Lean muscle... as opposed to what??
MrsT1610
Posts: 24 Member
Struggling to understand / not be annoyed by the concept of "building lean muscle". As opposed to what?? Building chubby muscles?
Surely muscle by definition is lean. Any bulk either comes from accompanying fat or just building more muscle. No??
Am I missing something??
Surely muscle by definition is lean. Any bulk either comes from accompanying fat or just building more muscle. No??
Am I missing something??
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Replies
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I think it should be lean body mass not lean muscle...but I may be wrong...
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From what I understand, when people talk about "lean muscle" they really mean"adding muscle without fat" and I think that hard to do without being on drugs. Goes hand-in-hand with "toning" aka "showing muscles without the pesky layer of fat hiding them".1
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Fat muscle?
It should just be "muscle", but about a decade ago someone wishing to get more people out to a pilates class (or maybe a pure barre class) thought that women would respond well to the idea that they could possibly somehow create "long lean muscles". And it stuck.
They created this illusion that somehow a person who is 5'6" with naturally wide hips could attend these pilates class and emerge at the end of 10 weeks looking like a 5'10" model with narrow hips and long, long legs.7 -
Think of a lean steak vs. a well marbled steak.3
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Maybe they meant lean mass?1
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Here it all the time "I want to build lean muscle" ..I interpret it as building muscle..
Maybe they mean lean mass ? I doubt it.0 -
It's a misdirected sentence because as the OP has implied, muscle is just muscle. The amount of fat accumulated while building muscle is what concerns people and keep body fat down just requires a smaller surplus of calories.
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I also take it to mean skeletal muscle (as opposed to smooth or cadiac, which would be impossible to build anyway). Either way, it's redundant.1
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I also take it to mean skeletal muscle (as opposed to smooth or cadiac, which would be impossible to build anyway). Either way, it's redundant.
Building cardiac muscle is very possible. Just ask Andreas Munzer...oh wait, he's dead. Dude's heart weighed like twice what a normal human's does when he croaked. Dat PED stack...0 -
Struggling to understand / not be annoyed by the concept of "building lean muscle". As opposed to what?? Building chubby muscles?
Surely muscle by definition is lean. Any bulk either comes from accompanying fat or just building more muscle. No??
Am I missing something??
it usually means that someone wants to put on muscle while minimizing fat gains..
I agree that it is a ridiculous statement as muscle = muscle ..it is not lean, fatty, etc, it is muscle.2 -
Fat muscle?
It should just be "muscle", but about a decade ago someone wishing to get more people out to a pilates class (or maybe a pure barre class) thought that women would respond well to the idea that they could possibly somehow create "long lean muscles". And it stuck.
They created this illusion that somehow a person who is 5'6" with naturally wide hips could attend these pilates class and emerge at the end of 10 weeks looking like a 5'10" model with narrow hips and long, long legs.
I honestly think this is the root of the issue. "Lean muscle" is a marketing term. I think it implies that you're going to build the type of muscle ballet dancers have, as opposed to the type of squat, bulging muscles people envision when they think of bodybuilding. Sadly for those of us whose natural state is short and squat, that's not how it works, but that doesn't stop people from wanting it to work like that.2 -
Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Think of a lean steak vs. a well marbled steak.
The reason Kobe beef is so marbled is because they give the cows beer to drink while massaging them.
If you drink a six pack while lifting you'll build super big phat marbled muscles in half the time it takes to build skinny lean muscle.
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Hawaiian_Iceberg wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Think of a lean steak vs. a well marbled steak.
The reason Kobe beef is so marbled is because they give the cows beer to drink while massaging them.
If you drink a six pack while lifting you'll build super big phat marbled muscles in half the time it takes to build skinny lean muscle.
And youll be expensive and delicious?6 -
Lean body mass (LBM) includes all body tissue other than fat, including bones, organ and vascular tissue, tendons, ligaments, etc. and muscle.
Muscle mass is estimated at about 30-40% of total body mass including fat but there is no precise way of measuring muscle mass w/o special instruments, which is why most commerial BF measurement techniques only differentiate bet BF and LBM.
DXA scans however can also separate out the weight and density of bone tissue. That's what it was originally designed to do and was only later adopted commercially as another method for measuring BF.0 -
I think when you read "lean muscle" in the forums...it's mostly posted by women that really mean: "I want to have visible muscles, but not giant muscles...like a professional, male bodybuilders."
That's how I interpret that phrase.2 -
deputy_randolph wrote: »I think when you read "lean muscle" in the forums...it's mostly posted by women that really mean: "I want to have visible muscles, but not giant muscles...like a professional, male bodybuilders."
That's how I interpret that phrase.
This is how I take it. New people, especially women, tend to think that the moment they pick up a weight, they are going to look like Arnold. But it definitely doesn't hep when you have crap like they say in yoga/pilates inferring that it gives long lean muscles... like you have a choice of changing muscle shape by stretching.1 -
I feel like it's a marketing term that is mostly aimed toward women -- sort of like "toning." It's a coded way of saying "you're not going to look all scary like those freaky bodybuilders." I don't necessarily think it's worth correcting people, because either they're very new to lifting and will soon learn that muscles are awesome, or they'll never believe that looking at weights won't make you explode and it's a waste of your time to argue with them.1
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I think it's just a redundant fitness marketing term...there are many.1
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Subtle OP... reeeaaaall subtle.0
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Somehow, the speakers of "lean muscle" don't find "fast twitch" or "slow twitch" muscle to be as impressive.0
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cwolfman13 wrote: »I think it's just a redundant fitness marketing term...there are many.
Agreed lol0 -
Hawaiian_Iceberg wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Think of a lean steak vs. a well marbled steak.
The reason Kobe beef is so marbled is because they give the cows beer to drink while massaging them.
If you drink a six pack while lifting you'll build super big phat marbled muscles in half the time it takes to build skinny lean muscle.
It's so marbled and nice is because they don't let the cows move at all. The more movement = less marbling.Struggling to understand / not be annoyed by the concept of "building lean muscle". As opposed to what?? Building chubby muscles?
Surely muscle by definition is lean. Any bulk either comes from accompanying fat or just building more muscle. No??
Am I missing something??
I am not sure who exactly makes these claims but what they mean is probably gaining smallest possible fat possible while gaining muscle. Depending on your genetics and sex, you will gain a lot of fat while gaining muscle. If you try to gain too much in a short time, lets call it "dirty bulk" you simply gain too much fat while gaining that muscle.
Who knows though, depends on the context of this sentence.
And gaining "lean muscle" is possible for newbies. People gaining muscle while cutting is not unheard of.Gallowmere1984 wrote: »I also take it to mean skeletal muscle (as opposed to smooth or cadiac, which would be impossible to build anyway). Either way, it's redundant.
Building cardiac muscle is very possible. Just ask Andreas Munzer...oh wait, he's dead. Dude's heart weighed like twice what a normal human's does when he croaked. Dat PED stack...
Don't get the hate towards the guy? I mean clearly he was misdirected with illusions and all but, really?0 -
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Gallowmere1984 wrote: »I also take it to mean skeletal muscle (as opposed to smooth or cadiac, which would be impossible to build anyway). Either way, it's redundant.
Building cardiac muscle is very possible. Just ask Andreas Munzer...oh wait, he's dead. Dude's heart weighed like twice what a normal human's does when he croaked. Dat PED stack...
Cardiac hypertrophy, maybe without PEDs, "enormous, elongated, torpedo-shaped hearts":
https://sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080807222006.htm
nytimes.com/2008/07/07/health/07hearts.html
But I'd rather drink beer while being massaged, and get marbled muscles, if that's an option. The heck with this lean stuff.
Sorry, OP, thread drift!
I agree with the "silly marketing term" idea. I think "lean muscle" is in contrast to "bulky muscle", neither of which really mean much of anything, technically. Some people (women, more often, it seems) want to look like a dancer (but possibly not like Misty Copeland, 'cos muscle-y muscles - uck
). Personally, I'd rather look like Megan Musnicki, or at least be able to do what she does.
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We always build lean muscle but some people add on fats too so there r some people that are called lean and some are just bulky but they have fat on top of their muscles so it's not much definition and detail but when they start cutting and drop the body fat the muscle definition starts showing and they r then called lean. Hope this helped0
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We always build lean muscle but some people add on fats too so there r some people that are called lean and some are just bulky but they have fat on top of their muscles so it's not much definition and detail but when they start cutting and drop the body fat the muscle definition starts showing and they r then called lean. Hope this helped
It is just muscle and is neither fatty or lean1 -
They call it lean as in with less body fatWe always build lean muscle but some people add on fats too so there r some people that are called lean and some are just bulky but they have fat on top of their muscles so it's not much definition and detail but when they start cutting and drop the body fat the muscle definition starts showing and they r then called lean. Hope this helped
It is just muscle and is neither fatty or lean
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They call it lean as in with less body fatWe always build lean muscle but some people add on fats too so there r some people that are called lean and some are just bulky but they have fat on top of their muscles so it's not much definition and detail but when they start cutting and drop the body fat the muscle definition starts showing and they r then called lean. Hope this helped
It is just muscle and is neither fatty or lean
That's a function of your body fat percentage. When you gain muscle, you gain "lean" muscle because it's the only kind of muscle you can gain. Muscle is lean. Gaining body fat is a completely different topic.
And as a sidebar to the conversation, there is always at least some fat gain associated with muscle gain - often a quite significant amount of it.3 -
I always get that Willy Wonka expression when someone just starting says they prefer to start on a lean bulk.0
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