Strength is all about technique, control, and state of mind. Did anyone ever watch that show on the discovery channel last year with that thin girl out-lifting all the huge body-building guys. Or an average looking old guy being able to bend wrenches in half or tear through phonebooks because he understands how to leverage the muscles he does have in highly-effective ways.

I think there is still a common misconception that the size of your muscles relates directly to how strong you are.

My own personal experience on the topic: I have this pull-up bar here. When I was young, I used to work out regularly, and I'd hang from this bar now and again and try to pull myself up. I struggled a lot with it, squirming and trying to pull myself up, I couldn't do it. I tried every day, and one day I managed to pull myself all the way up. That was a big triumph for me. Cut to recent years, I don't work out and am as scrawny as ever. Meanwhile, if I have to, I can do hanging pull-ups like they're nothing. It doesn't even feel challenging, and yet I have no muscles on my arm (seriously, my upper arm is comparable in width to most people's wrists.) It's all sort of muscle memory technique... my arms just know how to achieve pulling me up. This always baffled my sister, who worked out in the gym a lot for sports, and had more muscle on her arms than me, yet struggled to pull herself up at all. Like most people, she thinks muscles = strength. To this day, she is still trying to figure out how I'm pulling up weight so easily without any muscle.

So yes, that's my little story. And it applies to every form of muscular activity, weight-lifting, running, jumping (haha, I've known so many people who can't jump at all), punching, kicking, whatever.

It's not the size, it's how well you use them.

Pullups have more to do with your core than arms. You need a little on your arms, I guess, to hold on, and for a few motions, but eh.

The size of your muscles definitely relates directly to how strong you are, but that doesn't mean that it's the end-all, be-all of how strong you are. And what I think you're getting at is not so much muscles =/= strength as looks =/= strength. I don't know, though, that guy who could bend wrenches and tear phonebooks in half, did you get a good look at his hands? You're right in that most of it must've been technique, but that doesn't mean that anybody could do it with enough practice.

And how many pullups can you do?

And who are you? I recognize the sig, but not a name to place it with. One of my favorite movies.

He's FuckChrist, or Sinix which is IIRC what he used after we got bought by GD and he wasn't allowed to have that username, or something.

I pretty much agree with Poopington's response here. There is definitely a lot more to just bulking up hardcore with mass when it comes to strength. Flexibility is really important to, and a good core, and trying to get steroid-bulked up sort of hampers both of those. Personally I lift to keep my body in general shape and my metabolism up since I really don't like running, biking, or swimming much. I'd much prefer a toned (not exactly skinny cut though) look and be able to stay quick and keep my endurance since I play basketball. If I got all bulky I would lose that ability.

I haven't been able to work out at all over the past 2 months with my herniated disc, but I've been doing a bit of reading lately while searching for ways to help my back recover more quickly and protect it in the future. I plan on doing a lot of core-intensive workouts once I recover enough to get back in the gym and put most of my other lifting on hold, save for some maintenance workouts so what I've built up already doesn't atrophy any more than it has. That and yoga or some sort of intensive stretching. I really believe it will completely change my performance once I start my normal stuff up again.

No, really, I'm talking about muscle bulk though. I'm not saying it doesn't do anything at all, but it's highly overrated in terms of importance. Strength comes from how the muscles work together. Seriously, the wrench bending guy wasn't as impressive as seeing a 100lb girl lift a ridiculous amount of weight over her head.

Really, it was a good show, full of all sorts of information on how the human body works. Showing how muscle mass was far less important than people always thought. We've all heard the news stories of mothers lifting cars and kicking through windshields in an emergency. If strength was based on muscle mass, these things simply wouldn't be possible. Endorphins, adrenaline, focus, whatever... all of this stuff can do more for you than muscle mass.

Anyway, I don't know how many pullups I can do, I've never tried to go to the limit, I have crappy endurance from all this sitting around also. But, I could do 10, catch my breath, do another 10, catch my breath, and so on, for I'm not sure how long. I know I can pretty much always do more than people with stronger arms than me. It's those thin rock climber type people that would put us all to shame with their one-finger pullups and mastered technique.

And yea, like ender said, they changed my name when we went to GD, now it's back how it was.

What show was this from?

I'm not sure what show he's referring to, but another similar example is Fight Science, a documentary done by National Geographic. It's all about martial arts masters and how they do extraordinary feats with just their bodies. The amount of force, speed, and balance that these guys achieve is unreal, and none of them are huge and bulky.

Yea but muscles are the hotness, so muscles aren't over rated.

Yeah man get with the times, when you get big biceps, babes come talk to you just so they can hang off them.

Also, I came in here expecting to have a lot more to say, but the post wasn't as weird as the title made it seem. I'd say muscles are pretty not overrated. Hulking muscles, yes, but...

I'm going to have to disagree with you. Yes, the biggest gains you're going to see is from training of the neural receptors in the muscles but the actual size of muscle mass is important. Person X who is good at doing whatever anaerobic of your choice with Y muscle mass is going to be better at it when they have >Y muscle mass. If what you're trying to do is competitive in nature, than you're going to want to be as best as you can.

I really doubt a tiny girl could outlift a powerlifter. Stories about moms lifting up vans to save their kids are urban myths.