Question about power / strength relationship

[adamanderson]

If you've answered, I must've missed it. The power thing is clear, I'm asking about p4p STRENGTH. The only response that approaches an answer that I've seen is "At the IPF Worlds, how tall are the 105 kg guys? ", from which I inferred my hypothesis, the validity of which I then asked you to confirm.

I'm not trying to be a cun*, I sincerely must've missed it. Sorry to bother, I just love the theory.

[adamanderson]

... that's also my last question, Coach, if that's of any relief

[Mark Rippetoe]

Remind me: what is p4p? Do you want a number?

[franklie]

Remind me: what is p4p? Do you want a number?

Does p4p mean Pay for Play?

[adamanderson]

Remind me: what is p4p? Do you want a number?

Pound for pound. I mean the highest possible ratio of strength(=Force production ability)/bodyweight. No, no number. More like some parameters that can be established from which educated guesses can be made. So:

My hypothesis was that: the bodyweight at which a person (theoretically) has Max ratio of strength/bodyweight = the bodyweight where Max overall strength (=the strongest they can be overall, not "lb for lb") for that individual is at.
Because, if we have a human with organs and bones of a fixed weight, and we keep adding muscle to him/her, then their muscle mass/total mass ratio obviously increases, and, muscles being the part of the body that produces Force, the more muscle we add to the person, the larger the percentage of his bodyweight that produces Force. So as long as a person keeps adding muscle mass (and strength), i.e. the larger that the percentage of his bodyweight that is responsible for producing Force becomes, the stronger he would seem to (at least theoretically) become in relation to his total bodyweight (assuming a maintained BF% and organs that don't get significantly heavier etc).

That's my best guess based on what little I know. It seems solid to me but I might be unaware of some other variables that would invalidate it, which is why I ask. So no, not expecting you to say "yeah, 200lbs for Person A = weight at which he's the p4p strongest version of himself", Coach. If my theory is wrong, you might be able to say why it's wrong and what else has to be taken into account, and if it's not wrong, great. Some fundamentals, from which I could later make educated guesses on my own as to how much Person A should weigh to have an optimal strength/weight ratio. That's all.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Right. You see how this varies with height? You know what the Sinclair/Wilks/Schwartz formula is?

[adamanderson]

You see how this varies with height?

Absolutely. Even disregarding shorter levers, a 5'10 guy who weighs 240 vs a 6'3 guy who weighs the same, the smaller guy will obviously pack more muscle mass, unless his bones and organs are abnormally heavy (speaking in very rough generalities just to make a point).

You know what the Sinclair/Wilks/Schwartz formula is?

I just looked it up. Thanks, Coach.

The height thing seems undeniable, even more so after looking up the Wilks Coefficient. But again, even if we disregard the lever advantage in order to be able to focus only on the total amount of Force produced by the muscles (shorter levers = better lifts, even with the Force produced by the muscles being the same), it seems to me to come back to the highest possible strength-to-weight ratio for a person being at the same bodyweight at which his total Force production is the highest that his DNA will allow him, i.e. the weight at which as much of his body mass as possible, is capable of producing force, i.e. is muscle mass.

To put it extremely simply and for the last time; there seems to be no point for a person, where increasing his muscle mass and thus his strength (and thus the percentage of his bodyweight that is muscle mass), would make his strength-to-weight ratio decrease (assuming low BF%).

[heavyiron8]

The equation for Power is P = (F x d)/t, where F is force applied to the system, d is the distance over which the force is applied, and t is the time over which the force is applied. So in this case, F is strength, d is determined by the test, and t is your explosive ability -- the ability to display strength quickly. The "genetic limit for power" you refer to is determined by the ability to recruit muscle mass into contraction, and is indeed a pretty hard limit that is minimally trainable. Force production is quite trainable for many years. We can take a talented kid with a 36" SVJ who squats 275 and train him up to a 500 without having to resort to exotic means. But if we do this, what happens to his SVJ?

Not much, really. The SVJ is a test of the ability to recruit motor units into contraction rapidly, and that's all it shows us. The SVJ is a measure of your ability to generate enough force within the time it takes to perform the concentric phase of a jump, to accelerate your body's mass upward to impart sufficient velocity and therefore sufficient momentum to it, that it continues upward after the force production between your feet and the ground has stopped. The distance upward is a direct measurement of the force produced in the .25 seconds the contraction takes place, and this is more dependent on how quickly motor units are recruited than the force of the recruitment, since your body's mass is not very heavy. The bottleneck is the ability to "fire" as much of the contractile machinery in the .25 seconds, and for various reasons this is 1.) controlled by genetic endowment and is 2.) not very trainable.

It is interesting that a kid with a 36" SVJ is always stronger untrained than a kid with an 18" SVJ untrained, since the big SVJ is recruiting more muscle mass into contraction than the little SVJ. But the 36" kid is just as trainable for F as the 18" kid, and not getting him stronger is a huge mistake.

When we take the kid from 275 to 500, the algebra shows us that his P goes up, even though this does not affect his SVJ proportionally -- doubling his squat does not double his SVJ, no way, not even close. This is due to the fact that the SVJ does not depend on max force production, because you're only jumping against your bodyweight. A true 1RM force production event only occurs under a 1RM load, which is not an instantaneous power display but rather a summation event. And this time constraint is why the clean is much more influenced by an increase in strength, because it takes maybe 5-6 times as long as the SVJ and there is more time to summarize motor unit recruitment.

But power still increases because F goes up. The kid can hit you harder with a 500 than a 275, since he's not just exploding -- he's applying force after his acceleration. The tragedy here is that F is trainable and t is really not. You can radically increase the 18" kid's power even if you can't make him more explosive. Modern S&C has wasted lots of everybody's time, money, and potential with RFD "training" when College Algebra could have saved them some time.

Note: No posts from morons on the internet who say they can double your "vertical jump" or turn lead into gold will be approved.

When they say strength training also develops the "neurological efficiency" or something like that, what are they actually referring to? More nerve endings connecting to more muscle tissue?

[Mark Rippetoe]

Who says that?

[Fulcrum]

When they say strength training also develops the "neurological efficiency" or something like that, what are they actually referring to? More nerve endings connecting to more muscle tissue?

That's a term thrown around that means a lot of different thing to a lot of different people.