Strength gains from lifting (bodyweight vs traditional weights) and muscle gain potential

ForecasterJason

I know that a lot of people are at a high enough body fat to do a recomposition with lifting weights to gain some muscle and lose some fat. To my knowledge, this works with both actual weights and bodyweight exercises. I also know with traditional weight lifting, most people will rapidly gain strength initially. But eventually, without getting into very specialized training, bulking is needed to continue making steady strength gains. My question is, does it work the same way with progression in bodyweight exercises?

I also want to expound on that first question when it comes to bodyweight exercises. If you have a guy who is 17% or even 13% body fat, recomping would allow for some muscle gain. But if you have someone who is at 9% body fat, I realize there is little room for any recomping. From my understanding, with traditional lifting it would be necessary to bulk to continue making strength and muscle gains in this scenario. But is this true for bodyweight exercises?

In other words, I think what I'm really asking is, for someone who is has little to no recomp potential, is bulking necessary to continue making strength and muscle gains even with bodyweight exercises? Or would it be that strength can still be gained but not muscle?

Hopefully I didn't make this confusing.

sijomial

Your muscles don't actually know what source the stress you are putting on them is coming from - lifting yourself or iron weights or pulling against cables.....

Turn your question around and ask yourself how much you want to weigh and what body composition you want to have at that weight.

As a generalisation when you see the rate of increase of your strength slows down to a crawl it's a clue that you are now having to build muscle rather than rely on CNS adaption or technique improvements.

ForecasterJason

sijomial wrote: »

Your muscles don't actually know what source the stress you are putting on them is coming from - lifting yourself or iron weights or pulling against cables.....

Turn your question around and ask yourself how much you want to weigh and what body composition you want to have at that weight.

As a generalisation when you see the rate of increase of your strength slows down to a crawl it's a clue that you are now having to build muscle rather than rely on CNS adaption or technique improvements.

Ok, that makes sense. As for your last sentence, essentially this means that for someone who has little to no body fat to lose, intentionally trying to bulk would be necessary, correct?

sijomial

Recomp works by replacing one kind of mass (weight) with another, losing fat - gaining muscle.
If you have little fat mass you have nothing to trade.

Work out your priorities - strength/body composition/weight and then train and eat towards those priorities.

giantrobot_powerlifting

sijomial wrote: »

Recomp works by replacing one kind of mass (weight) with another, losing fat - gaining muscle.
If you have little fat mass you have nothing to trade.

Work out your priorities - strength/body composition/weight and then train and eat towards those priorities.

This

(Always leverage your feeds )

ForecasterJason

Ok thanks guys.