Strength Gain Without Weight Gain?

We all know that getting stronger leads to extend in performance. But can we increase muscle strength without increasing our body weight?

More the muscle mass an individual has, higher the force he/she will produce as they’ve more mass on the bottom to push from. In contact sports your muscle mass is of greater profit as you may have a stronger and wider base to push on the opponent and at the identical time you may have a greater probability to avoid getting knocked off balance.

At the identical time greater guys or guys with greater muscle mass are capable of produce greater force because they’ve a got a much bigger platform from which a force is generated.

To turn into a sportsman, you may have to give attention to your particular sport and movements related to it (sport-specific training), at the identical time addressing all of the essential components of fitness which can assist you to turn into an all-round athlete. These components involve weight training (muscular endurance, strength and power), flexibility training, agility, speed, coordination, balance, cardiovascular endurance etc. This is known as “Hybrid training”.

“Nick Tuminello” a top strength coach, to explain hybrid training, gives an example of the previous world heavyweight boxing champion within the 90s “Evander Holyfield”, who was the primary guy to publicize hybrid training. He did boxing practice within the mornings, plyometric and conditioning within the afternoon with world renowned Dr. Fred Hatfield (Dr. Squat, the primary man to squat 1000lb+) and did bodybuilding practice with several times Mr. Olympia the legendry Lee Haney.

Extra muscle mass or body weight nonetheless is just not desirable by many sportsmen like boxers, swimmers, endurance athletes, cyclists, MMA fighters, gymnasts etc.

On the opposite hand, the bodybuilding training is designed in order to maximise muscle gain or induce muscle hypertrophy which is their primary goal. They achieve this by isolating and training body parts with a wide range of rep ranges. The movement is slow and there’s hardly any aerobic exercise involved. Apart from that they take huge amount anabolics primarily targeted towards rapid muscle gain.

Sports specific strength training other than basic bodybuilding movements like squats, deadlifts etc. also include explosive weight lifting movements like snatch, clean and jerk etc. in addition to plyometric movements like hurdle jumps, stair running, box jumps etc which require functional coordination of various muscles moderately than isolation of a specific muscle as in bodybuilding. This, and more, is together with the practice of their sport, or the game specific training.

Remember that, olympic lifts improve the strength and power component not by majorly increasing muscle mass but by improving neural efficiency. Remember that it is just not possible to induce solely neural or only muscular changes. They happen in unison, but there are particular protocols which permit strength increase without much gain in mass. In fact, for a beginner, once they start lifting, the initial strength gains come from neural adaptations, not by hypertrophy.

The body increases strength by increasing variety of muscle fibers and by increasing the firing rates of motor neurons. So to extend strength without adding muscle much muscle mass follow the given suggestions:

1. Start lifting heavy. Strength athletes give attention to lifting there 80-100% 1RM (around 1-4reps). This recruits very high threshold motor units. The muscle fibers used are fast twitch that are primarily strength providers but fatigue very easily.

When we speak about a motor unit, it consists of a motor neuron, and the muscle fibers that are activated by this neuron. The muscle fibers that are activated by the motor neuron, achieve this based on the signal from the brain, about which muscle is to be contracted, and the way much. A motor neuron can activate a whole bunch of fibers at a time.

Now, this activation of motor neurons is what we call ‘practice’. More practice we do, harder we do, heavier we lift, the more motor neurons you possibly can activate, and in turn more muscle fibers are engaged and thus more force is produced. That’s why trained individuals can activate more motor units than a person.

A 2004 studytested the muscle fiber makeup of powerlifters, bodybuilders and weightlifters. They found that, those typically utilising the heaviest loads (> or =90% 1RM), that’s weightlifters and powerlifters, exhibited a preferential hypertrophy of type II fibres in comparison with body builders who appear to equally hypertrophy each type I and sort II fibres. Type II muscle fibres are those that are more powerful, and sort I are endurance based.

2. Sportsmen focus on speed of lifts or explosive lifting that are excellent for constructing explosive power. Olympic lifts, speed benches and squats, kettlebell swings, heavy medicine ball throws etc. all come under the explosive lift category. On the opposite hand, adding plyometric movements like box jumps, high knees, hurdles, single leg hops, bounding etc. These movements involve the stretch shortening cycle, which help train the muscles to make use of the stored elastic energy to supply force.

3. Limit the amount of coaching. Training for 4-5 sets per exercise with total of 15+ sets for a person body part for 5-6 times every week is a bit too high a volume. To increase the strength lower the amount. In actual case training frequency with weights needs to be limited to 2-3 times per week.

4. Avoid training to failure. Failure is achieved, whenever you work for the pump and the burn, and with minimal rest between sets. Also, after we speak about hypertrophy, there are primarily two types; Sarcoplasmic & Myofibrillar.

Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy refers to a rise in the amount of sarcoplasmic fluid throughout the muscle cell, with no actual increase in muscular strength. This form of hypertrophy is what bodybuilders are inclined to give attention to when they are trying to maximise the general size of their muscles.

Myofibrillar hypertrophy is the sort of hypertrophy you discover in strength athletes and people who are strong but may seem like they’ve less muscle mass. It is the rise in size of actual muscle fibres. During myofibrillar hypertrophy, actin and myosin contractile proteins increase in number, adding to your muscular strength, in addition to a small increase in physical size.

5. Bodybuilders use less rest periods for muscle hypertrophy. This rest might be app. 60-120sec. However, to achieve strength without bulk increase the remainder periods between sets. For doing so lift heavy. So, it’s not about increasing rest periods, it’s about first lifting heavier, in order that robotically the remainder requirements increase.

6. Recruit maximum muscle fibers to extend the quantity of force production by the muscles. This is completed by concentrating totally on heavy compound movements.

7. Eat clean & adequate –The amount of food and supplements required for bulking up is phenomenal. For lean muscle gain and gain in strength one must eat adequate but eat clean. Start with consuming your maintenance calories, and better than average protein i.e. over 1.6gm/kg body weight.

Slowly, observe the rise in strength levels. Whenever you hit a plateau, increase the protein intake in type of calorie surplus, by around 200-300 calories, after which observe the difference in strength, ensuring that your weight stays the identical. In case, the load increases with surplus, cut down on the general calories.