How big?

[Josh]

I find it hard to decide how big and strong to get. At the moment I'm fairly lean and do mostly bodyweight stuff.

I'm very tempted to start the weights and get big and strong. Not extreme bodybuilder, just functional strength and a good size. It's got a lot of advantages for life in our society. I can't help thinking it's not natural though and will have some bad effects later on.

It looks like our ancestors were runners first and foremost, fairly strong, but mostly lean and fit.

What are your thoughts?

[TylerDurden]

I disagree. Our palaeo ancestors appear to have had far greater functional strength than even modern bodybuilders as the latter are usually muscle-bound and can't do much except pose.

[KD]

yeah, I don't know about the running bit, but I think a reasonable (high but obtainable) expectation for contemporary natural diet is somewhere in between Bruce Lee-type build and leaner MMA types or welterweight boxers.  You can get pretty far with body-weight exercises and light weights if you are clever, but it likely won't be enough for serious bulk. I like how you phrase it though - as if its like picking out a suit, I'm temped too . I'm starting with bigger weights again soon myself.

[actionhero]

If getting big is one of your goals just go for it and hit the weights. I personally think the whole idea of forcing your body into looking huge is not right. I resonate more with natural movements done in nature. There is something very unnatural about going to a gym and using all these weird machines and devices. I think intense paleo type activity like what you see in these videos is much better for functional strength, awareness, coordination and mental sharpness.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKGF-ErsJiI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m61t3ObnSP0





   

[Josh]

I disagree. Our palaeo ancestors appear to have had far greater functional strength than even modern bodybuilders as the latter are usually muscle-bound and can't do much except pose.

Fair enough with bodybuilders as they train for physique, but what about someone who really trains for strength with compound movements squats, deadlifts etc?

I find it hard to see what paleo's were lifting that was that heavy, and the persistence hunt vids on youtube show lean strong guys (ok they're not paleo)

Do you have any evidence/reasons for paleo guys being stronger? I'm not disagreeing academically I just want to get an idea for my own training.

I'm temped too Smiley. I'm starting with bigger weights again soon myself.

Thanks for response KD. It's hard to know what to do. I guess MMA physique might be a  pretty good guideline.

edit: interesting vids. He is working his legs pretty hard lifting that tree.

[Paleo Donk]

You won't "get big bro" if you train compound movements with low repetitions. I follow lots of strength training journals across other forums and none of these types gets huge.  You get huge if you do useless non-functioning  bodybuilding exercises (lots of machine work with ridiculous reps to failure plus creatine, protein and roids). There are very lean guys that can put up ridiculous amounts of weight. Just look at olympic lifters for example. The non-heavyweight guys are the leanest strongest men on the planet.  A 5'8 185 pound guy clean and jerking 450+ is an incredible feat of strength for someone at that bodyweight.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOWcrqOSevs

Stop pussyfooting around and lift

[TylerDurden]

Fair enough with bodybuilders as they train for physique, but what about someone who really trains for strength with compound movements squats, deadlifts etc?

I find it hard to see what paleo's were lifting that was that heavy, and the persistence hunt vids on youtube show lean strong guys (ok they're not paleo)

Do you have any evidence/reasons for paleo guys being stronger? I'm not disagreeing academically I just want to get an idea for my own training.

  Cordain's already mentioned that palaeo humans were superior re physical performance:-

http://chetday.com/cordaininterview.htm

Here's an overview of various palaeo studies, mentioning how palaeo peoples routinely carried heavy loads etc.:-

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2290514/

There was also that trireme experiment where it was shown that ancient athenians were superior to modern athletes in terms of rowing triremes the same distance in a shorter period.

The point is that modern weight-training is essentially useless for genuine strength. That is, all it will do is make one better at lifting artificial weights like dumbbells. Whereas bodyweight training(such as used in ancient times as well) allows one to have far more functional strength and so compete more effectively in combat or real feats of physical endurance.

For my own part, I always remember my father mentioning how, in his youth, he came across a guy whose job involved lifting incredibly heavy sacks every few seconds over an 8-hour working day and simply throwing them into a lorry. When my father tried lifting them, he found it extremely difficult, but the other guy managed to throw those sacks around because he'd spent much of his working life doing just that. Now, this sort of physical activity was the norm for  thousands of years for people, for 8-12 hours almost every single day, whereas now, only a very very few modern athletes train as much as that.


Also, one should never assume that modern hunter-gatherer tribes were anything like palaeolithic tribes. For one thing, palaeolithic tribes ate only raw until the last 10% of the palaeolithic era when cooking was invented. Secondly, modern hunter-gatherer tribes are usually limited in their range due to settled civilisation encroaching on them. Plus, palaeolithic tribes went in for vast migration patterns on a constant basis, following the herds of their prey. And, of course, the modern hunter-gatherer tribe involves lots of non-palaeo foods like grains etc.

[ForTheHunt]

Yep, I've been a gymrat for a big part of my life and it does not provide functional strength at all.

It wasn't until I diversified, started doing more bodyweight exercises (Non traditional ones) and started running and sprinting when I received some useful strength.

[Paleo Donk]

  The point is that modern weight-training is essentially useless for genuine strength. That is, all it will do is make one better at lifting artificial weights like dumbbells. Whereas bodyweight training(such as used in ancient times as well) allows one to have far more functional strength and so compete more effectively in combat or real feats of physical endurance.

This is very wrong. Now that I have offended you I will tell you why these above statements are complete garbage.

The easiest way to see that weight training is indeed useful is to imagine two cloned athletes. One that does skill work and bodyweight training and the other that does skill work with modern weight training. Obviously the one that adds the weight training will be better. Strength simply allows you to be better at what you do. I would be better at killing an animal the stronger I was.  Note, I am not saying to avoid training the skill of whatever you are trying to perfect I am saying that at any particular skill level you would be better the stronger you are. Again, looking at two cloned athletes at the same skill level, the one with more strength would be better.

The fact that nearly every single professional athlete has incorporated some kind of strength training routine using free weights, most likely centered around compound lifts with a barbell, should tell you that strength training is enormously helpful for improving the ability to apply skill in a particular sport.

I also am not advocating only strength training as the only means to improve function, but as an addition to a program consisting of other common tasks that help functionality. Flexibility, mobility and prehab issues are also important in achieving functionality.

One anecdote that I'd like to relay is that there is this highland games competitor(they wear the kilts and throw heavy stuff around like logs and hammers competitively) who's log I follow. He actually does not practice any of the events anymore and focuses solely on getting stronger. His strength routine is centered around only squats, deadlifts and push presses and he only lifts a couple times a week. These lifts do not mimic the movements his body goes through when competing in the events yet he continues to improve and is one of the best in the US. This again should give you a clue about how important strength is and how it does correspond to being even more functional. He could toss the log as many times as he wanted but he won't be able to toss it further without more strength. Just like I would be able to pull down a mammoth much easier the more strength I had.

[KD]

Erwan Le Corre. He's great, I've seen his stuff before, but I think this is a perfect example of a general physical (or visual) limit for these kind of routines. Not that most people wouldn't be satisfied with his build and fitness. I saw the question as how big one can get on a clean diet, and although their might have been some massive carnivorous gorillas in olden days, today - substance free -  one is going to have to be open to techniques that are known to augment size and strength, and probably have a lower expectation of how this looks physically than muscle mags, but know that certain other builds are possible.

I'm pretty confused by how people are using the term functional strength anyway. Its seems like endurance and strength are being used interchangeably. I can say pretty certainly from experience that going up in reps or complexity in bodyweight does not equate much to increased muscle strength. Maybe we are talking strength of character or determination or something.

here is Timothy Bradley Junior, weighing in at a whopping ~145 lbs. (at 5'6").

http://www.google.com/images?hl=&q=timothy+bradley+jr.&rlz=1B3GGGL_enUS356US356&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&ei=QbcPTM7sMMH68Aahwe3pCA&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CDMQsAQwAw

This man would absolutely pummel Le Corre in seconds. Granted he probably takes many performance enhancing substances, trains for fighting, and probably does include many non-weighted activities, the point is, is that your choice in activities will affect your body's development, which has impact both on size and strength. Fighters almost always do compound exercises, they would not grow stronger simply by sparring all day and doing pushups.

Bode Miller (skier) I remember had figured out some interesting ways to combine compound exercise on contraptions he built himself in addition to 'paleo' type stuff like pushing heavy things up hills and running with backpacks full of weights and so forth. Its good to get creative, its not do or die with this stuff but if one wants a 'muscular' build, instead of lean or 'athletic', I think arguing over what is paleo or whatever, is kind of moot. We are talking modern society here and sometimes as Josh says there are advantages to having a build that isn't hidden easily under a t-shirt.

[TylerDurden]

I'm afraid the above claims are rather misguided. There's already been plenty of mention of "muscle-bound" bodybuilders who are, in theory, very strong, but would be useless in a fight with someone else who has better functional strength. Simply put, lifting artificial weights merely makes one better at lifting artificial weights, that's pretty much it. Functional strength is quite a different thing.

[Paleo Donk]

lol... such horrible reading comprehension. Very typical absurd response from TD and you completely missed the point as usual.

Honestly, try one time and address the points I made. Once you realize they are completely reasonable, attempt to rectify your remarks above about anything that I said that is misguided. Admit you are wrong..just one time please. You've made such absurd remarks in the past and never go back on anything you say.

You'll probably ignore this last part, but you do make many more good posts than bad. Be reasonable, that is all. Its ok to be wrong.

Also, bodybuilding does not equate at all, not one bit to strength training. Stop confusing the two.

The name of this sub-forum is a farce and should be changed to strength training. Absolutely no one should be bodybuilding.

[TylerDurden]

Honestly, try one time and address the points I made. Once you realize they are completely reasonable, attempt to rectify your remarks above about anything that I said that is misguided. Admit you are wrong..just one time please. You've made such absurd remarks in the past and never go back on anything you say. .

Well, that last is, of course, wholly untrue, as I have admitted previous errors in the past. 

What you've done in that last post, is make a wild, science-fiction-like claim re clones! I wasn't talking about strength in a vague general sense but functional strength which is quite different(in other words, a man born in palaeo times with a palaeo lifestyle would easily beat in combat a modern person who had merely done some artificial weight-lifting). As for the bodybuilding reference, it's a term generally used to describe building a better-looking physique which is also related to enhancing strength, so is a perfectly acceptable, more general title for the forum than strength-training.

I would agree re 1 issue:- that no one nowadays can realistically emulate a palaeolithic lifestyle re daily exercise etc. so that some artificial usages such as weightlifting can enhance a particular (artificial)sport, but I dispute the notion that weightlifting enhances functional strength to any major extent.

As for me, I've previously gone through the whole weightlifting routine and became pretty good at lifting weights with massive thighs. Unfortunately, it wasn't much use re improving real, functional strength.

[Paleo Donk]

lol... gg TD

[Josh]

Thanks for the thoughts on paleo strength Tyler and everyone. I like the powerlifter physique.

What are you defining as 'functional strength' Tyler? I agree 'pumping' low weights will make you bulky and not that proportionally strong, but if you follow a 'hardgainer' routine and do 5 sets to failure, squats deadlifts, bench...you're gonna get strong by any definition.

Maybe wrist strength is the elephant in the room, because a strong wrist will give you massive bang for the buck compared to other things.

I know a bit about fighting techniques...I have a friend who just lifts, and in a confrontation he could almost certainly take me out, because strength is a massive advantage. I'm a reasonably fit strong guy.

[klowcarb]

You can do bodybuilding for strength and size. I do it for strength and definition, as I have gotten my muscles to a size I like, and perhaps my genetic limit without dramatically increasing calories. Being strong is very important to health, more so than size.

[TylerDurden]

You can do bodybuilding for strength and size. I do it for strength and definition, as I have gotten my muscles to a size I like, and perhaps my genetic limit without dramatically increasing calories. Being strong is very important to health, more so than size.

That I agree with. 1 of the things the palaeo researchers talk about is how often muscle-size/build is directly related to early death in old age - in other words, many old people get (often life-threatening) accidents from something as simple as falling as their musculature is not strong enough, whereas in palaeo times their muscles would have been constantly exercised on a daily basis so that such issues would be greatly reduced.

As for the issue of functional strength, that's complicated. For example, when I was doing weight-training I found it eventually much easier to lift, say, 70kg of weights on my back while doing squats among other exercises. By contrast, despite all that weight-training, I was nowhere near as good when trying to lift different objects weighing much the same - in other words, weight-training uses muscles in too artificial a way, whereas more normal activities require different sets of muscles used in different, more complex ways etc.. Ross Enamait, the bodyweight trainer, gives similiar examples of weight-lifters who could lift heavy weights all day but were complete pussies when trying pull-ups and so on.

[Raw Kyle]

I gave up traditional lifting because I just don't care anymore. I think it made me stronger, both functional and gym strength if you will. I think it can create imbalances though and possibly lead to injury to develop muscles in that way. I lift kettlebells that I leave at my bjj gym. I think the bottom line is that your body will respond to what you train it with. Functional strength isn't an absolute term as different people have different functions they have to perform in life. You might find yourself in a survival situation where you have to swim very far, maybe climb something, or you might be a furniture mover. Just do something, if you don't like the results you can do something else. It's not like you'll be stuck with the physique you develop from a certain routine. I hear women saying all the time "I want to try lifting weights but don't wanna get big muscles" as if they won't be able to control their muscle size or get rid of them. In reality it's hard work gaining muscle and pretty easy to get rid of it. If I had more free time and wasn't going to the bjj gym I might try building a little home gym with creative stuff like pushing/pulling exercises, big pieces of metal to juggle around for grip strength, contraption for pull ups and other bodyweight exercises etc...

[KD]

As for the issue of functional strength, that's complicated. For example, when I was doing weight-training I found it eventually much easier to lift, say, 70kg of weights on my back while doing squats among other exercises. By contrast, despite all that weight-training, I was nowhere near as good when trying to lift different objects weighing much the same - in other words, weight-training uses muscles in too artificial a way, whereas more normal activities require different sets of muscles used in different, more complex ways etc.. Ross Enamait, the bodyweight trainer, gives similiar examples of weight-lifters who could lift heavy weights all day but were complete pussies when trying pull-ups and so on.

this brings up only one relevant thing, that certain types of natural/variable exercise have more of an advantage on working various muscle groups. This is precisely why some athletes like Bode Miller that I mentioned, have integrated such things INTO their strength training. The advantage of barbell weight training is precisely artificial control of circumstances and actually engaging specific muscles or muscle groups often to failure in order to grow both larger and more functional. Other than the desired result, it really doesn't matter if this uses a uniform plate, or a natural object. If you have a tax accountant that takes a chunk of time after work to beat a tire with a sledgehammer, for all intents and purposes this is weight training. Picking up heavy boxes in a stockroom, while great exercise, will never get someone to the level of an Olympic lifter, who will 100% assuredly be able to lift even heavier boxes, although not decidedly for shorter or longer periods of who cares? We are talking strength and size, not endurance and speed.

If someone is training for size and vanity, sure its proven that they might not be able to preform the same physical feats of endurance or even strength than a leaner person. But this conversation becomes ridiculous and off-topic if this is the talking point and we are not talking practical everyday solutions for strength and muscle gains. Its obvious that as I  think was mentioned earlier, if you take the same person and put them on various combinations from 0-100% of bodyweight/natural movement/and serious weight training. the period doing the most percentage of weights would show the most increase in total strength over no weights and for any function. I've seen bodyweight masters and free runners and martial artists do all kinds of amazing physical feats, but this is not strength as is bring used here. You can argue indefinitely what type of combination of endurance/strength/speed and what type of build is superior but at the end of the day the same guys that lug refrigerators up stairs you see squatting at the gym.

[TylerDurden]

Err, the notion that people who lug heavy objects around like fridges must by definition be weightlifters is incredibly dodgy. Strange though it may seem, people can develop great strength without needing to do artificial weightlifting of metal dumbbells. You have to bear in mind that for millenia beforehand, people were exposed to regular stresses such as pulling ploughs through hardened soil most days etc.

And when I refer to functional strength, I mean just that, not strength in a very vague, general sense. Sure, there are plenty of muscle-bound weightlifters who seem strong at first glance re weights but that's different from more useful activities.Ross Enamait also mentioned how weightlifters often neglected certain muscle-areas for various reasons, not just vanity. And RawKyle mentioned another reason why bodyweight training is better:- weightlifting is such an artificial process that injuries are more likely to occur as a result re too much stress on the wrong muscle-groups etc.

I used to be quite in favour of extra strength until I came across 1 guy who was an absolute  master at Ju-Jitsu and managed to overcome me with ease despite him being a really skinny little creature. That made me realise that there are many other things than big muscles which contribute re general effectiveness. Functional strength is another factor.

[Josh]

I think more and more that you're talking about wrist strength which martial artists develop. It's supposed to be the second most important set of muscles for winning a fight: legs-wrists-chest

A lot of these bodyweight/functional exercises will naturally develop the wrist before the larger muscles, so will give you more 'strength' for your size.

However, if you deadlift a lot you're not gonna have weak wrists...and if you deadlift and include wrist exercises you're gonna be 'stronger' than the guy that just does the latter.

[Paleo Donk]

TD tarding things up again. The deadlift is one of the most paleo movements my modern human body can do and is probably the one exercise you would never want to do without. Deadlifting is one of the movements that paleo man was doing on a daily basis. Deadlifting is simply picking heavy shit off the ground which we did a lot of. Deadlifts not only help you pick shit off the ground but will help you hold onto and pull a megafauna to the ground. Paleo people were deadlifting all the time.

Next, after deadlifting they would need to hoist the meat up into their arms. Doing this is very similar to how we moderns use an exercise called the power clean, which uses a tremendous amount of force from the hips and legs to boost a weight as high as it can go. Paleo man was doing this as well. Power cleans will also help you more optimally penetrate a woman.

Sure, these movements are "artificial" just as you claim all sports to be and identical twins which are wild, science fiction. I'm sorry I don't have mammoths wandering about my town. Again, I'm not saying that lifting compound movements is the end all be all, its not. I would love to have all sorts of objects around that I could toss and throw around not in one single plane and do other body-weight activities. And like KD mentioned hopefully I'll be able to train like Bode Miller with weights not so tightly constricted to a one plane of motion. Though kettlebells can take care of some of this and creativity can pretty much cover the rest.

I'm not sure why you can't see that strength training through various barbell or kettlebell or man-made objects uses very similar movements and muscles to what paleo man would use to kill an animal and bring it back to camp. I can deadlift well-over 2x bodyweight, much more than I did a couple years ago. This almost surely means I would be able to bring down a larger animal and take more meat back with me and prosper accordingly with the various women of my choice. Its rather difficult to replace hunting animals with crude weapons and hauling them back to camp - so why not use weights instead? Again, this is just part of the program...

What truly is artificial is our diets - we eat domesticated animals that never existed in paleo times, completely drained from blood, no brains or the entire animal. We don't spend anywhere near the time outside in the sun as we did. The fruits and vegs are highly domesticated, moreso than the animals we eat and of course our environment is no where near the quality of paleo times. I'd say most of our diets are just as far away if not farther from an ideal paleo diet than a good strength and conditioning program would be centered around barbells is away from how paleo man "trained".

Also, many body-weight exercises can be much more "artificial" and harmful than even boring bodybuilding exercises like bicep curls. Push-ups for example pretty much suck and will not help you much at all getting more meat, not compared to deadlifting or squatting.

Man-made weights and the various programs that have been designed around them will help correct imbalances and other muscular and skeletal issues that have accumulated from decades of poor movements. I am doing some of these now.

[KD]

Err, the notion that people who lug heavy objects around like fridges must by definition be weightlifters is incredibly dodgy. Strange though it may seem, people can develop great strength without needing to do artificial weightlifting of metal dumbbells. You have to bear in mind that for millenia beforehand, people were exposed to regular stresses such as pulling ploughs through hardened soil most days etc.

you are still majorly distorting the definition of strength if you are referencing martial artists. Once again the subject is 'how big', obviously its not talking about some master of reality that can kill a man with his pinky, this is not strength.
here is the world's strong man competition
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s_Strongest_Man
you can see that there are many exercises that are extreme versions of what has been labeled 'functional strength exercises'. There is absolutely no way that an everyday person of any time period incorporating resistance into their daily routines no matter how arduous would ever have a chance in these competitions, same with any martial arts master.

In order to build serious strength and size, you need to continuously stress your muscle groups. This cannot be accomplished simply by everyday activities no matter how stressful. You can do this  'functional strength training' by using some kind of natural object in combination with movement which might make up a huge piece of the puzzle but still won't make a difference unless you do something artificial like change the weight over time. Without using any kind of weight you are in the dust as far as putting necessary strain on your body.

I worked for 2 years moving insanely heavy objects which involved lifting, pushing and pulling. I didn't leave this experience particularly bigger or stronger. My boss had a freakish ability to just throw things around like they were foam, but he lacked any real muscle definition and no one would ever look at him and say he had a strong build.

the subject is how to build strength and size. you can express your preference all you wish about effectiveness especially in fighting but strength as defined by a normal person includes in all cases ability to move weight from point A to point B. If one is doing various bodyweight and functional strength exercises, and CANNOT compete in lifting isolated weight in a non complex circumstance, their routine is clearly not as efficient in building strength. If the weight trainer can't do simple feats like pull-ups, I can guarantee they are not in the world's strongest man competition and I can guarantee all of these men incorporate weight training into their routines.

Ironically I prefer a smaller more efficient build myself, and I do body weight training and almost no weight training. But in usefulness to others, I recognize that I can fine tune my routine and push myself to the limit and will never have massive strength or size. If one has a goal of serious size and strength (the ability to lift a giant weight if necessary) they will do much better in time with weighted exercises, I can say that 100% with experience and confidence.

[invisible]

Err, the notion that people who lug heavy objects around like fridges must by definition be weightlifters is incredibly dodgy. Strange though it may seem, people can develop great strength without needing to do artificial weightlifting of metal dumbbells. You have to bear in mind that for millenia beforehand, people were exposed to regular stresses such as pulling ploughs through hardened soil most days etc.

And when I refer to functional strength, I mean just that, not strength in a very vague, general sense. Sure, there are plenty of muscle-bound weightlifters who seem strong at first glance re weights but that's different from more useful activities.Ross Enamait also mentioned how weightlifters often neglected certain muscle-areas for various reasons, not just vanity. And RawKyle mentioned another reason why bodyweight trainining is better:- weightlifting is such an artificial process that injuries are more likely to occur as a result re too much stress on the wrong muscle-groups etc.

this is just ignorance towards proper weight training. Exercises such as deadlifts, squats, row variations would absolutely 100% increase people's ability to pull a plough or carry an animal or wood or other 'natural' activities. All athletes do weight and strength training. Proper weight training creates functional strength there is no two ways about it.

Another EXTREMELY IMPORTANT point that people have not mentioned relating to 'getting too big' is diet. You simply won't get any bigger if you don't eat more. If you don't want to to get 'too big' don't eat excess calories. You don't grow no matter how you train.

[Josh]

TD tarding things up again.

I broadly agree with your side of the argument, but let's have less of the inflammatory language. If you start getting into that, it gives a bad taste to the whole thing and just creates bad feeling all round.