Weight v Relativity

J

JAZ

0
When climbing a rope or doing any type of body weight workout, is it easier for a lighter person because they weigh less or is it relative?

e.g. if a 50kg and 100kg man were to do a chinup, would it be easier for the 50kg man because he weighs less or would it be the same difficulty for both.
 
it depends on how much strength they have, so it's relative
 
As a Personal Trainer I can tell you as the following:

Regardless to their physical conditions, light people are certainly more capable in the field of body weight training.

For e.g : Take 2 people who never trained before, one Weighs 50K's and the other 85k's... More likely that in chin ups contest the light 1 will easily win. and i am saying this out of experience of more then 5 years of being a personal trianier.

Therefor in general speaking : light people are more likely to beat others in body weight training.

Pay attention to the best Rock\wall climbers in the world... No- one there weighs more then 70 kilos... and most of them are between 50-60.

Have a good day.

Jake- P.t
 
If a 50kg man was to compete with a 100kg man in chinups, would the 50kg man have to tie a 50kg weight on him to make it fair?
 
No.
It's not what I said kid, pay more attention, I said that it would be most likely that the light person would win regardless to both physical condition.

If you will check the amount of energy each person has to invest in order to get his task done, you will surely notice that the heavy person has invested much more,
weather both guys are extremly fit or not.

How will you explain the fact that light people are more successful in body weight training? (as simple as that)
 
The real difference is body composition, not weight. If each man is the same height and has the same muscle mass then the 100kg man would have 50kg's more of useless body fat. Now if both men have 8% body fat then the heavier man would probably be able to do more pull ups since he has much larger muscle mass. But the ability to do pull ups has a lot to do with practice. I know some pretty strong guys who can't do more than a few pull ups and some pretty scrawny guys who can do 20+. Everybody is different, but everybody can improve with practice. Not many people practice bodyweight exercises, even though they are some of the best, interms of adding functional strenght with minimal risk of injury.

Years ago Bob Hoffman came up with the Hoffman index, which was supposed to allow you to bodyweight correct for a weightlifting contest so you could have persons of different body weights complete head to head. He basically took the world record in each wieght class for Olympic weightlifting and divided it by the max bodyweight for that class. I always am amused when people start talking about how much they can bench press and don't mention their bodyweight. For a 280 pounder to bench press 250 pounds is not very impressive, but for a 170 pound person to bench press 250 pounds is quite impressive. A good goal for someone who is weight training would be to bench press their bodyweight for 12 reps or do 15+ pullups (with your body weight). It's all relative, but that puts you in the top 1% of the population.
 
dswithers said:
Not many people practice bodyweight exercises, even though they are some of the best, interms of adding functional strenght with minimal risk of injury.
Click to expand...

I agree with this as a general rule, but it is not always true.
I find with chin ups that I can do 5 or 6 but it really messes up my wrist. a couple of years ago I was doing chin ups and I had to stop as my left wrist started hurting all the time. It continued hurting for 6 months until it finally stopped bothering me. To this day I am sensitive there. So I think that you have to take this into consideration when doing body weights and maybe start with weights that are less than your body weight to strengthen yourself up before going for it...
 
I used to be really skinny, and i did not perform well with pull ups and push ups. It's not size that will make a difference in performance. It's how active you are. if i ran around and climbed trees i probably would do better. The bigger guy would do well if he did the same.
 
What so hard to understand?

I spoke in genreal meaning... of course you can find thousands of different cases which show the other way...

It's a Fact that light (40-70 kilos) people perform better in the field of body weight training. End of discussion.

Besides this... the amount of energy they both are to invest even though they performed the same "stunt" is much different, the heavy guy has much more enrgy to invest. and that's bilogy.
 
So how would two individuals of different weights be able to compete in chinups? Are you saying this is virtually impossible to do?
 
Jaz.... You act silly now...

Ofcourse they can compete... but the chances are for the light man to win( General speaking)...
 
The answer is the more active you are the better you will do, why ? because the more ur body adapts and generates the right muscle fibres for the job.

Type I Fibres
These fibres, also called slow twitch or slow oxidative fibres, contain large amounts of myoglobin, many mitochondria and many blood capillaries . Type I fibres are red, split ATP at a slow rate, have a slow contraction velocity, very resistant to to, fatigue and have a high capacity to generate ATP by oxidative metabolic processes. Such fibres are found in large numbers in the postural muscles of the neck.

Type II A Fibres
These fibres, also called fast twitch or fast oxidative fibres, contain very large amounts of myoglobin, very many mitochondria and very many blood capillaries. Type II A fibres are red, have a very high capacity for generating ATP by oxidative metabolic processes, split ATP at a very rapid rate, have a fast contraction velocity and are resistant to fatigue. Such fibres are infrequently found in humans.

Type II B Fibres
These fibres, also called fast twitch or fast glycolytic fibres, contain a low content of myoglobin, relatively few mitochondria, relatively few blood capillaries and large amounts glycogen. Type II B fibres are white, geared to generate ATP by anaerobic metabolic processes, not able to supply skeletal muscle fibres continuously with sufficient ATP, fatigue easily, split ATP at a fast rate and have a fast contraction velocity. Such fibres are found in large numbers in the muscles of the arms.

Fibre type modification
Various types of exercises can bring about changes in the fibres in a skeletal muscle. Endurance type exercises, such as running or swimming, cause a gradual transformation of type II B fibres into type II A fibres. The transformed muscle fibres show a slight increase in diameter, mitochondria, blood capillaries, and strength. Endurance exercises result in cardiovascular and respiratory changes that cause skeletal muscles to receive better supplies of oxygen and carbohydrates but do not contribute to muscle mass. On the other hand, exercises that require great strength for short periods of time, such as weight lifting, produce an increase in the size and strength of type II B fibres. The increase in size is due to increased synthesis of thin and thick myofilaments. The overall result is that the person develops large muscles.

Therefore the fibres that will form over time when doing alot of chin ups type II B fibres may be dominant. Or whatever type works best for chin ups.
 
EXE, I am sorry but I did anatomy and I know I am no expert but what you wrote seems completely wrong.

Too simplify - Fast twitch are bigger muscles, they are the muscles you use for heavy weight but can be fatigued quickly.When developed they can grow big.

Slow twitch are smaller muscles, used for low weight when doing many reps and take longer to fatigue. When you work out these muscles they become better at their job but they barely grow.

It is much more complicated than that but that is the basics.
Fast twitch dont' turn into slow twitch or visa versa.
If you lift a dumbell with low weight and do 50 curls, your muscle will not grow much but you will be able to do more reps if you continue exercising. The gains you make will not be so much in weight as it will be in the way your muscles perform at creating ATP and enduring the amount of exertion.
If you do the same with heavy weight, your muscle will grow a lot and you will be able to do more weight or more reps with the same weight. when doing heavy weight your smaller muscles for the same body part will barely develop and you might find that you can lift 80 pounds 10 times but you can barely lift 25 pounds 25 times.
Try it.....
 
I think you have misunderstood what i pasted there, it doesnt mention gains as in bodybuilding, just gains in tissue types from A compared to B etc. And even with your reply you answered what I was trying to say;

"If you lift a dumbell with low weight and do 50 curls, your muscle will not grow much but you will be able to do more reps if you continue exercising."

In otherwords im trying to say the muscle fibre types that promote best performance that become trained over practice, hence increasing the amount of reps done in pullups and chinups, answering what the topic is about; weight relativity. Not increasing muscle size or the weight you lift, because generally ur bodyweight doesn't change unless ur bulking or whatever.
 
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