Occasionally, common questions are asked of me and I will post the question and answer for all my athletes. Through these Q & A’s, my athletes can increase their knowledge of useful information and move forward on their fitness journey.
The Question/Dilemma: Some athletes find it hard to gain weight, but want to gain muscle size. Generally, these athletes want to gain weight in a certain area…such as their legs or upper body. Most of them feel that they can lift weights, but cannot gain mass. They may get lean and ripped, but with no size. A common explanation is that they run too much or workout too much.
The Answer: To gain size, you must train to failure, you must eat more – and a lot more. Making this formula work is not easy.
However, at Pat’s Gym we always tell our athletes don’t gain size just for the sake of gaining size. Who cares how big a guy is if he looks like Tarzan but plays like Jane. We are interested in actual capacity. We don’t eat or train to increases size. We eat and train to increase power-to-weight ratio.
Unless you have a specific need for size, such as being a defensive tackle in a collegiate or professional football league, or want to bulk up for a specific reason, such as a body competition, we highly recommend looking beyond just “want to gain size.”
The power-to-weight ratio is important to the sports requiring locomotion; the cyclist that generates 400 watts of power with a 145-pound frame is more efficient than the cyclist that creates the same force with a 180-pound body. The 200-meter runner who can deadlift 3x bodyweight runs faster than the sprinter who can only deadlift 2x bodyweight. The runner’s size/weight ratio does not determine the one-rep max; instead, it is the neurological pathways and ability to recruit a greater percentage of existing muscle that are decisive factors. For these reasons, an athlete may develop the ability to generate incredible power without significant size or weight increase. Simply, they should focus on making the appropriate neurological pathways more efficient.
Relative strength can also determine how individuals integrate into a team. In the military context, every soldier wants to be strong. On a soldier’s journey to being stronger, he/she may get bigger as well. So how does the 230-pound athlete integrate into this team? He’s strong enough to carry heavy loads all day or carry a casualty if that occurs. But what if he/she sprains an ankle, and his teammates have to carry the soldier? This same issue affects mountain climbers and backcountry skiers who often operate in remote areas, and must be 100% self-sufficient. To be sure, fitness is an individual concept but each individual’s fitness, size and speed can make the team more capable and flexible, or less so.
So size matters, but bigger is not necessarily better; nor is bigger always stronger.
