Not only does somatotype change, but so much more.
Recently in conversation I was described as broad shouldered.
I said it’s the muscular development, not the bone structure, saying naturally I’m medium framed, my best track events as nature intended being the 400m and 800m, but I got it in my head to put the shot, found the barbell, and force fed.
To this day I am flukey with strength-endurance and power-endurance able to take what you’d expect to be an 8rm to closer to a 50rm.
I’ve found more carry over from the higher reps, I’m able to specialize more effectively off of them as a base, and frankly I feel more real world strong being strong on high rep than on low reps.
You’d be better off going as hard and heavy as possible on sets of 15, 20, 30, 50 than on under 10 reps or under 5 rep sets.
Strong in those rep ranges I’ve seen described as “human forklift” status.
That’s why we lift. To be physically the juggernaut, capable of functioning as a forklift.
However, as I look in the mirror, and check inward I realize he’s partially right.
My frame is no longer medium, it’s more like medium-large.
Bones do grow.
Obviously.
That’s how we progress from baby to adult sized.
A muay thai fighter is going to see his shin bones thicken.
That’s wolfe’s law off the top of my head.
Why wouldn’t adult bone structure change?
It can.
Not too long ago rib cage expansions was all the rage, pullovers and the like mixed with heavy exercises figuring to stretch the rib box to allow for much more mass to be built on top of an expanded, enlarged structure.
I’ve seen the principle work.
So again why wouldn’t adult bone structure change?
It can.
I don’t intend to ever do this, but it’d be interesting to see if I could even starve myself to under 185lbs.
I remember stepping on the scale for the 171lb weight class around 167.
15 years old.
At 24 years old I left the SoCal bodybuilding gym and exploded into the 270s driving back across the country.
In a period of about a week I looked like 15lbs had been put on, mostly in my traps.
People (some being junkies) were staring at me like I was not human as I ordered big mcdonald’s dinners.
A friend from the gym here saw me in the grocery store once I got back, and went “damn, the last few months out west coast worked for you, you’re leaner and heavier”.
100lbs heavier in less than a decade.
5’10” to 6′ in that time frame.
The growth spurt I hit while wrestling my junior year of high school on under 2000 calories a day, I wonder sometimes if that robbed me of some adult height.
My grandpa told everyone that I’d be 6’3″, then I seemed to have stopped at 6′ at 19.
185 to 195 on what appears to be a caloric deficit fighting to still make 189 with the +1-4 late season weight allowances, then 195 to 215 in ten days once the season ended.
I just remember wanting to eat more, and how a handful of kids would give me their unwanted bread rolls and/or milks from the school lunch.
I grew 20lbs in 10 days on an extra bread roll a day!
lol, I’m exaggerating a bit.
Like so many have, I’ve made myself far more muscular than my teenage years would lead you to believe possible.
I find it offensive when people say good genetics or steroids.
I put in work.
I’ve always trained since I started at 14.
I force fed (the first time) as a high schooler, a time when it behooves you to, and is something most trainees never do.
On widening the shoulders : I say lots of shoulder work would do this to the bone structure beneath the muscular development.
Lots of handstand work and pullups, especially from a young age, as well as other physical outside the gym things that work shoulders well.
I’d bet boxing and rowing would do it.
And don’t forget rib cage expansion, there’s enough anecdotal evidence of it being possible to prove it in my eyes.
Even if you go the route of expanding your frame, building a massive upper body and becoming captain upper body man in the process – the legs will come along for the ride.
The human body is after all an interconnected system.