Strength Potential
by: Josh Bryant
“Coach” was bonafide old head YMCA legend hailing from Whitehouse, Tennessee. Picture him with tight 1980s football coach bike shorts and built like a brick shithouse.
So, one day at the local kick n’ stab bar, some young buck bodybuilder starts talking pretty big for a one eyed fat man about his gains.
But Coach? He ain’t having, he’s been around the block. And calls this pumped-up, pretty boy a pussy cat compared to his Pitbull self.
Now, Coach challenges the bodybuilder to a deadlift showdown on lifting the back of a pick-up truck for reps. Coach, at 50 years young, steps up like it’s just another day at the gym. That pumped-up mirage of muscle? Can’t budge the damn truck.
But Coach? Oh, he’s a different breed. Ten reps, like lightning, in that compensatory acceleration style.
The crowd goes wild! Coach wins, hands down. And, as if that ain’t enough, he saunters off with the bodybuilder’s 21-year-old bikini competitor girlfriend on his arm.
Coach wasn’t just a man, he’s a damn institution in the Tennessee backwoods. He teaches us all the difference between show muscles and go muscles. Thanks for the schooling, Coach.
Strength Acquisition
It’s common sense: bigger muscles equal more strength.
But, still, some bodybuilders, while being stronger than the pathetically weak public at large, pale in comparision to elite strength athletes.
Having large amounts of muscle mass is like owning a moonshine still – potential for some potent stuff, but if you ain’t got the recipe, all you’ll end up with is a bellyache and a visit from the revenuers!
Muscle mass does not define strength, but rather represents your potential for force production.Think of it as the engine size of a car: a larger engine has the capacity for greater power, but without proper tuning and skilled driving, it won’t reach its full potential.
Strength
Trying to narrow down just one factor that influences strength is like trying to find a sober cowboy at a rodeo—ain’t going to happen! If there were a single phrase that could describe strength, it would be this: Your ability to contract your muscles with maximum force given constraints stemming from:
- Structural/anatomical factors,
- Physiological/biochemical factors,
- Psychoneural/psychosocial factors, and
- External/environmental factors.
Laying it down in sports-related terms, strength is your ability to exert musculoskeletal force against an external object (such as a barbell, the ground, or an opponent), and it comes from four main sources:
- How your body is put together as an efficient “machine,”
- How your internal systems work to create energy and promote repair, remodeling and growth in response to training,
- How your skills, attitudes, belief systems, and tolerance to pain interrelate to allow your body to function at peak efficiency, and
- How factors external to your body (weather, gravity, and equipment, for example) can be manipulated to produce greater force output.
Strength Factors
While many of us may not give a hoot in hell about any type of strength but limit strength, it is important to know there are many different types of strength. Strength is influenced by the following factors: structural/anatomical physiological/biochemical: psychoneural/psychosocial, and external/environmental factors.
Structural/Anatomical Effects on Strength:
- Muscle fiber arrangement
- Musculoskeletal leverage
- Tissue leverage (interstitial and intracellular leverage stemming from fat deposits, sarcoplasmic content, satellite cell proliferation, and the accumulation of fluid)
- Freedom of movement between fibers and between gross muscles (scar tissue and adhesions can limit muscles’ contractile strength)
- Tissue viscoelasticity
- Intermuscular/intercellular friction
- Ratio of fast-, intermediate-, and slow-twitch fibers
- Range of motion (must be normal)
- Freedom from injury
- Connective tissue (tendinous/ligamentous) mass and structural characteristics
Physiological/Biochemical Effects on Strength:
- Stretch reflex (muscle spindles)
- Sensitivity of the Golgi tendon organ
- Endocrine system functions (hormones)
- Extent of conversion of Type IIx muscle fibers to Type IIa
- Extent of myofibrillarization
- Motor unit recruitment capacity
- Energy transfer systems’ efficiency
- Extensiveness of capillarization
- Mitochondrial growth and proliferation
- Stroke volume of the left ventricle
- Ejection fraction of the left ventricle
- Pulmonary (ventilatory) capacity
- Efficiency of gas exchange in the lungs
- Heart rate
- Max VO2 uptake (ml/kg bwt/min)
- Freedom from disease
- Extent of fusion of satellite cells with contractile cells (controlled by IGF-1 and IGF-2)
Psychoneural/Psychosocial Effects on Strength:
- Arousal level (“psych”)
- Tolerance to pain (pain of effort, stress, or lactic acid accumulation in the cells and blood)
- Ability to concentrate (“focus”)
- Incentive system installed (motivation)
- Social learning (effectiveness of de-inhibitory efforts in overcoming learned inhibitory responses)
- Coordination (“skill” involving the efficient sequencing of activation/inhibition of prime movers, stabilizers and synergists; sequencing efforts involving factors of position, direction, timing, rate, speed, and effect of force application)
- “Spiritual” factors
- The “placebo” effect
External/Environmental Effects on Strength:
- Equipment (use of “the best” available tools)
- External environment (temperature, humidity, precipitation, wind, altitude)
- Effect of gravity
- Opposing and assisting forces (e.g., opponent’s efforts may add to your force output as related to Newton’s three laws of motion)
Final Thoughts
Muscle is very important but not the end-all of strength. It’s like having a big engine in a car – sure, it’s got the potential for power, but if you can’t tune it right or drive for squat, you’re just revving in neutral. Next time, we’ll talk about unleashing that muscle potential (maybe over some Turkish oil wrestling behind the Waffle House, who knows?).
Gain Real Strength with Josh’s Programs HERE.
