Does added muscle always come at a sacrafice to decreased agility etc? Story inside

R

realworksuks

2
So, I have always been very fast and agile. Have only been beaten in a footrace twice in my life.

Anyway, while working I jump in and out of my truck box and I noticed that this year, after gaining about 25 pounds since last year, I couldn't jump in as smoothly.

I figured I may just be tired or something...

I didn't think I lost too much agility or anything, but I wanted to test it out. I challenged my younger, very skinny and tall brother to a footrace. He is about six feet tall and 140 pounds. 20 years old. I am 5 feet 8 inches and 180 or so.

I bet him any amount of money that I could beat him in a footrace (he's never beaten me before...), but he wouldn't bet me, even though he was pretty confident that he could beat me... he's taller and much lighter after all.

So we do the race, 1, 2, 3, we're off, that sucker bolts way ahead of me... I couldn't believe his acceleration, and then when we get in full stride he is still beating me big time, the race ends and he slaughters me. I was so glad I didn't bet him all my money.. hah.

so what do you think happened? Do you think the muscle slowed me down? I also gained some fat too, obviously that didn't help me any, but only about 5 pounds of fat.

I guess there is some physics that come into play probably, he has less mass to move so his acceleration should be better... I dunno.

What do you guys think about all this..?
 
Welp, my understanding is that if you want to maintain proportional speed (as much as you are able - and I am not sure to what extent it is possible, though fairly optimistic), or explosive strength for jumping, you'll need to add some conditioning and/or a dynamic lower body day. This is why I'm going to be including one session a week of sprints and a dynamic lower body day with jumping and such. I want to be a panther, not an ox.

It would seem fairly intuitive to me that if you add mass without working on your ability to move that mass quickly when need be (because you're focusing almost exclusively on moving it slowly and in a controlled fashion), of course your overall accelerative capability is going to suffer, right?

Also your brother has several serious advantages (height, weight, possibly technique and conditioning).
 
usually when you add weight as long as it is muscle, you gani strength and as long as a lot is in your legs it won't matter much.

You do a lot of bodybuilder type training? that doesn't build that much strength, and not explosive strength. If you want to get faster or keep being fast while gaining weight you need to minimize fat loss and work in some speed stuff (like power cleans, different oly pulls, etc) The speed stuff becomes more and more important as you gain "trainig age" since at first squats and deads will make you a lot more explosive on their own.
 
I think so.

Has anyone else noticed that an increase in strength results in a decrease in endurance?
For example: Before I was able to do 4 sets of 18 BW dips. Then I felt like I was getting stronger, so I was able to start doing weighted dips and improved my strength. But when I went back to unweighted, even though it felt easy it felt like my endurance was not as good and I couldn't complete as many reps.
 
just train with higher reps for a while and it will come back.
but yes, if you don't train endurance it will suffer, you need to keep training it to maintain it.
 
Think about it. Increased mitochondrial density (endurance) = less actual muscle/CSA (strength).
 
Lions don't hunt, only lionesses. And that's for the same reason, because they're larger, and less quick. I appreciate you helping my point ;)
 
realworksuks said:
So, I have always been very fast and agile. Have only been beaten in a footrace twice in my life.

Anyway, while working I jump in and out of my truck box and I noticed that this year, after gaining about 25 pounds since last year, I couldn't jump in as smoothly.

What do you guys think about all this..?
Click to expand...

YOUR AGILITY WON'T BE AFFECTED IF YOU ACTUALLY TRAIN FOR AGILITY AS WELL.



i would do this at least twice a week if i were you.
 
be careful about posting links to sites that want you to buy stuff, but since it is relatively informative and not just "buy this" I'll let it go.
 
so what do you think happened? Do you think the muscle slowed me down?
Click to expand...

As has been stated. If you do not train something, you do not get better at it. (you could get worse)

If being able to jump, run, and do other athletic movements is important to you then you have to train it.

Weightlifting, gaining muscle, and gaining strength can increase your potential for speed and agility, but if you only do strength training it can have no effect or a negative effect.

The only way strength training helps you get faster and more agile is if you have speed and agility planned into your program.

Think about it this way. The fastest weightlifting movement is the snatch. Which is 10X slower than sprinting. (on the low end) So the reality is that, even though the snatch is an "athletic" lift, it does not come close to the speed you need to be able to move when you sprint.

So doing a lot of snatches will not necessarily make you faster. (the initial increase in strength and power from strength training can make you faster, especially if you are a beginner. But, whether it helps improve speed and agility for you or not, it is not a solution to increasing speed and athletic abilities over time, and if not set up properly, can have a detrimental effect on speed and agility. More specific training needs to be done if speed and agility are important to you.)

If you look at many different types of athletes training is broken down into different categories.

1. Sports Training - practicing your sport.

2. Specific Strength - Strength exercises used to increase strength in the sporting skill. Here you will find different weighted drills, movements, drills (non weighted) and specific core training.

3. General Strength Training -Here are your Olympic lifts, pulling, arms, that type of thing.

4. Legs - This is your squats, lunges or whatever leg training exercises are used.

As you can see, The "lifting" exercises are lower on the list. Much of strength training is considered "exercise" to increase the potential of force production and general strength.

A lot of people look at this layout upside down with leg training at the top, working down to the sports training. Thinking that lifting with the legs and doing the general strength exercises are specific to increasing sporting performance. When in reality these things are not specific at all.

That might have been a little deep into things for your question. But I hope I got my point across.

Has anyone else noticed that an increase in strength results in a decrease in endurance?
For example: Before I was able to do 4 sets of 18 BW dips. Then I felt like I was getting stronger, so I was able to start doing weighted dips and improved my strength. But when I went back to unweighted, even though it felt easy it felt like my endurance was not as good and I couldn't complete as many reps.
Click to expand...

It is not a decrease in endurance it is that, when people increase weight and decrease reps, the endurance training is taken out of the equation. So you will generally not get better at endurance type exercises.

This is one reason, in a well thought out strength training plan, having different rep ranges and types of training is important.

Training all strength abilities concurrently (read in the same microcycle or week) is important so that you do not lose strength or the ability to do reps as you move through different phases in your training.

Think weightlifters and powerlifters. They have max lifting, lifting for speed, and general physical preparation. All of these things get trained every week in order to maintain or increase the bodys general ability to get stronger.

The above example for other athletes is the same as well. All abilitys are trained all the time. It is just that the emphases changes based upon the training stage for that year/season/training cycle.

This way you do not get worse at anything when you are focusing on bringing up weaker or less developed areas.

Again I hope this helped and is not just a boring read. :D
 
hm, well everything makes sense, I didn't train for speed etc. so I didn't maintain it. I think the extra weight definitely slowed me down tho.

I don't actually care about agility much, otherwise I would start training to be fast again..... but I think I would have to really cut down a lot to regain what I lost.
 
I think the extra weight definitely slowed me down tho.
Click to expand...

Extra weight does not necessarily mean slower.

but I think I would have to really cut down a lot to regain what I lost.
Click to expand...

You would be suprised about how much you can do with a higher bodyweight. With the proper training of course.

:beerchug:
 
LeiYunFat said:
What G said.
Click to expand...

hehe, good point :D
 
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