Muscle size vs muscle strength

[Springbok_Powered]

I'm hoping to have this question answered in biological terms, so don't hold back on technical details.

I want to know why there are guys 180 lbs, 11% bf who can lift the same or more weight than myself, 215 lbs 15% bf.

What causes a group of muscle cells to be stronger from one person to another? androgens? Muscle cell count rather than size?

[kaberle_15]

Genetics has a lot to do with it, # of fast and slow twitch muscle fibers. Training can be a factor some people train for strength and others for bulk and dont switch up the training as often as they should and dont make the progress anymore. You mix genetics with hard work and "smaller" people can do amazing lifts.

[MuscleScience]

To expand on what Kaberle said, genetics and percentage of fast to slow twitch are major factors. One other factor is the coordination of motor units in a given muscle. At any one time during a lift not all motor units are fired. This means not all the muscle is contracting at the same time. With training this can be improved a great deal. In-fact when a person starts lifting for the first time in there life. The gains they experiance at first are usually pretty big in strength and power. These gains are all functions of the nervous system learing how to fire motor units in a particular sequence to perform an exercise. Think of it also this way if you have never thrown a baseball before but your as big and as tall as someone that has thrown all there life. You will not be able to throw like them at first. With proper training (practice) you will cause your nervouse system to Learn the novel skill thus improving it. Later on your musculature will catch up and start to change in responce as well. That is why the guy with the biggest muscles may not be the strongest guy. He just doesnt recruit his muscle fibers to fire as effectively as say someone thats lighter but is a power lifter that has trained for a specific lift or style.

[Springbok_Powered]

MuscleScience, that makes perfect sense. So I will continue to lift heavier weights and thus hopefully train more muscle fibres to work at the one time, increasing overall strength. Right?

[MuscleScience]

yes and no,

What you need to do is to focus on the concentric phase of the exercise(positive phase) of the lift. Explode when your in the positive but be controlled on the eccentric ( negative phase). you want to perform the positive phase as quickly as possible when doing a power lift such as bench or clean, deadlift ect. But you dont want to go so slow on the negative that you burn to much energy up. Just be incontrol of the weights at all times so that you limit the chance of injury. If your in a sport try to do exercise that mimic the movements that you do on the field of play. Training for specificity is the key to improving athletic performance along with functional strength.

[Springbok_Powered]

Thanks MuscleScience, I'll incorporate that into my workouts

[MFT81]

Be sure to check out our powerlifting forum, there is such a gold mine of knowledge thats been tried and tested, in there. Plus the guys that post are so easy and willing to talk and help out