Whilst i agree in principle there are surely exceptions such as Paul Dillet. I have yet to actually watch him train but i have seen it discussed through the years that even though he was one of the most muscular human beings of modern times he was incredibly weak for his size. Can anyone confirm this?
This has brought to mind an article i read some years ago about a German child born with a myostatin mutation. Essentially this meant he was twice as muscular as kids his age with minimal bodyfat and had superior strength from the age of 3 / 4 - has there been any update on him?
Paul Dillet was very strong on arm and leg exercises, which are exactly the bodyparts he had the largest. He was very weak on chest and back exercises, and that reflected on his lack of back and tiny pecs. Don't confuse the huge varicose veins on Dillet's pecs for size. His pecs were tiny.
But strength is not the only thing that matters for size, and I never claimed otherwise. The volume oif training, up to a point, increase muscle size by adding capillaries and more mitochondria to muscle cells to help generate more ATP, and it also increases the number of muscle glia to clear lactic acid. All this adds size to a muscle. You get two guys, both who can bench 300 lbs for 6 reps, and the guy who does 3 sets will have larger pecs than the guy who does only 1 set. My point is that roughly 70% of the volume of a muscle is composed of sarcomeres and only 30% of things like capillaries and mitochondria. Strength is
more important for size than volume of training, but this does not mean that volume does not matter.
SUCKMYMUSCLE