Ya know, given that someone posted a video of Jason Blaha and considering the ridiculous following he has on youtube, and then contrasting this with how @Alpha is a phenomenal athlete and all around great guy with less of a following on youtube, I really don’t believe ability at lifting is the x-factor here. Most of these guys are talented at appealed to the demographic that demands them, and ability is dandy but not really required.
But, of course, I am most likely just jaded.
Was kind of thinking this. All of the guys posted are reasonably muscular, medium-sized human beings. I don’t look at the guys in the bottom 2 photos and see a huge difference from the guys in the top 4 photos.
That’s true. You make a good point.
I retract my earlier statement. Instead: ‘great marketing skills will be disproportionately represented in the sample’.
Although, I would say that the genetics comment holds for some – though definitely not all. That Max guy is still a lot stronger than he looks.
EDIT: ^ Maybe it’s his super-sleek track pants…
Honestly though, for a lot of the guys, it was luck (starting a channel as the fitness wave hit, etc.)
If you train for strength, you’ll build strength. If you train for hypertrophy, you’ll build muscle. Diet also plays a part. If you eat more, you’ll get bigger. There’s nothing crazy going on here. Isn’t this pretty straight forward?
Also, Joe Delaney isn’t really sporting a ton of muscle. Big biceps, lateral delts, and much leaner than most powerlifters (Put him next to someone actually big, and he would’ve been in your first set of pictures).
Hodge twins are weak. 
Jason Blaha is an idiot. (Had to throw that in there.)
Is he the same guy who went full apeshit and posted hatestuff for a couple days when Wendler criticized him?
Heh.
In another thread the op talks about having issues benching 225. I think this thread boils down to why can they do something the OP can’t. It’s simple they train smart and know what they are doing. Going to your other thread they look like they could beech 315, which really isn’t that big of a feat of strength and the OP who while lean doesn’t look strong. There is no magically training or drug either put in the work or don’t.
A lot depends on how you eat (quite a lot of bodybuilders are afraid of losing their abs which can often lead to sup-optimal nutrition).
Plus, I agree with other posters, most of the fellas you posted while maybe not mass-monsters ARE fairly muscular.
Steriods have given people a false impression of what a natural strong person looks like. The old weightlifters from 100 years ago (Arthur Saxon), for example, were not very big but were incredibly strong.
Natty rage!
Wahaha
20 characters
Not sure if you were making fun of my response or not. I go to a gym with some of the strongest people on the east coast. A very small percentage of them are on the juice. I know a guy who can deadlift 700lbs raw and does not take roids. His legs are smaller than mine.
I’m assuming you are natty. I will also go ahead and assume you don’t pull more than 700lbs. Do you not see the contradiction in logic here?
1 2 3 No, I don’t. 3 2 1
not to be a dick, but you’re pretty fat are you not? How lean is he?
First off, nice passive aggressive put down.
Secondly, I am overweight but not obese.
Thirdly, I was referring specifically to his calves, which are the size of my arms (granted, my arms aren’t small).
Fourth, this guy isn’t lean but he isn’t fat. Id say he is average.
Fifth, I have big legs in general for my height, I always have even when I didn’t lift.
it wasn’t a put down, and my aggression is never passive. I was trying to point out that if you’re carrying a lot of fat then your legs are probably less muscular than you think. Everyone has less muscle than they think they do when they diet down, myself included
Calves are really an interesting body part due to how much they are affected by insertion point. Some guys just plain aren’t going to develop large looking calves no matter what they do because they come in too high.
One of the best things I ever did to improve calf size was rupture my ACL, because all the blood in my knee flowed down into my calf and it got HUGE.
CALVES???
Mindblown
I know, right? WTF are calves?
Lol, don’t drop a fly into Aero’s soup…there is no one on these forums, not one single poster, with a bigger disconnect between their actual accomplishments and their opinion of themselves, nor anyone more capable of taking everything personally.
Aero: Yogi’s (perfectly reasonable) point was that at an “overweight but not obese” 257 pounds, your legs are probably a lot less muscular than you think, and that someone who deadlifts 700 pounds having smaller legs than you is not necessarily surprising, because your “big legs” are probably carrying less muscle than the 700-pound deadlifter’s legs. The added fluffy girth in your legs is somewhat irrelevant to your deadlift strength vs. his.
Hilariously and predictably, you managed to take a completely reasonable, non-insulting remark that was completely pertinent to the issue (where Yogi even KNEW that you’d take it the wrong way, lol, and tried to warn you as such) and get all defensive about being “overweight not obese” - lolz.