The Relationship Between Size and Strength, Part 1
By
John Carlson (aka Professor C)
It always bugs me when someone says that there is no relationship between
size and strength. It’s bugged me since I took up weight training 36 years ago.
They said it back then and they’re still saying it. In this article, I’m going
to lay this myth to rest and explain the true relationship between size and
strength. In the process, I will explain why it is absolutely critical that you
skinny bastards incorporate bodybuilding training methods into your routines if
you aren’t gaining muscle mass by powerlifting. First, here’s a little
background.
I took up weight training after getting my ass kicked. A bully from another
neighborhood beat the crap out of me, and it was a major turning point in my
life. If you’ve ever had your face punched while the back of your head was
against a wall or the pavement, you know it’s like two punches for the price of
one. The first impact is against your face. The second comes from the back of
your head hitting the street. I made up my mind that that wasn’t going to happen
again and began a lifelong quest to get bigger and stronger. To say I was
motivated is an understatement.
I started working out in my basement and reading the bodybuilding magazines
that were available in the early 1970s. When I turned 18, I joined the first
bodybuilding gym on Long Island called Futureman. We used every intensity
technique known to man, and I was chronically overtrained.
After several years of bodybuilding, I weighed 207 lbs at a height of just
over six feet, and my walking around weight was around 183–185 lbs. So we’re
talking about a gain of roughly 20–23 lbs of muscle mass on a medium weight bone
structure.
The strength and size gains stopped when I reached 207 lbs. After several
years of overtraining and zero gains, I decided to try powerlifting and started
reading Powerlifting USA, which was then in its early days. My goals were
simple—increase my strength and gain more muscle mass.
I put together a powerlifting routine and stuck with that over a period of
around five years. This routine was made up of low rep narrow stance back
squats, front squats, partial squats, deadlifts, stiff-leg deadlifts, partial
deadlifts, weighted chins, pull-downs, bench presses, close grip bench presses,
weighted dips, partial benches, barbell rows, barbell curls, push-downs, lying
triceps extensions, and wrist curls. All of the dinky little bodybuilding
exercises were cut out to conserve energy/recovery ability for the big lifts. I
didn’t take any drugs of any kind, and I used few supplements. I figured that
with the combination of basic exercises, heavy weights, and fewer sets I would
start gaining size and weight again. I really wanted to get to 225 lbs.
After just a couple years on this routine, my strength went up quite a bit.
These were my best raw lifts:
- Bench press, 355 X 5, 400 X 1
- Dips, 155 X 5
- Chins, 100 X 5
- Rows, 275 X 5
- Deadlift, 500 X 5
- Stiff leg deadlift, 440 X 5
- Squat, 440 X 5
- Wrist curls, 185 X 5
However, here’s the kicker. My weight didn’t increase at all! It stayed
exactly the same. Then my lifts hit a plateau. I continued on this routine and
started to pull muscles. I hurt my quads, lower back, traps, and elbows.
Eventually, the weights started to drop, and I never returned to this program. I
went back to a version of my old bodybuilding routine using moderate weights. My
strength dropped, but my weight stayed exactly the same.
My experience left me confused. I couldn’t make sense of what happened and
why I failed to get any bigger. It was hard for me to believe that I had reached
the limits of my “genetic potential” at 207 lbs, especially because my legs were
pretty skinny. I knew my experience wasn’t unique because I had a training
partner who matched me lift for lift and made identical strength gains. He also
failed to gain a pound. He started the program at 217 lbs and ended at 217 lbs.
Over time, I realized that what happened to me and my training partner
actually answered many questions I had about the relationship between muscular
size/muscle mass and strength. More importantly, I realized why I failed to gain
weight and what I could have done to keep the gains coming. Skinny bastards,
listen up…
I have listed a series of “lessons” or principles that I learned from my
experience that apply to bodybuilding and powerlifting/strength training. Some
of them appear to contradict one another at first glance. However, they are all
truisms nonetheless. If you keep them in mind, they will help you to design a
program that will enable you to achieve the results you’re looking for.
Here it goes…
Lesson #1
Intense bodybuilding training with sub-maximal poundage can increase size and
strength but will not generally develop maximal strength. Obvious, right? This
is where we start, and it’s important that we all agree that it is possible for
some people to develop significant muscle mass without handling (or being able
to handle) “heavy”/maximal poundage. This principle is beyond dispute.
Bodybuilders can develop muscle mass using training methods and exercises that
no strength athlete would ever consider using. Some examples include high rep
sets, pre-exhaustion, forced reps, negative reps, negative accentuated reps,
training to failure, drop sets, giant sets, supersets, and training with little
or no rest between sets. All of these methods increase the “intensity” of the
exercises and produce muscle mass gains even though many of them actually reduce
the amount of weight that can be used.
Former Mr. A., Steve Michalik, has said many times that exercise poundage is
irrelevant, and he can induce muscle mass gains with any poundage. All that
matters is the intensity of the exercise. Many people use this as a jumping off
point to make the argument that there is no relationship between size and
strength. This argument represents sloppy thinking. Let’s keep going.
Lesson #2
By using powerlifting training methods, it is possible to dramatically
increase the strength of muscle mass that was developed through bodybuilding
with light/moderate weights. Read that again. This means that a person who
develops muscle mass through bodybuilding with moderate poundage can turn to
powerlifting and gain significant strength in existing muscle mass.
Many people have major problems with what I just wrote. They think that if a
person develops their body using light weights in a bodybuilding routine, the
weights they are using reflect their actual powerlifting potential. This is flat
wrong. A bodybuilder’s large muscles may possess a lot of power potential that
is untapped because of the way he/she trains. A big bodybuilder can change over
to powerlifting and dramatically increase the maximal strength of his/her
“existing” muscle mass using powerlifting techniques. This has been shown over
and over again.
Does this mean that all bodybuilders with heavy muscle mass can be strong by
powerlifting standards if they train like powerlifters? Bad question. What it
means is this. If we took a group of big bodybuilders and dropped them at the
Westside Barbell Club and Louie Simmons trained them, they would probably all
experience dramatic increases in their maximal strength. Some would be as strong
as Elite powerlifters and some wouldn’t. However, their individual maximal
strength limits would increase.
The practical ramification of what I just wrote is this. A person can use
bodybuilding with sub-maximal weights to increase their muscle mass and then use
powerlifting methods to increase the maximal strength of that mass. Do you agree
with that statement?
Lesson # 3
Some people who switch over to powerlifting from bodybuilding do not get
bigger even though they are getting stronger. What happens to these people is
that they tap into the maximal strength “potential” of the mass they developed
through their bodybuilding training. This idea bothers people. They think that
if I was one size when I was benching 275 lbs for reps while using a ton of
bodybuilding exercises, I will be much bigger when I switch to powerlifting and
bench 350 lbs for reps. Not necessarily! You may not be any bigger even though
the poundage you are using is heavier. The muscle mass you developed is
increasing in strength up to its full potential and may not increase in size.
This is hard for people to believe, but it is absolutely true. Bodybuilding
training that produces muscle mass gains actually retards maximal strength
development. Switch a person who has trained on a bodybuilding system to a
powerlifting system and they can increase maximal strength without gaining
additional mass.
Lesson # 4
The amount of muscle mass you carry imposes a “ceiling” on your maximal
strength. To continually increase maximal strength, most people must increase
their muscle mass. What does this mean? I gained 23 lbs through bodybuilding. I
turned to powerlifting and experienced significant strength gains but no muscle
mass gains. Then the strength gains stopped.
In my opinion, I tapped out the strength potential of that 23-lb muscle mass
gain when I switched over to powerlifting, and I was about as strong as that
muscle mass would allow. Looking back, I do not think I could have gained much
more strength without gaining more muscle mass. Why is this?
First, I am not a naturally strong person. Some people are born with
superhuman strength. I have trained with some of them, and I am not one of those
people. So for me, my strength increases come from muscle mass increases. And my
23-lb mass gain was not that great for a guy who is over six feet tall.
Take a look at the training logs of some of the guys who write for
EliteFTS.com. I’m going to pick on Matt K for a minute. Matt’s extraordinary
training lifts are listed in his training log. They are unbelievable, and they
blow my training lifts away. However, consider Matt’s stats for a moment. Ask
yourself, “How tall is Matt? How big is his frame? What is his untrained walking
around weight?” His present weight is around a lean 250 lbs. Matt possesses far
more muscle mass than I did, and every pound of Matt’s muscle mass increases his
strength potential.
Consider bodybuilding great Franco Colombu. Here was a guy who was around
five feet, five inches, possibly shorter. His walking around weight? Maybe 130
lbs? Born with superhuman strength, he stepped onto the stage at the Felt Forum
in New York City on a night that he was competing for Mr. Olympia and deadlifted
over 700 lbs for reps! I was there to see it. He gained up to 175–180 lbs in
competition form. That’s a muscle mass gain of 45–50 lbs on a small frame.
That’s a lot of muscle mass on a small guy with way above average strength
potential.
My starting strength? Average. My muscle mass gain? 23 lbs at a height of
over six feet tall. How much total weight would I have to gain in order to make
muscle mass gains that were proportionate to Matt or Franco? 70 lbs? More? How
strong would I be if I could achieve those gains? Do you think it would be
possible for me to deadlift 700 lbs if I gained another 40–50 lbs of muscle
mass? Maybe.
Stay tuned for part two!
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