Strength Gaining Diet, Minimal Size

[Cuban Moses]

I will be moving into a new house hopefully over the summer, and I am looking into getting free weights because it seems that I will have the room to do so. I want to make some serious strength gains, and will most likely start off with the bill starr 5 X 5 program. My concern is what kind of diet to follow to maximize my strength gains while not gaining much mass. I know that muscle size and strength are related, and a bigger muscle should be able to move more weight since it has more fibers, etc. Is it just a matter of not eating too many calories and eating effectively pre and post workout?

Just doing some research to get an idea of what I will be doing. Plus, I have not really seen too much on this topic in my search. Everyone and their mothers out there is after adding size. The way I see it, the stronger I am while maintaining my weight the more of an advantage I have. If I gain a bunch of muscle I am nullifying some of it. The same can be said by not eating a shitload and trying to maximize my strength gain.

 

[Rowan11088]

That's a rarely asked question, I'm interested to see what people say. I would think that ultimately it's just about not giving yourself a caloric surplus, but I'm not sure how you should alter your protein/carb intake for that without limiting your ability to recover.

 

[Cuban Moses]

ttt

 

[ThinkGreen]

Is it just a matter of not eating too many calories and eating effectively pre and post workout

Yes. Just clean up your diet and keep the calories lower, but you still are going to need a decent amount of food to make gains and for recovery purposes.

 

[StrikerStatus]

For strength, make sure your training is in check. Size comes from hypertrophy and caloric excess. If you are doing heavy compound lifts with low reps and have a clean diet; you are there man. Do not neglect cardio tho!!!

 

[StrikerStatus]

For strength, make sure your training is in check. Size comes from hypertrophy and caloric excess. If you are doing heavy compound lifts with low reps and have a clean diet; you are there man. Do not neglect cardio tho!!!

 

[Hbs6]

with training...keep reps in the 1-3, maybe 4. Watch you kcals and you should get enough neurological adaption to get stronger without putting on size. If you play it right hell you could even drop some fat and put on a few lbs of muscle. In my experiences, having a program that is mostly made up of olympic lifts has got me much more explosive (my vertical went up a ton, and my bar speed got so much faster as I could measure it with a tendo unit) and i have kept weight down and even slowly dropped a couple.

 

[Hbs6]

and just to comment on what you said you are right tha muscle mass and strength have a correlation but you can still get very strong and explosive without gaining weight with neurological adaption. Just type in olympic lifting on youtube and you will see some dudes (i know they're on drugs but still) that are freakishly strong and weigh like 80kilos

 

[Cuban Moses]

Does anyone have a book that they recommend on how to structure a strength program. I want to do many olympic lifts. I have been out of the lifting game for a bit, and will get in it hardcore when I move in to my new house. 500 lbs oly weight set here I come!!!

Book I know of are by Mark rippetoe.
Building Strength
Practical Programming

I just realized that this is the d&s forum, wrong place to ask this.

But I'd be interested if someone has a diet plan with this goal.

Typical day for me when I lift would be.

6 am
Pre workout shake

6:15
lift

7:00
post workout shake

8 am work

9 am
veggies
beans
lean meat

noon
veggies
lean meat
beans
olive oil on veggies

3 pm
veggies
lean meat
some good fats

6 pm
myoplex shake

6:30 to 8:30
bjj

9 pm
veggies
lean meat
brown rice

11 pm
cottage cheese
maybe an apple

I know amounts aren't listed, but my caloric intake would increase from what I'm doing now. Just throwing this out there for suggestions.

 

[T.J.T]

S&P forum will have lots of info.

 

[Cuban Moses]

Thanks, I was editing while you posted that. I will do more searching today.