"Although the maximal force which a muscle can exert is directly related to its cross-sectional area, there is a poor correlation between increases in strength and muscle size."
Enoka R. Sports Med6:146-168, 1988.
What? Hot damn, that just about throws a big monkey wrench into this whole idea of get bigger to get stronger.
The answer I hear time and again cites the central nervous system. If I remember correctly, the relative strength of a muscle group is due to three factors: muscle density, insertion points, and connection to the central nervous system. Trying to remain in the 198-lb weight class, increasing muscle density stops at a certain point once one maximizes strength at current BF%. Insertion points of the muscle can have a huge difference in the relative strengths of different athletes, but it is something one cannot train to get better at, it is fixed from birth. That leaves the neuro-muscular connection, when the brain or spinal chord fires its commands to the muscle to illicit a response. Supposedly, this is the final frontier of muscular development.
The weightlifting world seems chock full of suggestions to improve neuro-muscular response. All seem to revolve around training for explosive concentric and eccentric to spur this brain-movement relationship that equates moving fast with lifting.
Training routines such as westside-barbell training dedicate half their workouts to training in the low-rep, high-set range with 50% 1RM, essentially conducting the concentric and eccentric as fast as possible. I am currently employing this program, since the efficacy is justified by most of its members recording a combined of 2000 and above. It will be interesting to see if this approach to neuro-muscular development works.
For further research, this is a very interesting read on the effect of the brain on muscular development.
Have fun out there.
