as a natural, do you have to get stronger in order to get bigger?

[Shawdow]

what do you guys think?
there are conflicting views on this.

[Zach Trowbridge]

You don't necessarily get bigger when you get stronger, but it is definitely easier to get bigger when you are stronger.  Strength comes just as much from motor development and tendon/ligament strength as it does from muscular development.  But, if your strength goes up it means you can handle a heavier weight in the hypertrophy rep ranges (6-15) so there's more of an opportunity to grow than with a lower level of strength.

[tbombz]

zach hit the nail on the head, especially the point about increases in strength allowing for increasing poundages in hypertrophy rep range

[QuakerOats]

yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.............oh did i mention................. ..yes.

[burn2live]

Yep

[proxi]

definitely yes, that is the only way for us naturals to get bigger.

But remember to be able to lift heavy you have to eat heavy

[kh300]

remember when you first started lifting weights? do you remember when you made your best gains?

ill bet you made your best gains in your first year or two of lifting.. now when did you make your best strength gains?

[Shawdow]

so you guys are saying that I should dump my pump sets and volume for heavy weights?

how many sets?

[tbombz]

so you guys are saying that I should dump my pump sets and volume for heavy weights?

how many sets?

you still train colume, but you just need to lift heavy. you can do high reps with heavy weight. dont be a puuusssssy. the key to bodybuilding is intensity.

[jpm101]

There is no one size fits all in working out. No, you do not have to get stronger to get bigger. But getting stronger usually follows getting bigger, no matter if you like it or not. Lot's of  high set/volume BB'ers doing not much over 220-240 in the bench and getting huge. On the other hand, lots of 400+ BB'ing benchers who are not even close in matching the development of those guy's  who use a much lighter weigh in a chest workout.

Only flaw in the high set/volume group is that if forced to take a 2 to 4 week(or more) of of training, the people tend to usually lose quite a bit of muscle size. The heavier type lifter/BB'ers tend to hold on to what he has if forced to take the same amount of a break from training.

Knew a guy from the Philippines once. He was about 5'9 and very impressive, had the true 17 1/2 cut arm, wide lat's, great delts & pec's, small waist, etc.  Use to get some SEG work from time to time, just so he could live off unemployment every 6 months. Seen him wave around a pair of 15 pounders for front and laterial raises. Used a pair of 25's for flys and than do DB presses with the same weight for an extended set. Did 15 to 20 sets of each. Light cable curls, etc, a true pump artist.  Would take off working out for months at a time and lose from 20  to 25 lbs in muscle wights.  Once back in the gym it only took him a good  5 to 8 weeks to get into his former good condition. Could almost see him grow from workout to workout. And he would eat just about all the wrong foods from the standard BB'ing diet.

 So I guess it all comes down to the genetic thing again. If working heavy for muscle mass work for you, than great. If lighter high volume works the best to get muscle mass for you, than is just the way it is for you. Quite a few top BB'ers and Pro's are not that strong to what they may look like. Perception is the main thing in BB'ing anyway. Good Luck.

[Cap]

Most easy gainer naturals I know use whatever and grow.  Most are strong but a lot I use a lot of pumping movements.  A good friend screwed up his knee and shoulder, had surgery, and now he is back in action bigger than ever using a lot of pumping movements.

Hardgainers tend to do lower reps, higher weight to get stronger and bigger.

Food is a HUGE factor too.

Bottom line, getting stronger is never a bad thing especially if you do it in such a way that the body adapts without getting injured.

[pumpster]

i'm going to simplify, it, try to cut through the conflicting theories because i believe this is true:

Increasing strength over time is the most common way to get bigger, when it's within the context of moderate or higher reps that are increased over periods of time. That's not the only way, but it's the most common.

The main thing is progressive overload of the muscle, by increasing the intensity over time. Most commonly as i said above.  Less common but still used is to keep the weight lifted relatively static and use other ways of increasing intensity over time again within the context of moderate or higher reps.

Increasing intensity can be increasing the weight, increasing the number of reps, the sets, reducing or increasing the rest between sets, adding intensity techniques like negatives, cheats, burns, forced reps, etc.

Typically you'll see a guy with big arms using relatively heavy weights on curls or preachers, or less commonly they've increased other types of intensity over time while using not so much weight, but even there guys with good development might have trained harder in earlie yeas and don't show the same intensity later. I have a feeling that's true of some of the top guys we see on training videos; they're coasting now relative to earlier days, thus someone can get the idea watching them lift now.

In my teens i used to watch a guy who placed in the top 3 of the Unverse doing preacher curls with 130, and that weight wasn't that difficult for him. Even guys who don't lift alot of weight are increasing intensity over time in some way-slight increases in weight, increasing reps, shortened rest periods, supersetting, going to negative failure with cheats, burns, negatives, etc.-it's all about increasing intensity.

Some look at powerlifters and think that weight increase doesn't equal size, but that doesn't apply when training in BB fashion within the context of moderate or high reps and shorter rests between sets. The powerlifter example confuses people, they think that means being stronger doesn't equate to size, but that's a different type of training.

[vic86]

one need to understand the difference between a bodybuilder, powerlifter, weightlifter and strong man.i have seen powerlifters lifting very impressive numbers with a very less bodyweight,same goes for weightlifters,most people  would prefer to add variety of excercises to trigger muscle growth, just some people have different approach towards training. As said genetics ,Everyones not the same , dont judge the book by its cover...

[Get Rowdy]

I don't use heavier weight than I did a year ago, in fact probably lighter, but I'm bigger and leaner now than I was then. Using light weight though, you've got to utilize alot of supersets, trisets, drop sets. 

Throwing a strength/powerlifting cycle into your training is something to consider though.

[jon cole]

getting bigger help to get stronger, that's a fact.
you can getting stronger without overfeeding.
getting stronger is more a question of training, of method, and getting bigger will help you to recover faster, then to allow you to train harder.
getting bigger is an help.

[JasonH]

When you get stronger you get bigger.
When you eat more, you get bigger.
When you sleep more you get bigger.
When you get bigger you get stronger, and you'll be able to eat more, and you'll be able to sleep more to compensate.
It's a full circle of events as long as you're consistent and the body will adapt very well to it.

[local hero]

yep i totaly agree with j.......... its a combination of events that add up to a whole