I am just wanted to know if a pound of muscle is denser and takes up less space than fat how come bodybuilders like Ronnie Coleman and Arnold are so freakin' huge for their bodyweight. That means if I gain muscle I shouldn't look that much bigger, right? and I have something to worry about if I gain a lot of weight and look a lot bigger because it's fat, right?
Bodybuild Myths and Fact
- Thread starter rabbit
- Start date
Rabbit, the guys you're referring to are loaded to the gunwhales with a variety of anabolic steroids in complex cycles, testosterone, and probably human growth hormone, along with a variety of serious diuretics during competition season. You cannot draw any conclusions at all about proper body composition from these science projects. Muscle is a good deal denser than bone, fat or other body tissue, and a 180lb guy who is 12% body fat will definitely take up less volume than a 180lb guy who is 35% body fat. No question. But when you're taking a pharmacy-worth of heavy-duty muscle-growth promoters, all bets are off... except one: you are going to wind up getting very, very sick, and maybe dead, as a result, sometime down the line.
Most professional or top athletes in a sport have a certain type of bodycomposition for their sport. A short person with short legs is going to have a lot harder time kicking a tall person with long legs in the head. I know we can't change our height or the legth of are legs, but it makes sense to me that body composition is important. You can gain lean body mass or change how much fat you are carrying.
punisher73
Senior Master
Look at the height/weight of the current Mr. Olympia, those guys are really tall, most are under 6'0. Here are the stats of the current Mr. Olympia Jay Cutler
Height: 5'9
Off Season Weight: 300 lbs
Competition Weight: 260 lbs
Arms: 22 1/2"
Thighs: 30"
Calves: 20"
Waist: 34"
Neck: 19 1/2"
Yes, you can somewhat alter your body composition and have a different body type, but that is only possible to this degree in the VAST majority of the population if you have some chemical assistance.
As far as "bodytypes" for martial arts, you are going to find as many different successful people as you are body types. What kind of martial art do you study? Tailor your program for how your body moves within that martial art.
The top bodybuilders are walking around with probably a little over 100 lbs of extra muscle on them compared to an "average" person of the same height and bone structure.
Height: 5'9
Off Season Weight: 300 lbs
Competition Weight: 260 lbs
Arms: 22 1/2"
Thighs: 30"
Calves: 20"
Waist: 34"
Neck: 19 1/2"
Yes, you can somewhat alter your body composition and have a different body type, but that is only possible to this degree in the VAST majority of the population if you have some chemical assistance.
As far as "bodytypes" for martial arts, you are going to find as many different successful people as you are body types. What kind of martial art do you study? Tailor your program for how your body moves within that martial art.
The top bodybuilders are walking around with probably a little over 100 lbs of extra muscle on them compared to an "average" person of the same height and bone structure.
Dead right, punisher.
To see how far you get without multiple cycles of anabolic substances and other damaging chemicals, consider John Grimek, of whom the following descripion is given here:
John Grimek is the only man ever to win the AAU Mr. America title more than once. His wins in 1940 and 1941 were so overwhelming that contest organizers from then on implemented the single-victory rule. Grimek exhibited a Herculean visage and was as strong as he looked - evidenced when he represented the United States as a weightlifter at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. In 1948, at 38 years of age, Grimek beat the young sensation Steve Reeves at the NABBA Mr. Universe in London.
A year later, in his last contest, the AAU Mr. USA, he beat Reeves again - as well as Clarence Ross, George Eiferman and Armand Tanny - and retired from bodybuilding competition undefeated. Expert at controlling his muscles and agile in acrobatic posing moves, he possessed extreme power; he was still able to squat with over 400 pounds for reps well after retirement age.
With his combination of proportionate bodylines and raw power, John Grimek served as the perfect hybrid between the pre-war "bodybuilder as strongman" genre and the modern "one sport only" bodybuilder. John passed away on November 20, 1998, and will forever be remembered for his philosophy of life - always keep your focus on good health as the primary motivation for your toil, and build muscle the old fashioned way - earn it by hard work and dedication.
A year later, in his last contest, the AAU Mr. USA, he beat Reeves again - as well as Clarence Ross, George Eiferman and Armand Tanny - and retired from bodybuilding competition undefeated. Expert at controlling his muscles and agile in acrobatic posing moves, he possessed extreme power; he was still able to squat with over 400 pounds for reps well after retirement age.
With his combination of proportionate bodylines and raw power, John Grimek served as the perfect hybrid between the pre-war "bodybuilder as strongman" genre and the modern "one sport only" bodybuilder. John passed away on November 20, 1998, and will forever be remembered for his philosophy of life - always keep your focus on good health as the primary motivation for your toil, and build muscle the old fashioned way - earn it by hard work and dedication.
This was before anabolic steroids were introduced by the loathsome John Ziegler into U.S. athletics. Take a look at Grimek's physique—hard to imagine anything more impressive—clearly a guy with terrific genes for bodybuilding/powerlifting—but he's literally half the size of guys like Yates, Coleman, and Cutler. So where did that vast inflation come from between Grimek's era and theirs?
Three guesses...
Exile speaks the truth..There is a science to taking roids and the COST is out of this world...I knew a dishwasher that went on the roids when they were the HOT thing to be on..He looked great until his health began to suffer, loss of hair, enlarged breasts etc..etc.. He laid off and shrunk back to his former size..At that point he was unable to lift a 20lb dumbell wothout pain...Robert Kennedy's Muscle Mag International magazine had a column that was dedicated to roids, you might want to check them out..There are alot of over-the-counter supplements available, look into them...
newGuy12
Master of Arts
Absolutely, Drac—that's a common side effect. The problem is that normal testosterone production often diminishes as the body adjusts to external test intake and the absorbtion of other synthetic test mimics. This can result in permanent infertility and other sexual dysfunctions, and muscle atrophy when the 'roids are withdrawn. I've seen photos of guys who went off 'roids and within a year or so, they look like they've aged a decade... but the alternative, staying on them, is way worse. Bad, bad road to go down: you get either the bad news or the very bad news...
Old School!
Great shot, nG—that's the real thing! Remember, folks: steroid use was unknown at the time of that photo... it can be done naturally (whether or not you're genetically gifted). Just sustained hard, devoted, smart work... i.e., like everything else worth doing.
tellner
Senior Master
Exile and Punisher, I tried to rep you guys, but they want me to Share the Luv first. Damn Bob, all that promiscuity is just hell on Traditional Values 
Another thing about bodybuilding is that it's really about fashion and aesthetics, not strength. If you look at a guy who uses those muscles for a living - a longshoreman, a farmer, a wrestler - he doesn't look like a bodybuilder. Depending on his genetics he's going to look wiry or slab-sided or like a barrel. And he'll use his whole body as much as possible.
The bodybuilding look works against functional strength in a lot of ways. You get those highly sculpted anatomy drawing muscles by working them individually and Frankensteining them together. The training rewards muscles working in isolation.
Another thing about bodybuilding is that it's really about fashion and aesthetics, not strength. If you look at a guy who uses those muscles for a living - a longshoreman, a farmer, a wrestler - he doesn't look like a bodybuilder. Depending on his genetics he's going to look wiry or slab-sided or like a barrel. And he'll use his whole body as much as possible.
The bodybuilding look works against functional strength in a lot of ways. You get those highly sculpted anatomy drawing muscles by working them individually and Frankensteining them together. The training rewards muscles working in isolation.
Exile and Punisher, I tried to rep you guys, but they want me to Share the Luv first. Damn Bob, all that promiscuity is just hell on Traditional Values
Another thing about bodybuilding is that it's really about fashion and aesthetics, not strength. If you look at a guy who uses those muscles for a living - a longshoreman, a farmer, a wrestler - he doesn't look like a bodybuilder. Depending on his genetics he's going to look wiry or slab-sided or like a barrel. And he'll use his whole body as much as possible.
The bodybuilding look works against functional strength in a lot of ways. You get those highly sculpted anatomy drawing muscles by working them individually and Frankensteining them together. The training rewards muscles working in isolation.
And it also rewards bizarre dietary regimes, use of seriously dangerous diuretics (early megabodybuilder Paul Dillett, who was in the 300 lb + contest-ready class before most of the others who wound up there, came within an ace of some kind of major cardiovascular trauma during one contest, probably as a result of the latter), dangerous metabolism accelerants... all used in combinations which were never foreseen by the manufacturers of those substances (some of which, apparently, were originally intended for veterinary use!! One thing about Grimek: he was a working powerlifter, and powerlifters emphasize big compound exercises and tend not to worry too much about looking ultra-shredded—they just want to get pounds off the floor. Early, pre 'roidal gymnasts are another good role-model: they have functional strength in abundance, excellent symmetrical musculature (because their routines typically entail equal strength demands on both sides) and lean, efficient body composition... but not the monstrous overgrowth that makes contemporary body-builders look like a different species that went down the wrong evolutionary road...
The thing that's so striking about that passage I quoted above about Grimek is what's implied in the line `Expert at controlling his muscles and agile in acrobatic posing moves,...' The fact is, contemporary bodybuilders have a hard time controlling their muscles because their steroid regimes result in muscle volume that is too large for their connective tissue—their tendons, ligaments and cartilage, the strings that get the puppet to actually move. Connective tissue, unlike muscle tissue, does not increase in volume in response to anabolic substances, so you get guys who look as though the should be able to outwrestle 800lb mountain gorillas who have a hard time crossing the street, let alone being able to do something like MA sparring (or tennis or anything else requiring speed and control). The clichéd notion of the `muscle-bound' bodybuilder has an element of truth to it, but not because muscles slow you up—if you develop them the way Grimek did, the connective infractructure that lets you use your muscles in agile and fast-paced fashion will be there; but the steroidal monsters of the Mr. Olympia circuit don't do it like that. As Tellner emphasizes, the premium is on cosmetic appearances, æsthetic fetishes (e.g. you get more points for very prominent blood vessels at the surface of your muscles, hence the lavish use of dangerous dehydrant agents) and other distinctly nonfunctional goals.
In the end, the working athlete, training naturally and devotedly and focusing on strength, balance and accuracy, will be the most successful MAist, benefitting from the speed that powerful muscles provide and the ability to not only generate but direct the power created by those muscles to the target. And this is true whether you're tall, short, narrow- or broad-shouldered.
Not bloody many!
Bodybuilding training has become so specialized, artificial and... well, fetishist, for want of a better word... that it's essentially ceased to be a strength discipline, at least in terms of applicable strength. Yes, these guys can lift fearsome weights (though they can lift heavier than their tendons are built to handle, hence are always experiencing horrific muscle tears of the sort that drove Dorian Yates into retirement), but they can't do anything with that strength which depends even a little bit on coordinated use of it. That's why there is essentially zero overlap, at the more advanced levels of the respective activities, between competitive bodybuilders and competitive powerlifters (or shotputters, or hammer throwers, or anything else like that).
Xue Sheng
All weight is underside
agreed
Everytime I read anything about body builders and strength (and don't get me wrong they are pretty strong) I always think the same thing
Vasili Alexiev certainly would never have won a body building competition... but the man could have lifted a truck full of them.
How come they weigh more in the off season than when in contest shape. I have heard that muscle burns fat. They have alot of muscle how come they gain weight. With 100 pounds of extra muscle it would seem to me that they would be lean all year long. Something about the modern bodybuilding methods don't seem to add up. I am starting to wonder if the have a hidden agenda.
Muscle is denser, and burns more calories than fat - but muscles that are not constantly in use quickly convert to fat. The food necessary to maintain such muscles during the training season is more than is required to maintain body weight - to maintain that type of muscle, the same level of muscle-building activity must be performed regularly; any drop in activity leads to a corresponding drop in muscle mass, and the changes are additive - the more muscle turns to fat, the fewer calories are burned, the more muscle turns to fat, etc. Only by resuming the previous level of activity (and the ingestion of any supplements, legal or not) can the person rebuild the lost musculature.
I was readin something right now and I've come to this conclusion.........
It all depends if you are trying to lose, maintain, or gain bodyweight. If you eat enough but not so much you gain fat you will maintain your weight. Maybe it is because in the off season they are trying to get more mass or bring up lagging body parts and eating above maintainace. This seems very extreme to me. they already have to eat a huge amount to maintain the muscle. In the off-season they have to eat even more. This is insane for an average person.
Are there other sports that build big muscles? Like sprinting? Is it really neccesary to lift weights? Or are all the bodybuilding magazines, the pros with the hidden agendas (buy this, buy that protein powder), and people who believe them trying to get us to go with the current trends?
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