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Can a person be muscular but not look muscular?


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Can a person be muscular on the inside but the outer appearance of the body is not muscular? 

Also I remember when I was a kid in high school and we had rugby game against this other team, at that time weight around 220 pounds, and there was this skinny guy half my size and bony as hell (I could feel it when ever he tackled me) who seemed strong as hell for someone his size. Every time I ran at him he would lift me up with his strength and put me down, I don't know what the hell he was on but he was one hell of a kid. My second question is, why are some people who are skinny really strong for their size when they don't have muscles that show?

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10 hours ago, John Harmonic said:

Can a person be muscular on the inside but the outer appearance of the body is not muscular? 

Also I remember when I was a kid in high school and we had rugby game against this other team, at that time weight around 220 pounds, and there was this skinny guy half my size and bony as hell (I could feel it when ever he tackled me) who seemed strong as hell for someone his size. Every time I ran at him he would lift me up with his strength and put me down, I don't know what the hell he was on but he was one hell of a kid. My second question is, why are some people who are skinny really strong for their size when they don't have muscles that show?

Muscular and strong are not synonyms.

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It only takes the thinnest layer of Subcutaneous fat to hide muscles. Bodybuilders who want their muscles to show try to eliminate all the fat that they can. The fat has no effect on strength, but seems to aid stamina. ( or so it's said in boxing circles ). 

Boxers that are overdeveloped often run out of energy in a fight, but that might be to do with bigger muscles using more, just on movement.

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48 minutes ago, Prometheus said:

Might be anecdotal but look at the difference between elite body builders and people in the world's strongest man competitions. Something else is going on.

One's pumped full of water from using anabolic steroids and the other group are naturally massive to start with i.e have a high density of muscle fibres.

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15 hours ago, John Harmonic said:

Can a person be muscular on the inside but the outer appearance of the body is not muscular? 

Also I remember when I was a kid in high school and we had rugby game against this other team, at that time weight around 220 pounds, and there was this skinny guy half my size and bony as hell (I could feel it when ever he tackled me) who seemed strong as hell for someone his size. Every time I ran at him he would lift me up with his strength and put me down, I don't know what the hell he was on but he was one hell of a kid. My second question is, why are some people who are skinny really strong for their size when they don't have muscles that show?

Your example deals with sport (Rugby). Often superior mechanics and technique make one athlete appear physically stronger than another. The way one is able to leverage their weight and recruit the most amount of momentum can make a big difference. 

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12 minutes ago, Ten oz said:

Your example deals with sport (Rugby). Often superior mechanics and technique make one athlete appear physically stronger than another. The way one is able to leverage their weight and recruit the most amount of momentum can make a big difference. 

More anecdote, but my uncles used to talk about a guy they grew up with who worked as a fireman on a steam locomotive. He stoked the boiler with coal, and he had to be able to do it all day long. He was a small guy, and didn't have bulky muscles, but he was scary strong.  

I think a big part of the strong-but-doesn't-look-it story is the surprise factor. Small guys with a burst of muscular strength can be startling, and seem much stronger because you underestimated them, and then have to justify why you're on the ground and they aren't. 

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24 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

More anecdote, but my uncles used to talk about a guy they grew up with who worked as a fireman on a steam locomotive. He stoked the boiler with coal, and he had to be able to do it all day long. He was a small guy, and didn't have bulky muscles, but he was scary strong.  

I think a big part of the strong-but-doesn't-look-it story is the surprise factor. Small guys with a burst of muscular strength can be startling, and seem much stronger because you underestimated them, and then have to justify why you're on the ground and they aren't. 

On the flip side of that I think larger people are less often able to put all their energy into something. It is more intimidating for bystanders larger person exerts force so I think on some level many larger individuals self limit the force they apply. I use to work with a very petite mechanic who use to just throw everything he had into taking apart large equipment in a manner that I probably would have gotten security called on me if had done the same. As a result I would guess he (the petite mechanic) has learned to and perhaps developed a greater ability to apply force from doing it so much more often. 

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I've always been extremely strong compared to my peers. At school I could lift much bigger weights, and beat nearly everyone at arm wrestling. But I was always rubbish at running, and throwing. 

My build is typical Neanderthal. Long body, short arms and legs. Short limbs means that you have better leverage for lifting and pushing, but much worse for running and throwing. It's horses for courses. People who are less powerful when it comes to sheer force have other advantages.

Big muscles run out of energy quickly. You don't see heavily muscled people winning marathons.

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1 hour ago, John Harmonic said:

I read that the nervous system can be trained to lift heavy weights instead of muscle, is this true?

!

Moderator Note

Stop doing this. It is not enough to say that you read something, you need to give a citation, which assures everyone that you aren't just repeating nonsense you read from a crappy source. We are not a substitute for you doing due diligence to learn things, nor are we a service tha Googles things for you.

You need to do better. 

 
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