Fat chance for a strong man
QUESTION Why are bodybuilders more muscular than powerlifters, even though they aren’t as strong?
WRITING as a sports scientist, there are a variety of reasons why powerlifters and bodybuilders look quite different and their strength varies.
The most obvious is the level of body fat. The saying that ‘muscle comes from the kitchen’ is a truism in bodybuilding. These athletes prefer to stay lean as that is the point of their sport.
Powerlifters have no such concerns; the more fat, the better.
Take the bench press. If you have a 60in chest made up of muscle and fat, then you need to lower the bar to the chest a few inches less than a bodybuilder with 40in of solid muscle.
In strongest man competitions, the overhead log press technique involves lifting the weight onto the top of the stomach and resting it there until it can be pulled up to the shoulders by its handles, and then pressed into the air.
Overhead pressers without a gut wouldn’t be able to get the log to the shoulders.
The difference in lifting technique is important. Powerlifters do three basic lifts: bench press, squat and dead lift.
These are compound lifts using several muscles at the same time to lift the most weight, spreading out the trauma.
The strength improvement is greater as more muscle fibres are used for each lift.
Powerlifters do fewer repetitions per exercise, usually one to five. Low-rep compound exercises improve strength via myofibrillar hypertrophy whereby contractile proteins increase and add strength with a small growth in size.
Bodybuilding requires isolated exercises and higher reps of eight to 15. It builds muscle bulk via sarcoplasmic hypertrophy.
Here, the muscles increase in size due to the greater volume of sarcoplasmic fluid going into the muscles, but the actual gain in strength is small.
This is ‘The Pump’ that Arnold Schwarzenegger coined in the 1970s as Mr Universe.
It is a fake look as their strength doesn’t match the size of the individual muscle.
With slight increases in the size of the muscle fibres in these athletes, the look remains more normal. Biologists believe powerlifters’ type of strength gain is a survival adaptation that improves sprinting and endurance.
Mo Farah is an endurance athlete who uses heavy load resistance training to improve his longdistance performances.
Bodybuilders’ size is mostly cosmetic. Most studies have proven the bigger the muscles of the legs, the slower a person would run. Carrying excess weight also reduces stamina as the increase in weight without the strength to match. The final reason for the difference in looks is psychological. Powerlifters talk of the pleasure of reaching certain goals and bodybuilders talk of looking a certain way.
The two approaches are extremely different, but equally valid, and involve a degree of health and fitness. David Vandyke, Shoreham-by-Sea, W. Sussex.
QUESTION What is the origin of the word quarantine?
THE origin of this word is 14thcentury Italian. But the concept of quarantine, or isolation for medical purposes, is far older and is mentioned in the Bible. Leviticus 13:4 is the earliest reference, and there are at least 15 others.
Like many words beginning with ‘quar’, as in quartet, it relates to the number four – in this case a period of 40 days.
In the 14th and 15th centuries, bubonic plague, also called the Black Death, was a pandemic, and the Italian city-state of Venice instigated a 40-day period when arriving ships had to isolate, with crew and passengers not allowed ashore. This was referred to as the quarentena.
Only after 40 days, and with no outbreak on board, would the ship be allowed to dock.
Being a city on islands, it was simple for Venice to isolate by closing its bridges.
Not all quarantines were for 40 days, however, and the term came to mean any period of isolation.
An earlier isolation, introduced in 1347 in Ragusa (modern-day Dubrovnik), lasted for 30 days and was called the trentino – words with tri- or tre- are associated with the number three.
Bob Cubitt, Northampton.
QUESTION Did Disney try to take over Blackpool Pleasure Beach in the 1960s?
THOUGH this rumour surfaces every so often, there is no evidence Disney wanted to take over the Pleasure Beach. However, Walt Disney did visit in the 1950s.
In 1948, he envisaged Disneyland as Mickey Mouse Park. He wanted it to be a film studio, but amended the plans to include rides.
Before Disneyland opened in California in 1955, Walt visited amusement parks around Europe including the Tivoli Gardens in Denmark, Efteling in the Netherlands and Bekonscot Model Village & Railway in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire. He was impressed by Blackpool Pleasure Beach and struck up a friendship with its owners, Leonard and Doris Thompson. They would exchange ideas and Disney gave permission for Blackpool Pleasure Beach to use Disney’s Alice In Wonderland designs for its ‘down the rabbit hole’ ride in 1962.
Leonard Thompson had a Golden Key to Disneyland in Los Angeles, which meant he had free entry. When Walt Disney died in 1966, the corporation asked for it back. According to Amanda Thompson, Leonard’s granddaughter, the current owner of the Pleasure Beach, ‘he was grumpy about that for ages’.
Mack Wilson, Cleveleys, Lancs.
QUESTION Why was the 12-sided threepenny coin known as a Joey in Britain?
THOSE of a certain age in Britain will remember the 12-sided brass thruppenny bit, but before 1947 the threepence was a small circular silver coin that had inherited the nickname Joey.
Joey was first given to a silver fourpence or groat. This coin with origins in the 16th century was reintroduced in 1836 when the standard hansom cab fare was 4d. Cabbies, having got used to being handed a sixpence and told to keep the change, found the selves being given the exact money and no tip.
Scottish MP Joseph Hume had extolled the virtues of the coin in a speech in the British parliament, and they were derided with the nickname Joeys in his honour. When the groat was taken out of circulation in 1855, the nickname passed to the silver threepence.
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