Recomposition or Muscle Gain.Where does strength fit in?

[fustuarium]

Jordan

In many of the threads, and 'To Be a Beast', we talk about recomposition or muscle gain. We seem to use muscle gain and strength interchangeably, or imply that stonger = bigger. Is this right? I'm thinking about someone like yourself who competes in weight classes. How do you get stronger but not heavier? I can't quite get my head round it, and wonder if it's something to do with Sarcoplasmic and Myofibrillar hypertrophy?

I'm asking as I'm a habitual under eater and am learning to get regular with my macros. I'm now consistently hitting 200ch, 220p, 80f at 40year old 6ft (bottom end of your recomp numbers). I'm not looking for 'lean mass' (steriod response noted!) but since I've lost 2kg in 8 weeks I'm wondering where to take this experiment as my strength\ lifting progress on 5\3\1 is OK.

Cheers
Fusty

p.s. if this is in the book just delete and I'll read the answer in there.

[Jordan Feigenbaum]

Stronger gives you the potential to be bigger in many different ways and, on the other hand, directly causes some increase in skeletal muscle size. For a weight class athlete, the idea is to continue to gain as much muscle as you can, provided that it (the gaining of, or the training required to achieve it) doesn't interfere with your sporting performance. Notice that last caveat only applies to non-barbell sport "weight-class" athletes, as more muscle mass= better for the barbell sports.

Basically, there are three components contributing the maximizing muscle potential: Hypertrophy, strength, and power. Training one to the exclusion of the other leaves part of the "potential" undertrained and underdeveloped. A novice is getting maximal development of all of these things (for their current training level) with very simple interventions, i.e. 3 sets of 5, whereas a more advanced lifter/athlete will need more complex methods to train each of these three "elemental" characteristics of muscle. At any rate, it is possible to train neurological adaptations to drive up strength and power without any increase in absolute body mass. On the other hand, hypertrophy to any significant degree in a TRAINED (this is important) individual is going to require some weight gain, period.

Now, if a person hasn't done enough volume previously to stimulate hypertrophy, he or she is technically "untrained" and thus can see appreciable gains for a short period of time without gaining significant bodyweight. If a person is very fat, he or she can also see gains in strength/hypertrophy/power whilst losing body weight (unless he or she is also very highly trained). Again though, for a highly trained athlete/lifter, manipulation of body weight, diet, and training to facilitate maximal strength/power/hypertrophy gains is necessary and he/she will gain weight during certain periods of time before refining the process.