Let's discuss

>Obviously increasing the amount of weight you can handle will increase muscle size,

you can gain strength without gaining any muscle on a cut, thank your central nervous system.///

i disagree and have a revision

A bigger muscle is a potentially stronger muscle.

You can make muscle gains on a cut while your central nervous system is fatigued too. Just depends on your training focus and diet.

Yes, in that you can change your muscle size.

No, in the sense that you can't change the shape or appearance otherwise. That is down to genetics.

Also, bigger muscle =/= necessarily stronger muscle.

Think of muscle size as a container for strength. Just because you have a big container doesn't mean you've filled it. But once you have filled it, you need a bigger container to hold more strength.

Does insertions have a correlation to how much you can lift?

Muscle strength is dependant on two factors:
1. Cross-sectional area of the muscle (CSA)
and
2. The type of muscle (Type I, Type IIa, Type IIx)

The CSA of a muscle is one thing we can increase to improve strength, but the type of muscle is determined by genetics.

So short answer: Yes
Long answer: No

It's a scientific fact

hm, sauce?

So going back to what you said, size of muscle means increased strength - correct?

If we had two participants - both exact same bf% - One has a 50" chest while the other has a 40" chest... the 50" UNDOUBTEDLY will be able to lift more on any given chest exercise.

Yeah.... I don't think that is something that can be set in stone.

>e type of muscle is determined by genetics.

want2learn moar

AthleanX, check out the video about gaining muscle on a cut for the the diet explanation, I don't know much about the science behind it personally. The science behind the training is relatively simple though, even though your CNS is fatigued while cutting you can do exercises that aren't very intense, so basically isolations, and that'll let you stress the muscle enough to grow even if you're drained from cutting.

Nice analogy and of course I should have stated taking genetics into account.

moar on muscle types

If we had two million participants and we measured each individual's chest and their max bench and threw that into statistics software of your choice we'd have a very statistically significant correlation between the two. You can't pick 2 random people out and test like that, you're not controlling for form, limb length, chest size etc. Your evidence is just a worthless anecdote.

ur too far into fit that's really good in the real world

Nah, my goal is a minimum of 2.5x BW, preferably paused

>roiding for this

I have almost exact same body and height (just not as big thighs) and I'm lucky if I'm 165 lb soaking wet

Not that user but.
bodybuilding.com/fun/sclark20.htm

Tldr: slow twitch fiber (type 1) is for low strength output max endurance
Fast twitch fiber (type 2a) is more strength output is small bursts.
Fast twitch fiber (type 2b) is maximum strength output for a miniscule amount of time before fatigued. This is where autism strength comes from.

Thanks for the compliment m8

Height?

Muscle adaption and growth is a result of strength. This is a fact, anybody who contests this is a moron. If your PR's are coming up every week, your muscles are adapting and growing. If your PR's are not coming up, your muscle will grow for a limited time by plateu. How strong you can get is also a result of genetics, but it's pretty close between people (genetic freaks aside) How fast you hit that potential is going to be a result of how good your training and nutrition is.

The shape of the muscle and size of growth (potential) is determined by genetics.

In Jeff Sieds case, the guy has great insertions and genetics, but he would not look like that without steroids. He would still look great, but he would look a lot more deflated and his body would not hold that amount of muscle with that low of BF%.

But basically if you think you are going to go to the gym and lift 150lbs on bench for 8 reps for 4 months and continue to see growth, you wont. Your muscles will adapt and hit a growth plateu.

On a cut you should probably do strength training with low volume to maintain strength. Ripping your muscles to shit on a calorie deficit will make them go catabolic. On a bulk if you want pure growth you probably want to do some strength training (hit 1 rep PR's occasionally) but focus on the 8 rep range on most lifts with lots of volume (increase volume as time goes on)

Anyone know if this means you would benefit from varying rep ranges over time, in order to stimulate all types of fiber? Or is the 8 rep rule of thumb for hypertrophy the way to go?

There is a principal called the Size Principle of Orderly Recruitment that states that muscle fiber types are activated in sequence. This means that basically, you are going to stimulate your type I fibers in order to hit your type II. If anything, this means you should be strength training (85%+ of 1RM) in order to actually hit the higher threshold motor units.

why the fuck would you neglect your upper body like that, stop squatting and start benching wtf

Type 1 muscle fibres really don't grow an awful lot, so focusing on them tends to be a bit of a bust. Varying rep ranges does tend to help longterm though. Nothing special about the hypertrophy, its just easier to manage your volume and intensity that way.

That said, rep ranges alone don't mean an awful lot. Total volume (of reasonable effort reps) and bringing that up over time is the main driver of growth

Strength training or using other methods to reach higher recruitment - you can lift heavy and that works, but you can also lift near to failure or with maximum speed to get similar effects as far as recruitment goes.

not nessecarily. Lifting till failure isn't a failure of the musculature, but a failure of the CNS to adequately stimulate muscle contraction. To properly exhaust a type I fiber with volume so that you can't even activate it and only activate the II+ would require hours of sustained low intensity cardio to drain it of glycogen

Appreciate the detailed post user, will definitely incorporate the low volume high intensity to keep strength during my cut.

That is a lot.

I was benching 330x1 at the time

Like three people in this thread even know what insertions are.

while i agree with you the discrepancy he reports could be from comparing natty lifters to non-natty lifters. natty lifters need to adapt their CNS more before they can increase the size of their muscle. someone on gear doesn't need nearly as much CNS stimulation to spur muscle growth and can therefore appear big but actually not be as strong.

I read (in some woman's Fitness mag) that you could increase the efficiency of a muscle over time. In other words, the same muscle mass could lift more and store more energy. Is this real or BS?

Its kinda real, though the mechanism is different. The muscle isn't storing more energy, the body is getting better at activating the fibres simultaneously to generate more force. Usually coupled with improving technique to put the body in a more mechanically advantageous position during the lift.

This is basically how noob gains work when someone first starts lifting and it never really stops. Just slows down.

The order of recruitment for heavy lifting is
1st: Type 1
2nd: Type IIa
Last: Type IIx (or type IIb as it's also known)

Regardless of the rep range you're going to train all three types provided the resistance is high enough to stimulate sufficient motor neuron recruitment. Although, even with that said, using a variety of rep ranges does help with the conditioning of the various ATP production cycles (glycolysis, krebs cyce, and oxidative phosphorylation). So different rep ranges can improve your capacity to perform "work".

This user has it right.

Training to failure is more a result of potassium gated channels opening to terminate the repolarization phase, which then leads to the refractory phase eg. the muscle can't perform "work"

I've never read anything about proximal/distal insertions having an impact on the amount that can be moved. But there's conclusive evidence to suggest that shorter levers are able to move more weight.

Basically manlets, or anyone with short limbs, have the advantage when it comes to lifting heavy.

Insertions matter for the same reason limb lengths do - its a torque thing.

Shorter levers are better assuming everything else is equal. Usually the amount of muscle acting on them is pretty far from equal.

This is why I always thought that using push ups as a measure of fitness was dumb. Manlets do much less work on push ups but there is no real world need for a 6foot plus man to push themselves up through their range of motion 44 times. The tall guy can do much more real world work than the manlet if they both max out at the same push up count.

im not sure that idea makes sense to me. like for flexion of the elbow joint would having a higher or lower bicep insertion be better? im guessing a higher insertion would allow for better contraction? either way the muscle is attached by the tendon so i cant imagine what effect the insertion has on the leverage.

Stuff like high/low insertion on the bicep is largely dictated by the position of the tendon.

If the biceps insertion is further away from the elbow joint, the biceps can lift more weight. If it's closer to the joint it can lift weight faster but sacrifices strength.

Good stuff. Any good books on exercise physiology you recommend?

thanks fellas. i have low bicep insertions. dont really care if theyre good or bad performance wise, i just like them aesthetically

Muscle growth isn't a free process though, it needs extra energy, something like 600 calories per pound just for "materials" and then the work to create the fibers which is I don't even know how much. In a deficit, your body will just not really want to waste even more energy, you might gain a little bit but nowhere near as much as you would doing a bulk, special technique or not.

I would say yes, in that the muscles appear more toned, but the size doesn't necessarily increase with the amount of weight one can lift.

Take gymnasts for example: they are strong af, but the muscle's aren't large like OP's pic.

My question is: how do I train for strength to lift heavy, without my muscles getting bigger?

Don't eat at a surplus and keep your volume down. That mass isn't going to come from nowhere.

There's no such thing as high or low insertion. It is well documented, and can be found in any anatomical text. There is the insertion point and then there is origin point. Both are anatomically identical amongst 99.99% of humans, with the remaining 0.01% being a genetic anomaly.

Take the bicep brachii for example, its insertion is the radial tuberosity and bicipital aponeurosis into deep fascia on medial part of forearm, and the origin for each is: Short head: coracoid process of the scapula. Long head: supraglenoid tubercle. These DON'T change amongst the 99.99% of normal humans.

Everyone is constantly confusing insertion/origin for the shape of the muscle belly (that's the bulging part you see on the biceps), where the belly meets the tendons that connect to the insertion/origin points.

I should have included a pic. The insertion/origin points are constant amongst humans born without some sort of muscular defect.

They're almost always attached to roughly the same point, but the exact location of that attachment varies slightly from individual to individual. It only takes a few millimetres to significantly change the force a muscle can apply to the bone.

The distance is so tiny it has virtually no effect on the movement. The lever lengths have the greatest impact on the amount of force that can be applied.

Of course they fucking do.

Gymnasts are very short and pretty lightweight in general (not a meme). They get that better leverage and don't have to lift too much weight up.
Add to that the balance and coordination required o do what they do and they'll look super strong compared to a non-gymnast trying to do gymnast things and failing miserably even though they're strong.

...

I guess you're right about the balance and coordination. But there are other sports that you want to be stronger, but not necessarily bigger. Martial artists, and such, to stay in a lower division for example

you clearly dont know what youre talking about and you should stop misleading everyone here with the wrong information