"Balance" of physiological adaptations

[Ivan Stepic]

Say a given sport requires repetitive production of 10 units of force and now you're capable of producing 100 units of force. By getting your maximal production capacity to 200 units, your submaximal tasks go from 10% to 5%. When you get to 300 units, your submaximal tasks will go from 5% to 3.3%. I believe this is the asymptotic approach Rip is talking about.

And we know that going from 100 to 200 is easier than going from 200 to 300. We also know that after some point, increasing strength will only be possible if we borrow recovery reserves that are allocated to practicing the sport. That situation represents beginning of specialization in a barbell training.

[moargainz]

So although I get the point of maximizing the ratio between your force production ability and the force of gravity on your bodyweight .. it just seems as if that ratio always improves, as long as you keep adding muscle WITHOUT adding fat. I believe you when you say that there is indeed a point, I just don't really see how that's possible.

To add to your idealization of adding muscle only with no fat, imagine the muscle stays the same size but just gets denser as it gets stronger (so that the levers behave the same). Then I would think the ratio only improves and a pull-up becomes an even more sub-maximal lift as bodymass increases.

However the ratio of potential force generation vs gravitation force is not the only thing that matters to the climber. Each pull-up becomes increasingly sub-maximal with bodyweight increase, but it also takes increasingly more energy to accomplish, since the climber has to pull up the increased mass each time. The heavier the climber is the more energy is required for each pull-up, regardless of how difficult/submaximal each pull-up is. Muscles store a finite amount of energy that is replenished at a finite rate.

[FatButWeak]

Relevant to this thread, but Im not sure exactly how.
YouTube
Here's a video of an IFBB pro bodybuilder who goes to an NFL combine prep facility and competes against the elite college football athletes who are training to try out for the NFL. This is a video series that shows the bodybuilder competing against the elite football players. Spoiler alert: the bodybuilder does very, very well in these displays of strength speed and power. This particular video shows a very short thick bodybuilder demonstrating a 39 inch vertical leap-the football player jumps an amazing 44 inches, but it should be noted that the bodybuilder look to be about 5'7" and is 50 pounds heavier than the quasi professional runner/sprinter/jumper football playing athlete.

Another spoiler alert - the bodybuilder out-benches the football players. By a lot.

This is an interesting series of videos because the bodybuilder appears to have an amazing power output. His stupid huge size does not appear to impede his strength or speed. These videos are anecdotal, obviously, but relevant tot his discussion. I would say that if this bodybuilder had the SKILLS required to play football at the elite level, his muscular size would not impede his success (also, he's probably too short to play any sport where being able to see over your opponents is a needed attribute).

So, if this guys size/strength/ muscularity is not too great for him to be competitive at the displays of speed, strength and power that are relevant to the sport, then who the fuck would be?

[adamanderson]

The heavier the climber is the more energy is required for each pull-up, regardless of how difficult/submaximal each pull-up is.

This was superb, thank you. This is exactly where I was going, I just didn't know it. Like, the core of my question was always that IF we assume this that and the other about submax and whatnot, is there still a drawback, and if so, what is it? I should've been able to figure out on my own that more Work i.e. greater load = higher energy requirement i.e. more calories, regardless of how submaximal it is, thermodynamics don't lie.

Muscles store a finite amount of energy that is replenished at a finite rate.

On that note, bigger muscles do or don't store more energy? I mean, even if they do, it's of course possible that the extra energy required to pull the increased mass, exceeds the amount of energy that is added to the storage with that increased mass. Is there an intersection for these functions, as well?

... As you can see, I'm trying to understand the math of this whole body thing so I don't have to wonder what the correct way of reasoning is for all these hypotheticals. First intuition told me that a cyclist or climber or long-distance runner ought not to be too huge. I'm the type that has to know why.

[adamanderson]

A 39" SVJ = freak genetics. Lucky guy.

Gonna watch the video.

[zft]

Each pull-up becomes increasingly sub-maximal with bodyweight increase

Definitely wrong. There's a certain bodyweight at which the ratio (force required/maximal possible force) for a pull-up is minimized, since the numerator is a function of bodyweight as well. (And its rate of change with respect to bodyweight is certainy larger than that of the maximal possible force function beyond the bodyweight that minimizes the aforementioned ratio).

[Suwannee Dave]

.... Hence there seems to be a point of balance between the different physiological adaptations at which optimum performance is attained. I'm just curious as to what factors cause that point to be.

Each stride is very submaximal for him. Yet there's a lot of mass to move around, but again, it becomes more submaximal the stronger he is ... It feels as if it makes sense that he wouldn't be optimal for a marathon, but I can't nail down exactly Why.

Genetics. Pay close attention to morphology the next time you watch elite level sports, especially track and field. Compare long distance runners with sprinters; compare all runners with throwers. For that matter, compare the different position players in the NFL.

[moargainz]

On that note, bigger muscles do or don't store more energy? I mean, even if they do, it's of course possible that the extra energy required to pull the increased mass, exceeds the amount of energy that is added to the storage with that increased mass. Is there an intersection for these functions, as well?

Bigger muscles do store extra energy and I believe is part of the reason that higher rep ranges are used for hypertrophy -- the greater size is partly due to increased energy storage.

But I think it's complicated and the makeup of the muscle is dependent on the training history.

I'm no expert and everything I've written to you is just what I came up with after thinking about it.

[FatButWeak]

Everyone always talks about rock climbers (for example) not needing a lot of leg strength. Fine. But what if retarded superhuman/gymnast upper body strength allowed a rock climber to scramble up a vertical rock face like a chimpanzee or squirrel? That would be pretty good, right? But what if the human body - in its infinite wisdom, curated through eons of evolution (or designed by The Grandest Grand Master of them all) will not allow the human to cultivate this upper body strength without also cultivating a similar level of lower body strength (i.e. squats and dead lifts)? Yes, 33 inch thighs may not be necessary to climb the wall, but what if they ARE necessary for the human athlete to otherwise grow the Upper Body strength needed to climb the wall like a monkey? You can't shoot a cannon out of a canoe; your lower body development will limit your upper body growth (which is why we train movements not body parts). In which case, lower body strength and size is necessary for Upper Body strength to maximiaze.

[Nockian]

Our bodies are biologically efficient-they are excellent economisers. We cannot begin from the idea that simply adding more muscle equals performance improvement because of the limits the body places on us. Resistance training, diet, rest and sleep can be used to fool the body into becoming stronger than it would need to be if we were long distance runners, or starving in a concentration camp. Our bodies don't allow unlimited linear development, we have to fool it into becoming stronger for the activity we are doing and that permits a performance increase, but it has its limits and they are determined by the body itself, which, if it is not continually fooled, will ditch the additional strength in favour of the greater efficiency of minimising muscle cost, by reducing it.

Hence, immobilisation is a death sentence, living things have to move, they must act, or they will cease to live. An animal is adapted to its environment, a human has to adapt the environment. A human has the ability to somewhat adapt his body beyond its function, but like Francis Bacon said "in order to command nature, one must first obey nature". To ignore mans nature as the rational animal, but only as a material machine is the mistake being made by the OP. How do we adapt the environment to make us more efficient ? We think and then build machines which permit us to go well beyond the limits the body sets for us.

Every question, ultimately, is one of philosophy.