Does juiced and built="strong"?

[Johnny_Whoops]

wondering if you guys find a direct corelation with being well-built and symmetric and being classically "strong"? I'm 30 now and still remember being a high school kid in the summer moving furniture for a big moving company in the summer. I saw guys by our definition unfit or even small lift things like ants....guys that just had man-strength. Then there were "heroes"..newbies that were jacked and probably even juicing now that I remember back at their physiques, that got the job and came in and we were all expecting great things....but they couldn't lift anything heavy. I could also say the same thing about my high school and college sports experiences. The jacked guys would lead you to believe they'd hit hard or have super powers, but they wouldn't always. Now at the gym, the fittest guys are not playing with big weights......on the other side I've seen plenty jacked/juiced guys lift heavy weight but......OPINIONS??

 

[Powerbuilder333]

There are a few who are both strong and highly conditioned, like Ronnie Coleman for example. He's the exception. You see the World's Stronest Man competitors and they're all smooth, with thick waists and super human strength - that's the norm.

 

[Johnny_Whoops]

There are a few who are both strong and highly conditioned, like Ronnie Coleman for example. He's the exception. You see the World's Stronest Man competitors and they're all smooth, with thick waists and super human strength - that's the norm.

Agreed. Added bodyweight and girth helps so much...and the presence of fat feeds muscles in motion. My training partner is my height but holds 30 to 35 more pounds of fat/bodyweight than me. I'm a touch stronger than him on all lifts. He holds his weight well, but people expect big lifts from him. I guessed I'm amazed at the 5'7 guys that weight 160 and bench 315. Their lean look with strength defies logic. I expect a fat/big guy to lift big weight. He has a lot of leverage in his favor.

 

[majutsu]

yeah, jacked means low body fat, vascularity and muscle hypertrophy. Strength means having muscle that generates high contractive force, CNS control to fire it all at once with coordination, mitochondria for energy expenditure, and hormonal drive with cortisol and adrenaline to fire strength. A "power lifter" has to worry about the above in training. Now, a body builder will be stronger than the average man significantly due to his greater muscle mass. But a power lifter may take the same mass, learn to fire it explosively, slather it with fat, learn to "psych" up and produce animal-like hormonal surges, and fabricate extra mitochondria to enable prolonged top level contraction. Actually, once you have trained for it, you can see certain individuals and see that they're powerful: thick cores, large backs and hamstrings, thick wrists, necks and ankles etc. Look at an early mike tyson video for a great example. or mariusz. Avg guy 225lb bench, and a body builder might go 405lb with reps. A powerlifter might max out 7-800lbs, but the bodybuilder will have trouble getting out of the 500s. These are generalizations, and there are exceptions certainly.

I find this stuff fascinating too. I used to think that strength=mass, but that's not true. strength = mass + CNS factors + energy supply. How do you train to increase strength the most? Or, conversely for a bodybuilder, how do you train to increase mass the most? And what diets? And what cycles?

Lots of good questions in this topic. I've got some ideas, but wouldn't mind hearing from others before I ramble on.