As far as I have always known, all that can be done to the body's physical appearance is either, building muscle, or losing fat.
Am I correct in thinking this? Or is there more to it? Just an example, I have heard some people say things like, they are trying for more dense looking muscle.
Any thoughts on this?
Yes you can get more dense muscle. comes in time and age with HEAVY lifting for a long time.
Thats the basics of it. Much more to it. But look at say 2 BBer of near the same size one new to the Feild and one a vet. they may be the same size but the older bber will have more let say mature musle. much denser etc.
That and cycling your training. Going for stages of Pure hypertrophy and then pure strength etc. Both will give hypertrophy but the Heavier lifting will make that muscle more dense, solidify those cells that have been ripped torn and swollen.
Once again very very basic descript but hope it helps,
I suggest buying some books and reading up if you are very interested.
Phill
the reason their muscles might feel soggy is because they train in the sarcoplasmic hypertrophy range which is just an increase in cell FLUID volume
What do you mean, "only" build muscle or change fat makeup? Makes a big difference especially, which muscles you build (fat loss though is predetermined in its distribution throughout your body and differs for each person ie you can't add/lose fat from specific parts of the body).
Over a very, very long time, your tendons and other connective tissue can thicken. So you might get thicker looking joints.
Your posture can be reshaped. Makes a big difference.
Muscles can be elongated in appearance, at least, depending on the exercises you do. Look at ballerinas (men as well as women).
I doubt you'd see much change in appearance based on bone density, the only bone changes that change appearance are malformations.
WTF? You think that training in a certain rep range somehow creates muscles only made out of fluid? Are you aware that over 72% of the volume of muscle tissue is water? Please prove your statement.
For the record, we've already had this debate and there is no proof that what you stated is true.