Ok, first off, to Pembo, thanks for the great read, there are many partially true facts, that if followed will lead to increased muscle size and strength. Compound movements, when performed using strict form,
with progressive overload, will cause the diameter of a typeII muscle fiber to grow, thus allowing for an increase in strength.
In our lab here we have done numerous underwater weighing/2 part body compartment analysis. (the two part body analysis is Fat free Body Mass, and Fat Mass) We have bodybuilders from the area come in and request to get their BF measured. Tomake a long story short, and to skip boring scientific details, he came in for first measurement with the following stats-

height: 5'9" 175.26 cm 1.7526 m
weight: 216 lbs. 98.1 kg
Body Comp: 10% Fat 90% fat free (results are from Underwater weight)
Fat Mass: 21.6 lbs Lean Mass: 194.4 lbs.
BP 110/70 (healthy)
Resting HR: 50 bpm (very good)
His rupted maxes (i don't always trust these, but he did not want to undergo a max test?)
1rm Bench :320
10rm Squat :405

Ok, so, what all this is leading up to...
He was going into a contest prep
He kept me dialed in atleast once a week on what he was eating/how he was doing.
He ate extremely clean, did an alternating intensity cardio program I've been working on, and had the following results. after 4months,

Weight: 205 lbs. 89.1kg
Body Comp: 4% Fat 96% fat free (same tests)
Fat Mass: 8.2 lbs (!!!) Fat Free: 196.8 lbs
BP 140/80 ( a little close to hypertensive )
Resting HR: 60 (eh...I think I know why, Hot GA took his pulse)
We got to perform 1RM maxes this time on bench:
1 RM BENCH: 360 lbs.

He had a net loss of 13.4 lbs fat, with a net gain of 2.4 lbs muscle!
With a gain of 40 lbs on his Max rep bench, during a cardio/fat loss program.

What does all this lead us to believe?
That excessive overeating is not needed to add muscle mass.
KCALs in (how much you eat) minus KCALs out (basal metabolic rate, energy of movement) = positive number, you can grow.

I just wanted to post this to show that excessive overeating is not needed to gain muscle mass, remember, once you get a fat cell, you cannot get rid of it unless it is forcefully removed from your body. (liposuction).

I plan on making some posts to help ppl calculate protein needs, based off scientific qualitative data. Then a calculation to help find total calroic intake needed based off of that protein intake.

This is no way meant to insult other posters, infact in some ways it actually supports the claims that you need to eat a lot to gain muscle.
Btw, that bodybuilder's blood tests came back negative for anabolic steroid testing. Which leads me to 1 of 2 conclusions... 1) He infact is genetically blessed, 2) They fucked up the test or he was taking something that couldn't show up on the test.

-Rexboy