muscle growth and flexibility

Factual Questions
1

It is often said that more muscle = less flexibility, and at least among my friends, the observation is true. I always thought this was because of the way muscles work, taking a contracted and squatter shape when flexing, therefore reducing the movement range of whatever joint it’s nestled up against. This subject came up the other day, and a friend of mine (who is so jacked that its ridiculous how weak he is) told me his theory: after an intense workout, if you don’t stretch your entirely spent and tight muscles, the microscopic tears in the muscle will heal in that slightly flexed position, and later that muscle will never be able to stretch as far as it used to. His idea was given some more strength when right as we were talking about it a group of kids squeezed out their last crazy heavy reps and then just swaggered (you know what i mean, with the arms kinda off the body and half bent at the elbows, and extremely bowlegged) right out of there, talking about going straight to the dining hall. So is he right? Does what you do during muscle growth actually determine what shape the muscle will take, or is that one of those things that only seem to make sense?

On a related note, what do you guys do to cope with DOMS?
And why is it that huge lifters can never put out as much strength in sports as it seems they should? The friend that I mentioned does like twice my weights with more reps, but he’s not nearly twice as strong as me on the mat (he hasn’t pinned me once in a serious match).

too many questions maybe, just ignore the extra credit ones if you want

2

I can’t remember his name right now, but there’s a Spanish gymnast who won a couple golds in recent years; he does splits like I close my fist and one of his thighs is like two normal guys’. Lots of gymnasts have dyzzying muscles.

My own thighs are pretty thick; people have been taking it for fat since forever (and I do have cellulitis) but I can lift twice my weight one-legged, both flexing at the knee and flexing at the hip. That’s some serious muscles there, they’re just hidden under the orange peel :stuck_out_tongue: I can’t do splits any more but I used to do them with no warm-up and in jeans, and my thighs were already this thick.

I used to have this boss who spent a lot of time pumping iron. Matter of fact, there came a point when if we wanted to speak with him, we had to go to the gym with him. And there also came a point when the gym monitors forbade him entry for three months… he’d been doing so much biceps work, completely forgetting the rest of his shoulders, back and upper arms, that he walked like a gorilla and his armpits hurt.

My guess is that you guys have, in a lesser degree, the same problem as my ex-boss: the muscles you’re working with are mostly flexors; the ones that give flexibility are mostly extensors. You need a more balanced workout.

3

Most guys don’t take a lift through the full range of motion so they can use bigger weights, and they tend to focus on the muscles that they can see in the mirror. That’s a bad combination for flexibility and mobility.