So I've been talking about this like a broken record for well over a decade now.
I talked about it in my last video and it's the idea that progressive overload is the
primary driver of muscle growth.
It's the ultimate bottom line and that if you want to get bigger, you need to focus
on getting stronger first and foremost, not on getting a pump or feeling the burn or performing
a ton of sets or using special fancy lifting techniques, but on adding more weight to the
bar over time on all of the key compound lifts in proper form, I should mention that as well.
There's just no way around that okay?
A stronger muscle is a bigger muscle and training for improved performance is the fastest way
to put on size, especially if you're in the first two to three years of training.
But a lot of people get confused on this in that they see somebody at the gym who might
not be that strong and is lifting less weight than they are yet they clearly look bigger
and more muscular, which can obviously be kind of frustrating or the opposite can be
true as well.
Okay?
You can have someone who is lifting fairly impressive weights but doesn't seem to be
carrying the right amount of muscle relative to how much weight they're lifting.
So if strength equals size, then how can that be?
Well, the answer is pretty simple and it's that strength does equal size to a very large
degree, but it's relative to the individual, meaning that as you get stronger you will
get bigger, but the degree of strength development that's going to be required for you to look
a certain way in terms of overall muscularity won't necessarily be the same as the next
guy.
Okay?
So just because you're squatting 315 pounds for reps, that doesn't mean that your legs
are automatically going to be the same size as everybody else out there who's also squatting
315 pounds.
You can have one guy who squats 315 or even less and has really impressive looking legs
and another guy who squats 315 but doesn't look nearly as impressive.
When we're talking about muscle growth, we have to be realistic and we have to acknowledge
the role that genetics play in the process, which means that some people just respond
faster to training and are going to have a bigger hypertrophic response to a certain
level of strength.
Whereas some people won't respond quite as well and they're going to need to spend more
time developing their strengths in order to reach a similar level.
Aside from the overall hypertrophic response to training, another huge factor is body structure
because of factors like limb length, muscle insertion points, wrist size, ankle size,
waist size, clavicle width as well as height.
Different amounts of muscle can look quite a bit different on each given person.
So you could have an upper arm that measures say 15 inches flexed, but because of a combination
of all of these different factors, proportionally it could look just as muscular as somebody
else with a 17 inch arm.
Maybe your arm length is shorter, which makes the biceps and triceps seem wider.
Maybe your biceps insert further down towards your elbow so that you have a longer muscle
belly and maybe you have a smaller wrist as well, which creates the illusion of a bigger
upper arm.
All of those things are going to give you an advantage and you aren't going to need
to put on as much actual muscle in order to have impressively muscular looking arms.
Remember that physique aesthetics are partly about your objective measurements on paper,
but at the end of the day it ultimately just comes down to how muscular you look visually
and there's a certain illusory aspect involved in that.
So if someone has a more favorable body structure, they might not have to add as much weight
to the bar or gain as much total muscle mass in order to achieve a certain level of visual
muscularity.
Another factor to look at is leverages.
So depending on what exercise someone is performing because of their body structure and the leverages
that are involved in that lift, they might just be better suited to certain lifts.
And so even though they've built up to a fairly large amount of weight compared to someone
else, they might not appear as big in response to that amount of weight they're lifting as
you would expect because they've already got a built in advantage right from the get go
and that their body was just better suited to moving more weight on that particular exercise.
For example, you might see some guys who can deadlift quite a bit of weight but don't really
look that big and again that can be because of the way that their particular body structure
is set up, right?
Maybe their body structure just allows them to move more weight on that exercise right
out of the gate.
The other thing to consider if you're just looking around your gym and comparing yourself
to the other lifters that you see is that you don't know what any given person's specific
training goals are.
In other words, some people might just be more focused in on certain lifts than others
and they might've spent more time building up their strength on those particular lifts.
So maybe the guy with the really Jack looking physique is say dead lifting next to someone
who isn't as muscular and so you look at that and you say, "Well, what's going on here?
I thought strength equated to size.
So why is that smaller guy dead lifting more weight than the bigger guy."
But you have to take a look at their overall training program and take everything into
account, right?
Maybe the first guy does a lot of heavy pull-ups and pull downs and rows and shrugs and other
movements to build their back musculature and they're using a more bodybuilding focused
program.
Whereas maybe the second guy is mainly just focused on building a big deadlift and he
doesn't pay as much attention to those other lifts.
So in that one instance, things might seem a bit off because the one guy is smaller but
moving more weight.
But again, the overall training program has to be considered.
And then beyond those three factors, of course the final factor to consider, which is a huge
one, is drug use.
Okay?
You might see guys in the gym who are suspiciously muscular even though they're not very strong.
And a lot of times that can be a dead giveaway that steroids are involved because steroids
provide a huge advantage when it comes to putting on muscle mass.
I mean, you could literally take steroids and do nothing but sit on the coach and you'll
still gain some muscle from it.
So don't discount the factor of drug use because that will hugely affect the amount of weight
that a given person needs to lift in order to achieve a certain level of muscularity.
So try not to concern yourself too much with what everyone else in the gym or on YouTube
or on Instagram is doing.
Strength and does equal size for the most part so just focus on staying consistent with
your own program, tracking your workouts on paper and building up a solid strength foundation.
And when combined with proper nutrition, you will consistently put on new muscle mass as
you add more weight to the bar during those first few years of lifting.
So thanks for watching guys.
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