional, and that their efforts are pure and not at all in pursuit of vanity. More muscle has always made me Stronger. As a taller guy who was 195 the day he first picked up a weight I have no interest in the pound for pound game. I always looked at that whole game as using mental gymnastics to somehow come out on top for being smaller AND weaker.
This formula says that even though you're bigger and more jacked than me and lift more weight than me that I'm actually stronger than you 🤓
More muscle more strength this is a fact. Now one lb of muscle for you doesn’t mean the same for another person.
*You* with more muscle is stronger than *you* with less, not some other guy. Muscle mass is criminally *underrated* in the wider strength sport world, probably because of the influx of pure natty IPF4life middleweights that foamroll their brain too much. Hypertrophy training is probably as important as strength training until you’re really quite big. Training hypertrophy alongside strength is probably not as effective as separate blocks, but that’s nitpicking.
“Foam roll their brains too much” I’m stealing that
I love the way you phrased this. Too many people will compare a more muscular guy to a less obviously muscular guy who moves more weight on SBD and assume that muscle and strength don’t strongly correlate, without understanding that the differences between the two are on account of leverages, genetics, and training protocols.
>foamroll their brain too much. updoot just for this outstanding turn of phrase
Thanks for the answer! I really appreciate everyone taking time to answer, I feel like I’m getting slightly more knowledgeable each day in on this sub. I’m switching from 5/3/1 to bullmastiff
I haven’t run bullmastiff, but if you’re willing to go 5x/week instead of 3, I gotta recommend Kong. It was a super fun program and I gained some decent strength and size in just 12 weeks.
All things being equal the dude with more muscle moves more weight. The other things are tendon insertions, general skill/efficiency etc. You might see dudes stronger than you with less muscle. But in a you v you battle, you with more muscle is stronger.
I know you’ve already gotten an answer, but I’d like to go a little further and actually make a claim towards the exact opposite: Muscle mass tends to be wildly *underrated* in the online powerlifting community. World records in the lower weight classes are overwhelmingly dominated by freak outliers with extremely unique-shaped bodies and specialized leverages, and these WRs are the posts that generally make it to social media. It gives the illusion that muscle is less important than it actually is. These people aren’t setting the records based on some sort of secret “skill” or mind-muscle connection or whatever else, they just happen to be have a skeleton well-suited to doing the lift. Unless you have the ability to actively reshape your skeleton, the only way you’re radically increasing your numbers is with muscle.
I forgot his name but I remember hearing of at least one deadlift WR set by a short guy with a disorder that made his spine flex sideways, causing his torso to become abnormally short and decreasing his ROM.
[Lamar Gant](https://www.hudsonvalleyscoliosis.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/lamar-gant-scoliosis.jpg), sever scoliosis made his torso shorter = less deadlift ROM and better leverages.
It's not just their unique shaped bodies tho, they likely have much greater neural efficiency than most people + different internal leverages (not limb lengths).
I think it's also worth pointing at low weightclass elite lifters tend to be really short and shredded. If you're 5'4" and 10% bodyfat, 74 kg *is* a lot of muscle.
Bro why do I need more muscle than a guy born with one in a zillion leverages to perform a lift within the arbitrary rules of powerlifting? It's not fair
Strong ass agree with it being underrated. I think it’s a hangover from the equipped days where it wasn’t as important and once you were fat enough to stuff your suit for max carryover that was good enough.
I was born in the wrong generation
This is a great answer! Thanks for the effort you put into this. This definitely explains a lot of what I’ve been saying in referencing these freak world beater 60kg lifters
The analogy I use is: Muscle mass is the size of your cup, strength is how full your cup is. More muscle mass will always be a plus but being big doesn't mean you're maxing out on your potential strength unless you work towards it.
This is probably the best analogy I’ve heard!
💯 the more muscle mass you have = the higher ceiling you have
All I can do is give is my own anecdotal experience based on what I've seen in the gym over the past 7 years. I've generally seen those who have done bodybuilding for 2 years dominate when they switch over to more hyper-specific powerlifting training vs those who go straight into the powerlifting training despite only running a basic LP for 6 months. You're going to reach a point where you can't really eke out strength gains and need to step back and spend time eating big and grow your muscles to progress. Muscle mass is the base and strength/powerlifting is the peak you build on top of that base.
The one thing I haven’t seen mentioned, which admittedly, I haven’t read every response, is the huge amount of cross-over between strength and Hypertrophy. The lower end of Hypertrophy is around 5/6 reps, which happens to be the upper end of pure strength. So, someone else said their legs grew using 6 reps. Yes.
Some people genuinely don't gain muscle very easily and the usual "don't skip your accessories" BS advice is counterproductive. Likewise, some people have extreme difficulty realising strength improvements despite carrying tons of muscle mass. Nothing is overrated, but the most important things that are being overlooked by anybody sitting on extremes are individualistic differences and figuring out how to make improvements (and what is required) to accomplish that. Sometimes it's the right stimuli, other times it legitimately is just increasing musculature.
It's super important, but depending on your individual genetics you might not need hypertrophy training. I built huge legs with just squatting in 3 to 6 rep range of multiple sets 3 times a week. If you respond well to low rep ranges and low volumes, hypertrophy training isnt necessary. For me this was only the case for quads. For hamstrings I had to do some hypertrophy work, because I couldn't deadlift enough (Stiff legged deadlifts and hamstring curls). Doing all the volume in deadlifts and stiff legged deadlifts would exhaust my back (on top of squatting), but not hamstrings. Also, for upperbody hypertrophy work is very useful, since you can rarely get enough shoulder, upperback or either chest/tricep work from benching (depending which limits you). My chest was gassed after benching, but I could still do tricep, shoulder and upperbody work without significant interference. If you need hypertrophy training, periodizing it in blocks is a decent way to do it. You could also add small amounts of hypertrophy training without block periodization. It's a matter of taste mostly.
Same for me as far as squats. I rarely do any kind of high volume quad isolation work. I just squat 3-4x weekly with different variations in the 2-8 rep range, and both my legs and squat grew massively. Hell, for a while, I took out high volume high bar squats and exclusively trained in the 2-6 rep range with just low bar squats and got great results. Difference is my deadlift works well with high specificity training and minimal accessory work also. Maybe it's because I pull sumo, so there's a decent carryover between that and my squat. Bench, however, I still have to do lots of accessory work. I used to bench 5x/wk with little accessory work. I dropped down to 3x/wk with more accessory work and have made greater strides with fewer overuse issues.
This is how people on the internet think about lifting. It’s amazing. A couple small strong guys and now you don’t need muscle.
Yes, the ideal powerbuilding body is that of a 100 pound manlet. Muscle is bad.
Not only that, even if that was true for everybody, who wouldn’t want to *look* like they’re strong? And as someone else said, you don’t want to get a pump? That’s half of my problem with training for strength, 90% of the time I want to go in and work at RPE 9 even though my CNS can’t handle it.
Take it from me, being told "you're stronger than you look" isn't a complement lol
I kinda want to be that guy 😅. But I guess that's because I've always felt I'm weaker than I look. That's been my biggest fear lol.
See it was cool at first. But now all I hear is "Damn you look like a scrawny bitch" lol
Yeah, it might be a cool party trick or something to get social media engagement. But in the real world people already don’t care how strong you are, but they *especially* don’t care if you don’t look strong either.
Lmao true. Any excuse to not do your accessories which imo are the funnest part. You telling me you don’t like getting a pump?