May be very stupid question: fat person strength

allunits
allunits Posts: 95 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Do people who carry a lot of weight become fit faster once they start exercising/moving because of the extra weight? Or does it not matter? I have at least 50lbs to lose but I can feel that my muscles are pretty strong (biceps, abs) under my fat. This is not because I started exercising, btw, they've just always been like that.

Yet, I try to imagine carrying my 4yr old around all day long (40lbs) and I can't imagine lasting more than 4 minutes. Still, I carry so much extra weight all the time. Am I strong? Or is it an illusion? I don't feel strong at all. I know this sounds very counterintuitive and silly, but does carrying around so much extra weight have any benefit for strength-building?

Replies

  • JaysWays
    JaysWays Posts: 77 Member
    Strength becomes stronger as you drop the fat and gain more muscle. You will keep getting stronger as time goes on. I finally can do 3 pull ups by myself before I couldnt do any now that I am getting more lean losing more fat gaining muscle my goal is to do 12 by the end of summer
  • Rocbola
    Rocbola Posts: 1,998 Member
    Ride your bike now while you're still fat! When i started dropping weight, i still had the quads i built up pushing around a heavier me.

    The speed at which you get fit is determined by the frequency, intensity and duration of your workouts.
  • Bocch
    Bocch Posts: 191 Member
    I think there is a flaw in your logic about a fat person and being fit.
    For example, Get on an indoor bicycle and spin at your current weight. Use a heart rate monitor. With very little effort at being over weight you should see a fast spike in heart rate and you should find your stamina is low. Your bike ride, in other words would be short.
    If you stay with cycling and diet, you would eventually see you can ride longer and it will take your heart a longer period of time to increase.
    Now as for strength. A fat person that does no exercise is not stronger then a skinny person that does no exercise. A skinny person that strength trains will be able to lift more then a fat or skinny person that does no exercise.
    Strength training has to do with breaking down the muscle (exhaustion). When the muscle recovers it should come back stronger. How do you see this? If you can lift/curl 5 pounds for 10 repetitions for 3 sets, and do that 3-4 times a week, you should see a small strength increase the following week.
    Now as in your example of carrying around a 40 pound child, you need both strength and stamina. Parents of small children probably do get stronger due to the repetitions of picking up the child, much like weight lifting. They probably increase their stamina by chasing after the child, like you would in cycling or jogging.
  • Joehenny
    Joehenny Posts: 1,222 Member
    Yes. Heavier people are always stronger. It's a lot of weight to move around.
  • allunits
    allunits Posts: 95 Member
    Okay, I think all your great answers are helping to clarify my question. If you have 2 sedentary people with equal levels of stamina and fitness levels, but one weighs 50lbs more than the other, does the one who weigh more also have stronger muscles because of the extra weight they're carrying around? (Honestly I'm not trying to get at anything, just curious.)
  • BinaryPulsar
    BinaryPulsar Posts: 8,927 Member
    Okay, I think all your great answers are helping to clarify my question. If you have 2 sedentary people with equal levels of stamina and fitness levels, but one weighs 50lbs more than the other, does the one who weigh more also have stronger muscles because of the extra weight they're carrying around? (Honestly I'm not trying to get at anything, just curious.)

    I would say yes to that specific scenario.

    That's also why they use body weight to determine what level you are in weightlifting. A bigger person has a lifting advantage over a smaller person in terms of the amount they can lift.

    But, certainly a smaller person that is well trained will lift heavier than a novice that is heavier.
  • echofm1
    echofm1 Posts: 471 Member
    I just wrote a blog post about this! Why to Strength Train When You're Fat:

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/echofm1/view/why-to-strength-train-when-you-re-fat-640422
  • zoeysasha37
    zoeysasha37 Posts: 7,088 Member
    I know what your trying to say, as I used to have a friend O'my list who was heavier but would always talk about how she was stronger then everyone and all cuz she was so much bigger. I do not know the scientific answer for this question, as I believe a lot of factors come into play here.
  • Nikoruo
    Nikoruo Posts: 771 Member
    I'm not sure I understand but.... I was really strong at my highest weight 340lbs at 8'7.5.... like i could lift my 300lb father around in my arms. I imagine that my legs muscles are due to myself carrying around my own weights all the time and a bit of my arms muscles too but not nearly as much of course. As you lose weight you will find that you can probably carry more than the average person who does not lift because you already were carrying yourself around. I think that's what your question was... lol
  • traceywoody
    traceywoody Posts: 233 Member
    I have also wondered the same thing, because when we are carrying more fat, we are essentially weight training all day. Is that what you mean?
  • neandermagnon
    neandermagnon Posts: 7,436 Member
    Some people are naturally stronger than others regardless of whether or not they're obese. It could be that you're naturally stronger than average and would be even if you had never been obese. But carrying around extra weight will make your muscles stronger, probably even more so if you're genetically predispositioned to be stronger than average to begin with.

    This is one of the reasons why it's so important to lose weight the healthy way (i.e. slow and steady with a sensible calorie deficit and doing strength training to maintain lean mass) because you just want to lose fat, not muscle. You want to still be really strong when you have a healthy body fat percentage. If you are naturally stronger than average, then you need to monitor this and also bear in mind that your ideal weight could be heavier than average due to having more lean mass than average.
  • traceywoody
    traceywoody Posts: 233 Member
    The only stupid question is the one we don't ask. :)
  • allunits
    allunits Posts: 95 Member
    Yes! Thanks for saying in one sentence what I've been failing to say in 20.
    I have also wondered the same thing, because when we are carrying more fat, we are essentially weight training all day. Is that what you mean?
  • RaggedyPond
    RaggedyPond Posts: 1,487 Member
    I would think your body would adapt to having more weight just like it does when it has less weight.
  • deliacm
    deliacm Posts: 66 Member
    I think you're basically just getting at the idea that there are many different body types and some are just more muscular than others. Those people with muscular builds will likely be stronger than someone that doesn't share that body type.

    My 6 year old daughter has a very muscular build compared to her bff; they are the same height, both of them wear the same size clothing, they do the same activities, yet my daughter's build makes her look like she's doing reps in the gym during recess. She's also considerably and noticeably stronger than her friend. I use this as an example only because, at their age, there isn't anything but genetics that's determining their strength and build.
  • Perplexities
    Perplexities Posts: 612 Member
    Strength becomes stronger as you drop the fat and gain more muscle. You will keep getting stronger as time goes on. I finally can do 3 pull ups by myself before I couldnt do any now that I am getting more lean losing more fat gaining muscle my goal is to do 12 by the end of summer

    Artist-2061029-bertstare_zps47ce8cee.jpg
  • RaggedyPond
    RaggedyPond Posts: 1,487 Member
    Strength becomes stronger as you drop the fat and gain more muscle. You will keep getting stronger as time goes on. I finally can do 3 pull ups by myself before I couldnt do any now that I am getting more lean losing more fat gaining muscle my goal is to do 12 by the end of summer

    Artist-2061029-bertstare_zps47ce8cee.jpg

    lmao
  • RECowgill
    RECowgill Posts: 881 Member
    As an ex-fat person who has been lifting heavy I can tell you my experience.

    First off, you need to make a distinction between muscle mass/LBM and strength. They are connected but not the same. When I was obese I was 280 pounds total and probably about 160 pounds of lean body mass. After a year+ of strength training, lifting heavy, my LBM is about the same, maybe a little bit higher. Let's say 170. My total weight is 227. So I definitely tightened up, I've dropped quite a bit of fat and my body fat percentage is much better. I have either retained my muscle or maybe slightly added to it or perhaps in some cases slightly reduced but it's basically the same as when I started.

    It's not possible for a person to add tons of muscle in the amount of timeframe that I've been lifting heavy anyway. At the outside I could've added may be 15 or 20 pounds in that timeframe. But that assumes I did everything perfectly which I did not. I think it's a much better assumption I probably only added 5 or 10 pounds of actual muscle at best. We can quibble over the exact numbers but I think I'm in the ballpark.

    But how did my strength do in that same amount of time? I went from benching 90lbs to 225lbs for reps. I went from squatting and deadlifting nothing to squatting 250 and deadlifting 350. When I started deadlifting less than a year ago 185 was a challenge. Now 225 is my warm-up weight, it's something I practice form with. I went from curling a 25lb dumbbell to a 45.

    So what happened? Neuromuscular adaptation. I retrained my nervous system and existing muscles to work more effectively. Damaged the existing tissue and replaced it with stronger tissue. The amount of muscle I had in raw lbs didn't change by more than 10%, yet I doubled or tripled my lifts. And I don't think my numbers or capability are all that different from anyone who would really apply themselves and start in a similar position.

    So my conclusion would be that your typical fat person has plenty of muscle to start with, but it is really untapped potential. The muscles that they do have I believe would be above average in strength yet inefficient for their size. They would be just strong enough to move the excess weight around and not much more. Maybe even less, I remember when I was that heavy just standing up could be difficult. Now I move like a freakin ninja. :explode:

    I think that explains why you feel conflicted about your own strength. I know that feeling, you feel strong but not. You have the muscle tissue but it's operating at like 40% capacity. You can take the same muscle and adapt it to to 95% with hard work and effort. Best of luck to you!
  • Azdak
    Azdak Posts: 8,281 Member
    I'm not quoting the entire post above me, but he offers some interesting insights.

    The basic answer is "yes" someone who is carrying around a lot of extra weight is going to be stronger and have more muscle mass. They will also have denser bones, thicker tendons and ligaments, etc. However, there are some differences. One, the extra "strength" will be only for the specific movements that the person does. It will likely not be comparable to someone who is lifting weights with a whole-body routine. Two: while strength and muscle mass do increase with increasing weight, at some point that stops and further increases in fat no longer have the same effect (I apologize I cannot remember the reference of the top of my head-- it may have been in one of Lyle McDonald's articles on his website). Three: we can't equate "increased muscle" with either increased muscle endurance or cardio endurance. An untrained, overweight person is going to likely struggle with some basic e recipes.

    I see many overweight people with significantly higher than average FFM when we do body fat analysis.

    It's one of the reasons why I sometimes take issue with the "everyone must lift heavy" mantra that is applied to everyone and the indiscriminate parroting of the "increase muscle to burn more fat" meme. A lot of overweight beginners have plenty of muscle mass--they don't need more. In some cases especially in the beginning, an endurance or moderate-weight lifting program is more appropriate.

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/Azdak/view/heavy-lifting-always-the-best-541735
  • RECowgill
    RECowgill Posts: 881 Member
    It's one of the reasons why I sometimes take issue with the "everyone must lift heavy" mantra that is applied to everyone and the indiscriminate parroting of the "increase muscle to burn more fat" meme. A lot of overweight beginners have plenty of muscle mass--they don't need more. In some cases especially in the beginning, an endurance or moderate-weight lifting program is more appropriate.

    As a heavy lifter who had exactly those goals of increasing muscle to burn more fat, I agree with you that it shouldn't apply to everyone. Nothing in exercise or lifting should, everyone should figure out what works for themselves. I'm an experimenter and I try and figure out what works for me proactively. I think that's the only actual rule that should be applied.
  • corgicake
    corgicake Posts: 846 Member
    Ride your bike now while you're still fat! When i started dropping weight, i still had the quads i built up pushing around a heavier me.

    The speed at which you get fit is determined by the frequency, intensity and duration of your workouts.
    THIS. I kept my muscle from before the last leg of weight loss (until getting slapped with a temporary activity restriction by an MD - boohiss) and it's tons easier to keep it than to try getting it back.
  • SapiensPisces
    SapiensPisces Posts: 992 Member
    Okay, I think all your great answers are helping to clarify my question. If you have 2 sedentary people with equal levels of stamina and fitness levels, but one weighs 50lbs more than the other, does the one who weigh more also have stronger muscles because of the extra weight they're carrying around? (Honestly I'm not trying to get at anything, just curious.)

    In my experience, yes. Imagine a smaller person carrying a 50 lb body vest on them 24/7.
  • neandermagnon
    neandermagnon Posts: 7,436 Member
    Okay, I think all your great answers are helping to clarify my question. If you have 2 sedentary people with equal levels of stamina and fitness levels, but one weighs 50lbs more than the other, does the one who weigh more also have stronger muscles because of the extra weight they're carrying around? (Honestly I'm not trying to get at anything, just curious.)

    In my experience, yes. Imagine a smaller person carrying a 50 lb body vest on them 24/7.

    I've seriously considered doing this. Where do I get a 50lb body vest?

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