The idea that females need to be 'massive' or 'bulky' to be strong...

There is always this confusion that to be strong or a warrior, you have to be immensely bulky. Not true. Most martial artists, soldiers and sports stars I have seen(exceptions like American football) are not walking muscle bags.

I look up a lot to Lynn Hill, a female mountain climber who conquered walls nobody else of her time could and set records still standing. She looked like this http://kevin-heinrich.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/lynn-hill.jpg she is somebody I admire, and certainly is NOT weak. Note this image is during a climb, so muscles are fully pumped with blood.

So the idea that somebody needs to look like Illoai or Pentakill Olaf to be strong, able and ready to fight is 100% wrong. You can look like Shyvana, Riven, Leona or Kayle in figure, and still be plenty strong. And honestly, I much prefer that. I like Illoai, but I sure hope Riot doesn't heed people who demand all female characters be muscular, bulky people in full plate armor.

Both of these comments are excellent:

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What you say is called, Fast twitch and Slow twitch muscle fibers. Also, there is a small catch. There is a limit on how big your muscles are before they become a hinderance instead of an asset to you. Although generaly bigger muscles mean more actual force, it's not always the case. Apart from that being different between individuals, you may have higher fiber density in your muscles than me or vise versa, which also means more strength. More muscles means more weight, and More weight means slower movements. To build big mucsles, you only need to feed your muscles a lot and also just do heavy weight lifting and that's the end of it. You will have raw strength but, although you will be using your Fast twitch fibers, you are still gonna be slow because your muscles are heavy and also not trained to twitch fast enough to give you the burst you would need in a fight. In a fight, the one who wins is not by default the strongest, but instead, the one who can overpower the other FASTER. If you need 2 seconds to put out your full force and i can put out my force in 0,5 seconds, even though you might be a 10 and i am a 6, i will destroy you because by the time i need to pound you down to the ground, you will not be able to use even half of your strength.

That's the raw bulk problem. Also, an important factor is fiber toughness. Tougher fibers have increased strength individualy and that way, you can minimize their volume and maximize your strength. And of course, the proper training, to make everything be bursty, Put out a lot of force, really fast. The difference between those 2 muscle states, the bulky one and the smaller but more defined and denser, is the type of training and the intensity of that training.

That's why you see Braum have huge muscles, but this guy is just big and tough, but he is slow as fuck. On the other end, you have Zed, Lee Sin, Yasuo, Udyr, Yi, Pantheon and so on. They are a lot smaller than Braum, but all of them are faster and hit harder, especialy Yi, he is tiny, just look at how thin his figure is.

Also, bulk by iteself doesn't always translate to more strength. Some people have more raw strength with less bulk and you can see them actualy doing heavier weights than others that might be even twice as big. That's because their muscles are more intensively trained and are tougher, trained to lift heavier weights with higher intensity and also with faster, but controled, movements. Fiber toughness is the most important factor in training, it determines how much force you can put out, how fast you can do it and with how much muscle mass required.

Now, for women, things are totaly different. Their hormonic profiles are different than men's. A woman will never get as bulky as a man with no steroids added. They aren't made for that. They can still be pretty strong, but they will not be bulky, and also, they can't keep up with a man's heavy training.

There is a reason why every sport that requires physical effort separates genders and Men only compete with other Men and Women only compete with Women. Like it or not, men are physicaly stronger... Women can get strong, very strong, but not as strong or as bulky. Whenever you see a woman be bulky as fuck, it's steroids. Yes, women can get toned, they can get lean muscle but they will no get bulky, at least not beyond what's needed for their muscle to be defined and that's not bulky at all.

Oh, and Illaoi, she is a monstrosity, i don't consider that thing a woman... Also, shyvana is not human, so she is justified to have immense strength in such a small frame, she is a half dragon :D

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Fast twitch and slow twitch muscles are a thing, but it doesn't necessarily mean they are visibly THAT different. Although Usain Bolt has a bigger upper body than marathon runners, its because a sprinters need more than just muscle in their legs. Sprinters have technique and form for their upper body to maximize the right rotation of their hips, and need their upper body shoulder power to keep up with their lower body power. Compare that to sprint-swimmers and marathon-swimmers, both need full body movement so both end up with very similar body types. If you look at Lance Armstrong's legs, though he was a distance athlete, he had a very developed lower body especially in comparison to his upper body.

Hypertrophy is what happens when youre building muscle mass. The type of muscular hypertrophy that bodybuilders engage in is not the most efficient way to gain strength (though some hypertrophy is present for strength gain). Professional bodybuilders arent actually the best example - they train in a way to increase size, with strength and endurance increases being secondary considerations mostly for progressive overload.

When isolating specifically for strength, high intensity muscle tissue doesnt necessarily grow into hulk-like proportions. Think of Olympic Weightlifting - the 123lb recordholder has a snatch and jerk combo for around 675 pounds. And if you look at the 123lb guy's body (Name: Long Qingquan), you can tell that he lifts, but youd never expect him to be an all time recordholder. That goes for most powerlifters who participate in weight-class events, until you start getting into the heavyweight classes. And even then they dont end up looking like Schwarzenegger in his prime - they still look like average lifters, even though are world-class champions.

Warriors need both fast and slow twitch muscles, but dont necessarily need too much hypertrophy. Warriors arent Bodybuilders, but more like MMA fighters or athletes. Muscle mass is good for some situations (charging your shield into someone is more effective when you have more force), but muscle mass for the sake of mass isnt desirable. Champions like Braum, Olaf, and Tryn (though a case can be made for Tryn) dont look like fighters - they look like bodybuilders. They have overdeveloped chests and large arms making movement (especially cross-body movement) very difficult.