Cutting and bulking necessary?

[risepmj]

No way to tell what the optimal rate is at this point since you're not a novice, you compete in a non-weight class sport, and you may not need to gain weight to get better at your sport or get stronger.

I wonder if i quit the sprinting and wanted to get a muscles.

[Jordan Feigenbaum]

Yea at 6'4 we're likely talking about 105-115 to be muscular and 140kg-155kg to be the strongest version of yourself and a very slow gain over years- maybe 1kg a month.

[risepmj]

Thank you bro.You looked getting healthy back.Crush beast mode again!

[Jordan Feigenbaum]

Thank you!

[JukkaM]

Yea at 6'4 we're likely talking about 105-115 to be muscular and 140kg-155kg to be the strongest version of yourself and a very slow gain over years- maybe 1kg a month.

I found this interesting and have been thinking about the relationship between bodyweight and strength (relative strength).

I assume that the "weaker" version at around 105-115kg bodyweight would be closer to 10% than 20% when it comes to amount of body fat he is carrying. On the other hand when being in the 140-155kg side this wouldn´t be the case. Instead the BF would be closer to 20% or even clearly above.

Yes, he is carrying more muscle mass with a higher body fat level but body fat itself doesn´t help performance since it´s lacking contractile properties. Is the body weight of 140-155kg "strongest" version of our example here because of increased muscle mass and better leverages that are improved with the addition of certain amount of body fat as well?

For me it´s been quite hard to understand how bigger size (more muscle, more fat) improves leverages, if this is the case.

[Jordan Feigenbaum]

So this is a pretty complex thing to unpack, but I think there are a handful of mechanisms by which carrying more body fat = more weight on the bar. They are as fallows:

1) As people gain muscle (and fat), the ratio tends to become skewed towards more fat as they get further and further away from their novice state's level of muscle. If you have a guy who was 200lbs after the novice LP and carried 165lbs of muscle, he's gonna gain more fat to get to 275 and 200lbs of muscle than he did to get to 200/165. Just a law of diminishing return. So I'd make a case that it's "necessary" to gain "more" fat at the upper echelon.

2) The cross sectional area of the limb increases, perhaps altering the kinematics of the lift favorably (squat and bench) or possibly negatively (deadlift). I don't think the leverages change much without a change in muscle CSA, so adipose shouldn't theoretically change the muscle's leverages much, but the limb and torso girths certainly change. Altered ROM falls in here too.

3) Less dietary restriction to maintain BW probably results in improved recovery if all other things are equal.

4) The ability to support more weight has a relationship with weighing more. Big Ray Williams can walk out 900+ and not turn to dust partially due to his size. Whether this is due to musculoskeletal changes secondary to increased weight or just that having more "girth" allows this is unclear to me at this point. Maybe both. Probably both, in fact.

[JukkaM]

Excellent! Just what I was looking for. It´s definitely a complex subject.