Bigger Isn't Always Better for Strength or Metabolism (Scaling Laws) | Ep 195
How can a small guy deadlift more than the big guy, or why does your smaller friend never seem to gain weight no matter how much they eat?
And what does this mean for your lifting and calorie targets?
Discover the science behind these phenomena as we delve into the fascinating world of scaling laws and their impact on fitness and body mechanics. We break down the principles governing strength, power output, metabolism, and nutrition to help you your training and nutrition.
We'll explore why smaller individuals often exhibit higher relative strength and why lighter weight classes in powerlifting shine. Or why smaller individuals can do more pull-ups.
You'll learn about Kleber’s Law and how basal metabolic rate (BMR) scales differently with body size, revealing why smaller individuals have relatively higher metabolic rates.
And what it all means for YOU both physically and psychologically as you set goals for strength, performance, weight loss, and anything else in your health and fitness.
Book a FREE 15-minute Rapid Nutrition Assessment, designed to fine-tune your strategy, identify your #1 roadblock, and give you a personalized 3-step action plan in a fast-paced 15 minutes.
Episode summary:
Philip delves into the intriguing world of scaling laws and their profound impact on fitness and body mechanics. If you've ever wondered why a petite gym-goer can outperform the biggest lifter in pull-ups or why your smaller friend seems to eat endlessly without gaining weight, this episode is for you. Through the lens of scientific and engineering principles, Philip explains how different physical quantities change with size and how these changes affect strength, power output, metabolism, and nutrition.
Scaling laws are fascinating concepts from engineering and biology that explain why bigger isn't always better when it comes to fitness. For example, the principles of scaling laws help us understand why smaller individuals often excel in pull-ups and why lighter weight classes in powerlifting shine. These laws also explain why smaller individuals have relatively higher metabolic rates. Understanding these principles can help you set realistic goals and optimize your training and diet strategies tailored to your body size.
One of the most compelling points discussed is how strength scales with body size. Strength is primarily a function of muscle cross-sectional area, which scales to the power of two, while body mass scales to the power of three. This means that as you get bigger, your strength increases, but not as fast as your weight. Therefore, smaller individuals often have higher relative strength. This phenomenon explains why lighter weight classes in powerlifting often lift more relative to their body weight. If you're a smaller individual, you might have an advantage in relative strength movements like pull-ups or Olympic lifts. Conversely, larger individuals might excel more in absolute strength movements like deadlifts and bench presses.
Metabolism is another area where scaling laws come into play. Kleber's Law states that basal metabolic rate scales to the power of 0.75, resulting in smaller individuals having a relatively higher metabolism. This explains why smaller people often seem to be able to eat more relative to their size without gaining weight. Larger individuals, on the other hand, burn more calories in absolute terms, which means they can eat more total food without gaining weight. Understanding these metabolic principles can help you set more realistic dietary goals and optimize your nutrition based on your body size.
Nutrition doesn't scale linearly with body size. For example, smaller individuals require more protein relative to their body weight compared to larger individuals. This is independent of lean body mass. Therefore, if you're a 110-pound female, you might need 110-120 grams of protein, whereas a 300-pound individual wouldn't need 300 grams of protein. These principles also apply to calorie intake, which is tied to your metabolism. Tracking your food and weight can help you determine your real-life calorie needs and optimize your diet accordingly.
The psychological benefits of understanding scaling laws are also significant. Knowing that there are natural, scientific reasons for the differences in strength, metabolism, and nutrition between individuals can be incredibly liberating. It helps you stop comparing yourself to others and focus on maximizing your potential within the natural laws that govern your body. Realistic expectations can be incredibly motivating, allowing you to set goals that are tailored to your individual potential rather than trying to meet arbitrary standards.
The episode concludes with practical steps to apply these insights to your fitness journey. For smaller individuals, focus on relative strength movements and don't get discouraged if your absolute numbers aren't as high as those of larger lifters. For larger individuals, take advantage of your ability to excel in absolute strength lifts. When it comes to cardio and endurance, smaller individuals might have an advantage due to better heat dissipation and lower cost of movement, while larger individuals need to manage their heat during intense cardio.
In terms of goal setting, understanding scaling laws helps you set realistic strength goals based on your body size. For example, relative strength standards like 2x body weight for deadlifts or 1.5x body weight for squats can serve as benchmarks. When it comes to pull-ups, losing weight can help you achieve more reps because you are lifting less weight. Choosing exercises that play to your body's strengths can also be beneficial. Smaller individuals might excel at gymnastic-style movements, while larger individuals might excel at traditional lifts.
In summary, scaling laws offer a new perspective on fitness, helping you optimize your training and diet based on your unique body size. Understanding these principles can help you set realistic goals, tailor your fitness strategies, and achieve incredible results. Tune in to the episode to transform your approach to fitness by leveraging the science and engineering principles that shape our bodies. Let's use our wits, lift those weights, and embrace the power of knowledge in our fitness endeavors.
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Transcript
Philip Pape: 0:00
Have you ever wondered why the smallest guy in the gym can do the most pull-ups, or why your petite friend seems to eat whatever she wants without gaining weight, or why that medium-sized guy can pull a 500-pound deadlift? If you've ever been puzzled by what seem to be fitness paradoxes, you're not alone. The answer lies in a fascinating concept from engineering and biology called scaling laws. Today, we're diving into the counterintuitive world of scaling laws and how they secretly shape every aspect of your body and your fitness journey. We'll explore why bigger isn't always better when it comes to strength and metabolism. Whether you're a towering power lifter or a compact gymnast, this episode's going to give you a new perspective on how to optimize your fitness based on your unique body size.
Philip Pape: 1:00
Welcome to Wits and Weights, the show that blends evidence and engineering to help you build smart, efficient systems to achieve your dream physique. I'm your host, philip Pape, and today we're continuing our Wednesday series on applying engineering principles to health and fitness. Now we've all had the experience of seeing a massive guy struggling with pull-ups, or a much smaller person who's able to squat really heavy weight. Or, you know, maybe you're out to dinner, you're eating with friends everybody's of a different size and you notice that the smaller person over here seems to eat just as much as the much larger person over here, without gaining weight, for example and I've I've experienced that with my own wife actually being on a on a more small side, being able to eat as much as I can eat. And you're just scratching your head. You're like, why doesn't size always correlate with the strength in the gym or someone's metabolism, how much, how many calories they burn, the way? You'd expect. What if I told you there's a set of principles that explains these paradoxes, from science, from engineering, a concept that helps you understand why bigger isn't always better and maybe why we shouldn't worry about that so much and instead think about applying the principles to ourselves and our journey, our bodies, and then learning from that to make the best decisions for us. Because when we talk about optimization, we're talking about optimization for you. We're not talking about getting the maximum results at all costs based on some fixed plan. This is the premise behind setting realistic goals, which then you can actually achieve, and you can actually get incredible results doing it that way, rather than assuming you're going to get some output whether it's strength, metabolism or something else based on what others would expect for them.
Philip Pape: 2:43
Before we dive in, if you're enjoying the show, if you want more content that blends these scientific and engineering principles with practical fitness advice, please hit the follow button, hit the subscribe button and if you're already following the show, the next level up that you can do for me is just tell somebody else about it. That's it. Just tell somebody hey, you're gonna love this show. Share with them a specific episode, post it on social media, post it in your story, whatever is most comfortable for you, so that more people can find the show, and then ensure that we reach as many people as possible, and I can keep creating content like this.
Philip Pape: 3:17
All right, so let's get into today's topic about scaling laws. Here's what we're covering what are they, how they affect you in terms of strength and power output, how your body size affects metabolism and energy expenditure, the implications of scaling laws on nutrition, and then what are the practical takeaways. So it is a little bit more of a deep dive episode for a typical Wednesday, where I'm often unscripted, because I really wanted to get this right for you. Let's start with the basics. What are scaling laws? Well, they are how different physical quantities change as the size of an object changes, right, something's bigger or smaller. How do different physical quantities change with that? In biology and engineering, these help us understand why things work the way they do at different sizes. For example, you've probably heard how an ant, right, little tiny ants can lift many times their body weight. But why can't humans do the same thing? And it comes down to scaling. As an organism gets larger, its volume and thus its mass right, how much it weighs on the earth increases much faster than its cross-sectional area. Pretty cool, think about that. As you get larger, the volume and mass goes fast, increases faster than the area, the cross-sectional area. This means a larger animal needs disproportionately more muscle to perform the same relative feats of strength. I don't know if you've ever thought about this, but this is the kind of cool stuff we cover here, and then I'm always fascinated and geek out on.
Philip Pape: 4:48
So let's apply this to human strength and power. Have you ever noticed that in powerlifting competitions, right? You ever see somebody doing a deadlift, or even a strong man? The lighter weight classes often lift more relative to their body weight than the heavier classes, right? And this isn't because they're necessarily stronger in absolute terms. In fact, they're not. Right, a small guy. You know, a 190 pound guy at that level is not going to outlift a 350 pound guy, I mean, with rare exception. Right, it's because of how the strength scales with size. Strength is primarily a function of muscle cross-sectional area, which bear with me here it scales to the power of two. So think of, like, when you square something like two times two is four, that's two squared, all right, but body mass scales to the power of three, okay, Okay, and maybe you can think in terms of you know, we're a three-dimensional body and so the power of three is like a prism or a cube, okay, so this means as you get bigger, your strength increases, but not as fast as your weight. And this is why smaller individuals often have higher relative strength. I hope I didn't lose you yet, because a little bit of math, but that's all I have in terms of the math department.
Philip Pape: 6:05
Here's where it gets interesting for your training. If you're a smaller individual, you might have an advantage in relative strength movements like pull-ups or Olympic lifts. If you're larger, you might excel more in absolute strength movements like the big lifts, deadlifts, bench press, right, it doesn't mean you shouldn't or can't do any of those things, it's just about setting expectations and understanding your body size and how this plays into it right. Your height is going to make a big difference, as well as your weight, and of course you can't control your height without lopping off your feet or something. But you can control your weight and when you understand this, it helps you set more realistic goals and choose routines, exercises, volume. You know loads, even types of activities that play to your body's natural strengths. Of course, you may not know what those are until you play around with different things. So that's on the strength side. I thought that was a pretty cool thing to understand. How you know.
Philip Pape: 7:03
As we get bigger, we would actually need more and more muscle to increase in relative strength. So smaller folks tend to have the ability to generate higher relative strength, which also is why you shouldn't get totally freaked out about potentially losing some fat and losing all your strength as a result, cause you're not you might lose a little, a little bit of absolute strength, but once you've built up that strength I've seen it time and again with my clients big guys have a lot of muscle. We go and lose 30 pounds. They can lift just as much, and now their relative strength is massive. So don't discount all of these things.
Philip Pape: 7:34
Now let's talk about metabolism, because there's a relationship here as well. Right, it's not the physical relationship, it's more on the energy side. So the amount of energy your body burns. It's more on the energy side so the amount of energy your body burns, called your basal metabolic rate, your BMR. It also doesn't scale with your body weight. It actually scales to the power of 0.75. Please, I hope I don't lose you here. It scales to the power of 0.75. This is known as Kleber's Law Pretty cool stuff.
Philip Pape: 8:03
And what this means is that if you're smaller, your metabolism is likely higher relative to your body weight than a larger person. Ah, this is why smaller people often seem to be able to eat more relative to their size without gaining weight. And you know, I've wondered this myself often when I have clients. I've had a hundred pound female clients, and of course I've had clients usually male clients and of course I've had clients usually male clients 300 pounds and North of that. And yet the disparity in metabolism isn't as large as you would think. You would think you get down to a hundred pounds and your metabolism is now all of a sudden 900 calories, like if you were to scale it, but it doesn't quite work that way. It kind of it kind of bottoms out a bit. It starts to slow down in in uh on the bottom end as somebody is smaller and smaller and smaller, right. That's why smaller people again, um, seem to have a higher metabolism than you would think, and, of course, it varies individual to individual. We're talking about averages here.
Philip Pape: 8:59
Now, if you're larger, this is not something to worry about, because your absolute calorie burn as a larger person is still higher. Thing to worry about because your absolute calorie burn as a larger person is still higher and that still means you get to eat more total food, right? Which is which is their advantage when it comes to feeling satisfied on a diet, for example and again, I have seen this many times with usually male clients who are in their mid to upper two hundreds, and they can they just burn a ton of calories even when they're not in the best shape. When they start with me, if they haven't been walking a lot, maybe they haven't been lifting, and we get them doing all that, even then they might start with a decent metabolism just because they're bigger, right. However, a smaller person can also build up their metabolism over time, through both expenditure and muscle mass. So very, very interesting to think about these things. In case you're wondering why you have a certain metabolism or why you have certain struggles that others don't, it can be helpful to put in these terms, but don't overthink it. I just think it's kind of cool. And then that brings us to nutrition.
Philip Pape: 10:03
Nutrition doesn't scale linearly with body size. For example, protein, right. Protein. We often talk about it as gram per pound, right, or 0.7 grams per pound, that's per body weight. But in reality, smaller individuals need slightly more protein relative to their weight, and then larger individuals need less relative to their weight, and then larger individuals need less relative to their weight, and that's actually independent of that's independent of lean body mass as well, which is another factor. I don't want to. I don't want to overcomplicate it, but it just explains why. If you're like 110 pound female, I might want you easily eating 110, 120 grams of protein. But if you're 300 pounds, you definitely don't need 110, 120 grams of protein. But if you're 300 pounds, you definitely don't need to eat 300 grams of protein. You know, you could probably get away with 200 and be perfectly fine. It doesn't scale right. And then the same thing goes with calories, obviously, because calories are tied to your metabolism, so I don't think you have to like restate that. So what does this all mean for you? Practical purposes, cause at the end of the day you're like, okay, this is good stuff, what do I do with it? I would say, okay, strength training, right If.
Philip Pape: 11:16
If you're smaller, focus on the relative strength numbers. Don't get discouraged. If you're at absolute numbers, aren't as high as other lifters, like, don't compare yourself to other lifters, especially who are bigger than you. You know, I see that all the time. I'm like, don't get hung up on the number when somebody posts a win and they're like yeah, I just deadlifted four or five today, but you know there are six to 220 pound male. So if you're a 135 pound female and lifting um more relative to your size in that person, then you're you're kind of technically stronger in a way. Right, you're not absolute strength stronger, but you're relatively stronger, um. And then if you're larger, like, you can take advantage of that. When it comes to the absolute strength lifts, like the big lifts, you might be at a good advantage to really push those to compete to, to build up your bench and your deadlift and your press and focus, it might be a lot of fun, is what I'm saying because you have that advantage, right. So that's number one.
Philip Pape: 12:12
Number two when we talk about cardio and endurance, smaller individuals might have a little bit of an advantage because of their cross-sectional area being bigger relative to their mass, and so they have better heat dissipation and a slightly lower cost of movement. Now, that cost of movement can be a disadvantage for your metabolism. See, this is where it's like there's pros and cons to everything, right, whereas larger individuals might have more need to manage their heat during intense cardio. This is why larger people might sweat more, right, and might just feel hotter in general. It's not just because you're big. It also has to do with these relative scaling laws. Nutrition, right.
Philip Pape: 12:51
When we talk about nutrition, don't just rely on your body weight for calculating your energy needs, because there are relative differences between individuals and based on your size. And so, of course, I always recommend tracking your food, tracking your weight and letting that tell you in real life how many calories you burn. Best way to do that get Macrofactor. Download the app, install it, use my code, witsandweights. All one word, witsandweights. Start tracking. After about two to three weeks, you will know pretty precisely how many calories you burn, and then you can forget about comparing yourself to everyone else, self to everyone else.
Philip Pape: 13:29
The next thing that comes to mind is goal setting, because these scaling laws reassure you that there are realistic strength goals for you because of your body size and you're not aiming for absolute numbers. You might want to look up the relative strength standards based on your body weight, like 2x body weight for deadlift or 1.5x body weight for squats, things like that, and then you can use those as benchmarks to say, hmm, how close am I to that? And I remember, when it comes to pull-ups, if you're losing weight, you might actually be able to get more pull-ups just because you are lighter and you were picking up less weight. And you might be also relatively more stronger in a fat loss plays phase. Then you think, even though the weights aren't going up because you're losing weight, remember all those things. Um, and then finally, you can choose exercises.
Philip Pape: 14:11
You know movements that play to your body's strengths. Smaller individuals might excel at things like gymnastic style movements and the pull-ups and all that kind of fun stuff. Larger individuals might excel more at the traditional lifts. Now I'm saying I think everybody should lift heavy, that's for sure. Everybody should be doing compound movements, um, for a variety of reasons beyond the scope of today's episode.
Philip Pape: 14:32
But when you're looking for athletic um challenges, when you're looking for different modalities, when you're looking to compete, uh, all those kinds of things you know play around and see if your body size gives you a certain advantage. All right, so here's something that might surprise you Scaling laws. They don't just help you optimize training and nutrition. They are incredibly liberating psychologically, and that is why I wanted to make this episode, and maybe it doesn't surprise you anymore. That's just what I wrote down for my notes.
Philip Pape: 15:04
So how many times have you compared yourself to other people, right, and then felt discouraged? You see someone smaller than you lifting more, someone taller eating more without gaining weight? All the things we mentioned before. And because scaling laws explain why these differences exist, independent of other behavioral factors. They're perfectly natural. They're perfectly normal, and then you can stop comparing apples to oranges and you start appreciating your body's unique capabilities. Then you can set goals that are tailored to your individual potential. Stop comparing apples to oranges and you start appreciating your body's unique capabilities. Then you can set goals that are tailored to your individual potential rather than trying to meet arbitrary standards that might not be realistic at all for your body size. And this can be incredibly motivating, right? Realistic expectations in general can actually be incredibly motivating, because now you won't be frustrated or feel frustrated by some perceived but non-existent limitation. You can focus instead on maximizing your potential within the natural laws that govern your body. You're not trying to be better than someone else. You're trying to be the best version of yourself All right. So the next time you're tempted to to be better than someone else, you're trying to be the best version of yourself All right. So the next time you're tempted to compare your lifts, your metabolism, your diet to someone with a vastly different body size, remember the scaling laws we've discussed today. Because your body's unique, it operates according to its own set of rules based on its size All right.
Philip Pape: 16:26
If today's episode resonated with you, if you're ready to start applying some of these realistic expectations and understanding what they might be to your approach to training, your approach to nutrition, please schedule a call with me. I do free calls all the time. It's called a rapid nutrition assessment. It is not a sales pitch at all, at all. Okay, in fact, we have episode 199 coming up with a guy named Jazz. He's a 300 pound power lifter and it is a recording of that call where you can see exactly what it's like.
Philip Pape: 16:57
But rather than wait for that, why don't you give it a shot and reach out to me with the link in the show notes? Or go to witsandweightscom, click the big button on the top right and I've got you covered. All we're gonna do in that fast-paced 15 minutes is figure out where you are, what's the number one thing holding you back or where you're stuck, and give you some actions three actions at the end that you can put into place right away and get results within 90 days. That's it. That is my goal for you, and then you're gonna come back and say thank you so much.
Philip Pape: 17:24
You really helped change the trajectory of what I was trying to do, and now I can actually get unstuck and make some real progress. That is what I my wish for you. Remember, sometimes the difference between spinning your wheels and making that progress is understanding your body, understanding the laws of nature, understanding what you can accomplish. And then you go out there and you do it Until next time. Keep using your wits lifting those weights and remember, in fitness as in engineering, size matters sometimes, but knowledge matters more. I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits and Weights Podcast.
