I searched for "somatype" in the Fitness forum, and came up with zilch, and I haven't really seen it discussed. So I decided to make a thread about it, because it's important. What is a somatype? When I first heard about it, I thought it was just bro-science. But it turns out, it's a Thing:

https://www.britannica.com/science/somatotype There are 3.





1st, we have the Endomorph, https://www.britannica.com/science/endomorph

They are round and soft. They also tend to be pretty sturdy overall. For a less photogenic example, look at John Goodman. They retain weight easier, which is likely linked to the sturdier bones and joints. Of course, this doesn't mean they are inherently slovenly. It means different training routines and dietary requirements. And, inherently more muscle, because lugging those heavier bones and increased fat reserves around automatically demands more strength. So even a healthy untrained endo has a definite advantage.




Then there is the Ectomorph: https://www.britannica.com/science/ectomorph Heres one:

The folks are tall and slender, mostly. Weight gain does not come easily, though definition is easy to achieve. Bones tend to be lighter, joints smaller, and frame is somewhat narrow. For all these reasons, the ecto's body doesn't withstand protracted training or exertion well; at least, not without a lot of conditioning. We've all seen these guys. Most of them tend to gravitate toward the track team. Nothing wrong with being lean and mean, but it can be a blow to confidence to not see the same results that other people do with the same amount of work. I'm an ectomorph. If I don't go to the gym regularly and eat heartily, I shrink pretty quickly. At 21 years old, before I started going to the gym with a former Marine that I worked with, I was about 5'10", 140lbs. These days, I'm 5'11" and my core weight is about 165lbs. So lasting weight change is possible for these guys. It's just a challenge. And yes, I do maintain that I grew 1 inch in my 20s.










And 3rd, we have the guys that literally everyone hates, the Mesomorph, https://www.britannica.com/science/mesomorph

These people are genetically blessed. The rest of us hate them, because they have the best of the other two worlds. They are naturally muscular, and muscle gain comes easily to them, while not really retaining too much fat. If they don't work out at all, they tend to keep some respectable muscle definition. If there is anything that might be accurately described as "inherent privilege", it would be this type.


Most people are not one extreme or another. They have traits of more than one category. But they are predominantly one over the others. I myself seem to be a little sturdier than the ectomorph descriptor: I've done Iron Man competitions and fully recovered the next morning (I don't care what anyone says, pizza and beer are a good recovery meal), and held up to Basic Training and subsequent service far better than a lot of kids of similar build. I was easily outpaced by other builds in some areas, of course. I also put on muscle in reasonable amounts of time, and lose it in unreasonable amounts of time.

One of the major indicators of predominant body type is the shape of the head. I think my examples demonstrate that pretty clearly.

The point of this thread is because, like I said, I don't really see this discussed. And it really makes a difference in training and dietary requirements. As for contributing my experience? It's difficult, because I never really tracked it. When I started going to the gym, I just lifted the weights my devil dog buddy told me, and ate what he told me. When I was in the Army, I just did PT and ate at the DFAC. It wasn't all just company PT, of course. My job in Korea was physically demanding, and Camp Stanley (no longer in operation) was built on the side of a mountain. The barracks buildings were at the top of the camp, and it was something like 30 degrees grade throughout the base. But I never really tracked any of it, like I said. So I'm of limited help, there, unfortunately. But what I wanted to convey is that training advice is not universal. Of course, ultimately, it's all on an individual basis, but this information can help speed the process of developing an effective training program for themselves. It's also about setting expectations, and not setting yourself up to get BTFO psychologically. Using this information as a guide will allow you to gain a realistic understanding of how much work and what kind of work it's going to take to get you where you want to be.

First of all OP, you spelled it wrong its called "Somatotype" not Somatype.

Secondly, this whole body type determines your potential is all bullshit.
The dude who "invented" this William Herbert Sheldon wasn't even an actually doctor he was a psychologist.
The more you dig into this you'll realize he was a fraud and his career is marred by revelations post death about how much of his research was faked or stolen or just plain a lie.

I can tell you've been watching too much youtube fitness guys by making this post.

Stop watching all those young guys using gear and not telling the viewers.

Athlean-X by Jeff Cavalier is the best youtube fitness guy out there.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCe0TLA0...MjuHXevj2A

The sole thing that determines muscle growth is your test levels. The higher your T levels are what will make your muscle grow faster hence why TRT is so big now for guys over 40.
And no pizza and beer aren't great recovery foods. It may have worked for you because of your genetics or you may have been so young that your body will bounce back from a night of hard drinking like it was nothing.
Being an "ecto" is all about how much food you eat. You either eat enough to get bigger or you don't. If you have trouble gaining weight then you probably have a smaller than average stomach and need to eat smaller meals more often throughout the day to match up with stockier guys.

I grew up being the tallest kid in every class until graduation. Skinny as a bean pole. At 17yrs i was 6'2 and sub-130lbs. Currently at the same height i'm 218lbs. Not fat and if want to go swimming/the beach i can spend about 5 days shredding down to give my abs more definition.

Quote: (12-29-2018 10:10 PM)kinjutsu Wrote:  

First of all OP, you spelled it wrong its called "Somatotype" not Somatype.

Secondly, this whole body type determines your potential is all bullshit.
The dude who "invented" this William Herbert Sheldon wasn't even an actually doctor he was a psychologist.
The more you dig into this you'll realize he was a fraud and his career is marred by revelations post death about how much of his research was faked or stolen or just plain a lie.

I can tell you've been watching too much youtube fitness guys by making this post.

Stop watching all those young guys using gear and not telling the viewers.

Athlean-X by Jeff Cavalier is the best youtube fitness guy out there.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCe0TLA0...MjuHXevj2A

The sole thing that determines muscle growth is your test levels. The higher your T levels are what will make your muscle grow faster hence why TRT is so big now for guys over 40.
And no pizza and beer aren't great recovery foods. It may have worked for you because of your genetics or you may have been so young that your body will bounce back from a night of hard drinking like it was nothing.
Being an "ecto" is all about how much food you eat. You either eat enough to get bigger or you don't. If you have trouble gaining weight then you probably have a smaller than average stomach and need to eat smaller meals more often throughout the day to match up with stockier guys.

I grew up being the tallest kid in every class until graduation. Skinny as a bean pole. At 17yrs i was 6'2 and sub-130lbs. Currently at the same height i'm 218lbs. Not fat and if want to go swimming/the beach i can spend about 5 days shredding down to give my abs more definition.

I see.

Tend to agree with Kinjitsu on this one.

In addition to exercise style, volume, and T levels,

I think the biggest determiner of body-type is just going to be an individual's appetite.

For most of my life, I was pretty skinny, 5'9 sub 140lbs. Eating enough was a chore for me, but I forced myself to do it in conjunction with weight training which kept me feeling hungry.

Now, I weigh quite a bit more, but I still have to 'force' myself to eat a good amount, or else I'll naturally eat less and the scale will slip back down.

Contrast this to a buddy of mine, 5'9 but over 200lbs. Doesn't weight train, but does cardio and HIIT every week, however he struggles to slim down just because he eats so much.

Weird thing is, way back in high school, he was ~140lbs, too. Somehow his base appetite changed a lot to be much higher, but mine stayed mostly the same.

I really think body-type is like 45% exercise, 45% how much you eat, and 10% other stuff that I don't know much about (e.g. eating tons of sugar will lower your T levels).

These percentages are going to be wrong, but what I mean to say is that most of it is within an individual's control.

There is some basis to somatotypes, though it’s not so cut and dry. It seems to come down to your shoulder to hip ratio and general size: wide shoulders/wide hips; narrow shoulders/narrow hips; wide shoulders/narrow hips. There’s also the aforementioned dietary component - as an aside, I’ve found that there’s something to aryuvedic nutrition and the three doshas.

Looking at it from a structural perspective, a mesomorph has an easier time putting on muscle mass due to the leverage advantage inherent to their skeletal structure. Better leverage yields more efficient lever arms, providing just the slightest edge. Over time this slight mechanical advantage really takes them to the head of the pack.

However. As Kinjutsu pointed out hard work trumps genetics.

Somatotyping has no scientific backing. The three characteristics were invented by a psychologist (read: idiot) in the 1940s who thought it could predict temperament. If you look through his research you'll find that even within his supposed distinctions and particular features of each type, any specific candidate might display dozens of traits from each. To further confound research that is likely unable to be duplicated, much of the data was likely falsified (as accused by his compiler in the book 'Atlas of Men' (gay)).

While a lot of broscience guys out there might believe in it, the people who won't ever shut up about it tend to be scrawny, weak, and unwilling to put on muscle. It says a lot that weak guys who need ego armor against bigger dudes had to dig back through eighty years of crap science to latch onto something.

Quote: (01-01-2019 02:24 PM)ThriceLazarus Wrote:  

There is some basis to somatotypes, though it’s not so cut and dry. It seems to come down to your shoulder to hip ratio and general size: wide shoulders/wide hips; narrow shoulders/narrow hips; wide shoulders/narrow hips. There’s also the aforementioned dietary component - as an aside, I’ve found that there’s something to aryuvedic nutrition and the three doshas.

Looking at it from a structural perspective, a mesomorph has an easier time putting on muscle mass due to the leverage advantage inherent to their skeletal structure. Better leverage yields more efficient lever arms, providing just the slightest edge. Over time this slight mechanical advantage really takes them to the head of the pack.

However. As Kinjutsu pointed out hard work trumps genetics.

That's a strange claim that doesn't pass the smell test. Why would "good leverages" make somebody better at putting on muscle?

It might make somebody inherently better at benching or deadlifting, which lever arms play a role in, but it should have no bearing on how much a muscle can grow.

Kinesiology is more of a hobby of mine, so I may be wrong.

My thinking is that, the wider shoulders and narrower hips provide greater force transference through the core of the body. That’s your power house, you know? That slight advantage provides a minor increase in the amount of stress that one can apply to their muscle tissue. Hypothetically, if you take two individuals who are identical in all ways (diet/training/work ethic/hormones/etc) except for the shoulder/hip ratio, the guy with wider shoulders will pull ahead over time.

At most it would just be a minor mechanical advantage.

Genetics play a massive part in ability to put on muscle. The most important factors being bone thickness (heavier bones will naturally have larger muscles attached to them as they're required to move the extra weight), muscle belly length (longer muscles obviously have a greater capacity for growth than short ones), muscle fiber type (fast twitch have larger growth potential than slow twitch), and hormonal profile (in simple terms more testosterone = more muscle).

The skeletal structure in terms of wide shoulders and narrow hips increase efficiency for running and other physical activities like pressing and I wouldn't be surprised at all if ThriceLazarus is correct that this increased efficiency would lead to muscle gains due to greater loads being handled over time (we all know that tension is one of the biggest factors when it comes to muscle growth - don't see many people bench 315 plus that are small after all). The wider heavier frame also and tends to mean longer muscle bellies for traps, chest, delts etc (for example somebody with wide shoulders will almost certainly have traps that insert wider than somebody with narrow shoulders due to their structure). It also just looks more aesthetically pleasing and no amount of delt growth can really hide a narrow frame.

As for the somatotype theory, it's not exact science but I'd say there is definitely some truth to it because if you look around these factors do tend to cluster together (I know loads of square jawed, wide shouldered narrow hipped lads with long muscle bellies, thick bones, a tendency towards low bodyfat and natural speed, and also know of loads of weak chinned, narrow shouldered, short muscle bellied, small wristed natural endurance runners).

All that said, the average person can get in pretty good shape, everyone can improve and build muscle, and most people never reach their true potential, but to deny the part genetics play as if you can out eat and out train your limitations is just stupid.

Quote: (01-08-2019 02:40 PM)ThriceLazarus Wrote:  

Kinesiology is more of a hobby of mine, so I may be wrong.

My thinking is that, the wider shoulders and narrower hips provide greater force transference through the core of the body. That’s your power house, you know? That slight advantage provides a minor increase in the amount of stress that one can apply to their muscle tissue. Hypothetically, if you take two individuals who are identical in all ways (diet/training/work ethic/hormones/etc) except for the shoulder/hip ratio, the guy with wider shoulders will pull ahead over time.

At most it would just be a minor mechanical advantage.

It wouldn't surprise me if the bolded were true but for reasons unrelated to lever arms or leverages.

When I see "good leverages" or "bad leverages" mentioned it's two otherwise identical people carrying the same muscle mass (and with identical neuromuscular adaptation) who might exhibit much different strength with the same lift if one lifter has more favorable tendon insertion points.

The reasoning here is sound. The further the tendon insertion point can go from the pivot point, the less tension is exerted on the muscle tissue itself.

That being said, it doesn't really mean anything except in the context of setting records in powerlifting since a guy with "bad leverages" would just get tore up from the floor up with lighter weights, which is arguably a good thing. He may never set a powerlifting record but technically has an advantage in gaining muscle. Plenty of studies have shown that if you're going to failure, it doesn't matter if it's at 30% of your 1RM or 80% of your 1RM, muscle growth is the same.

The other instance leverage is mentioned in a bodybuilding context might involve asserting that somebody with 'favorable leverage' is destined for great success in lifting because they wouldn't have to lift the weight as far. That's, too, is silly, for similar reasons as above, considering all the best lifts that make people huge involve increasing the ROM.

I don't understand why "longer muscle bellies" mean the potential for "great strength" either. Everyone claims it's due to the "greater cross-sectional area".

This claim is repeated ad-nauseum everywhere with no context despite the fact that the cross sectional area of two muscles, one long and one short, might be identical depending on where the cross section was taken.

That being said, for cross sectional areas to be relevant to the mechanics problem at hand (weight being lifted by an arm and bicep, for instance), it must be taken perpendicularly to the force applied. That would mean that since tension (*as a force) has vectors going along the length of the cable, the cross section must be taken 'the short way' across the bicep, like slicing a sausage in half.

That would mean that length of a muscle belly is, for all intents and purposes, irrelevant in terms of resisting the force applied. Maybe long muscles have more advantages in terms of contractility but they never made that clear.

So therein is more nonsense being memed about - if it is true in practice, it has nothing to do with the popular explanation.

Quote: (01-09-2019 05:15 AM)Kieran Wrote:  

Genetics play a massive part in ability to put on muscle. The most important factors being bone thickness (heavier bones will naturally have larger muscles attached to them as they're required to move the extra weight) , muscle belly length (longer muscles obviously have a greater capacity for growth than short ones), muscle fiber type (fast twitch have larger growth potential than slow twitch), and hormonal profile (in simple terms more testosterone = more muscle).

Do bones grow in strength and thickness as muscles get larger, or do heavier bones just happen to have larger muscles? What is meant precisely by larger muscles in this context? By "extra weight" does this mean the insignificant extra weight of the bone itself, or the implied extra weight that heavier bones can handle larger stresses and loads? If somebody put on (say) fifty pounds of lean mass in six years, did their bones get bigger? Awaiting a response on this one.

No real arguments that genetics play a role in building muscle, but most guys start hearing about how great their genetics are after they get bigger than all the nerds who don't lift.

Quote: (01-09-2019 05:15 AM)Kieran Wrote:  

The skeletal structure in terms of wide shoulders and narrow hips increase efficiency for running and other physical activities like pressing and I wouldn't be surprised at all if ThriceLazarus is correct that this increased efficiency would lead to muscle gains due to greater loads being handled over time (we all know that tension is one of the biggest factors when it comes to muscle growth - don't see many people bench 315 plus that are small after all). The wider heavier frame also and tends to mean longer muscle bellies for traps, chest, delts etc (for example somebody with wide shoulders will almost certainly have traps that insert wider than somebody with narrow shoulders due to their structure). It also just looks more aesthetically pleasing and no amount of delt growth can really hide a narrow frame.

I think some of you guys have to learn what tension means in an engineering context.

There are more than a handful of dwarves out there who squat over 600# and bench like 400# at bodyweights of maybe 120-140#, which broscientists will immediately claim is because they don't have to lift the weight as far. They're already handling greater loads over time than 99% of lifters out there despite having a small, doubtless inefficient frame. I don't see guys furiously wanking about how great, efficient, and better their physique and frame is, probably because this discussion has nothing to do with picking up big weights and getting high Wilks scores and everything to do with what guys wish they looked like.

I don't know if efficient is the right word for a male with broad shoulders and narrow hips anyway considering there's nothing more efficient than a dwarf powerlifter getting a 5xBW deadlift.

Quote: (01-09-2019 05:15 AM)Kieran Wrote:  

As for the somatotype theory, it's not exact science but I'd say there is definitely some truth to it because if you look around these factors do tend to cluster together (I know loads of square jawed, wide shouldered narrow hipped lads with long muscle bellies, thick bones, a tendency towards low bodyfat and natural speed, and also know of loads of weak chinned, narrow shouldered, short muscle bellied, small wristed natural endurance runners).

All that said, the average person can get in pretty good shape, everyone can improve and build muscle, and most people never reach their true potential, but to deny the part genetics play as if you can out eat and out train your limitations is just stupid.

No doubt genetics play a role in building muscle but my point is that this idea should be divorced wholesale from leverages. "Kinesiologists" who brand themselves as scientists craft these nebulous theories, mixing observation with just enough science to convince people of idiotic notions without having any background in how levers actually work or understanding what stress analysis is and then handwave any of the technicalities with the technically true but disingenuous statement of 'the human body is marvelously complex'.

If the human body is so marvelously complex that it can override any and all physical laws, then why bother bringing up physical laws to begin with, since you're clearly dealing with something approaching voodoo?

If your levers are bad, the same weight is heavier to you than to a guy with 'good leverages'. More work has to be done to do what would be otherwise the same movement. If your insertions are not favorable, then more tension (not less) is delivered to the muscle tissues. If greater tension is what's desired, or more time under tension, then bad leverages allow for more growth using the same weights. A tall man's deadlift is a short man's rack pull.

If favorable leverages were all it took to build huge muscles then everybody would be getting big as hell by shortening the ROM on everything, since the easiest way to have better leverages while doing the same movement is to reduce the ROM, but they don't, because it doesn't. (As an aside, partial ROM lifts are worth doing but for different reasons)

If anything, guys with 'good leverages' should be complaining that all the weights are light to them and there's not dumbbells heavy enough for them to lift so they can stimulate their muscles properly, since that would be no less justifiable than the obverse - but that area of complaining is generally reserved for the forever small crowd who go to the gym for two weeks and prematurely diagnose themselves with the the terminal illness of bad muscle insertions and terrible leverages because they outnumber the swole probably twenty to one, or worse.

For the layman I would say that 'it's genetics' is the new quackery and you might as well convince yourself you have the best genetics out there for muscle building since the only way to fight woo is with woo, and if you take it and run with it you're going to start hearing people tell you your genetics are great so you may as well get used to the idea.

You don't think it's possible that a wider frame, which provides a more stable base to press off than a narrow one, could lead to greater poundages lifted over time, and that this could lead to more growth due to the larger tension the muscles are under?

Regarding muscle belly length, I've never heard it claimed that they mean higher potential for strength but rather for growth. It's pretty obvious that a longer muscle will have the potential to grow thicker than a short one, given that a muscle can only grow so far in thickness relative to it's length.

Regarding muscles and frame size, a man with an eight inch wrist will have larger muscles attached to those bones than a man with a 6 inch wrist assuming they're both untrained because a heavier frame requires larger amounts of muscle to move it efficiently.

And I agree with you that it's all about getting stuck in and seeing where we can take our bodies, but one would have to be blind not to see how important the role played by genetics is when it comes to muscle gain.

Quote: (01-10-2019 12:52 PM)Kieran Wrote:  

You don't think it's possible that a wider frame, which provides a more stable base to press off than a narrow one, could lead to greater poundages lifted over time, and that this could lead to more growth due to the larger tension the muscles are under?

Short answer is no, because tension as a force is invariant with respect to length. You can do this at home, just tie a spring scale for weighing fish to a doorknob and a length of string to the scale. The string is now a muscle. Hang a weight from the scale at one foot in length and note the weight. Now do it at two feet in length.

There's no difference, because tension is distributed equally throughout the length of string and it doesn't matter how long the string is. The longer string is the 'larger frame'. Same tension as the smaller frame.

How this idea came to be, I would believe that wide clavicles with good shoulder development look better and more prominent than narrow clavicles with good shoulder development, and people would believe that it meant 'better growth' because we can't just cut people apart and see what's going on. In the same way two fat guys can weigh the same but one "carries it better" due to very wide shoulders and narrow waist, it would make sense that muscle is more obvious and visible on the frame that attracts attention.

That all being said, the 7 foot tall dutch bodybuilder probably weighs 280 and is a basically an upscaled clone of a guy who at 5' 6" weighs 175. You want total muscle growth in terms of mass or muscle growth relative to size of frame? Because it goes without saying that a meatsuit from a 7 foot tall bodybuilder would be impractical on a 5' 6" skeleton.

Maybe the dwarf who weighs 115 pounds carries "little muscle" compared to a 180 pound man despite outsquatting and outdeadlifting him by 300 pounds or more but that's why statements like "wide frames build muscle better" serve to discourage more than enlighten.

Quote: (01-10-2019 12:52 PM)Kieran Wrote:  

Regarding muscle belly length, I've never heard it claimed that they mean higher potential for strength but rather for growth. It's pretty obvious that a longer muscle will have the potential to grow thicker than a short one, given that a muscle can only grow so far in thickness relative to it's length.

We'd have to cut apart bodybuilders to give any credence to that assumption. I don't know how muscles work at the cellular level but a cheese wheel and a coffee can can have the same diameters and nobody bats an eye.

Quote: (01-10-2019 12:52 PM)Kieran Wrote:  

Regarding muscles and frame size, a man with an eight inch wrist will have larger muscles attached to those bones than a man with a 6 inch wrist assuming they're both untrained because a heavier frame requires larger amounts of muscle to move it efficiently.

There's plenty of detrained 90 year olds out there walking around just fine so if it takes muscle to move a skeleton, it's not a very significant amount of muscle.

Leverages play a greater role at certain parts of the range of motion though, it's not a static thing. Take the bench press for example, I'm sure you would agree that the mechanical advantage offered by having favourable leverages and insertion points is at play to a much greater degree at the bottom of the lift and then decreases until there is a much smaller mechanical advantage at the top of the lift towards the lockout. And yet the lifter with better leverages will be left holding far greater poundages at the top of the lift than the lifter with shit leverages - there's one way already that the lifter with better leverage is being exposed to greater tension.

Regarding muscle belly length, I find it hard to believe that you could honestly believe that there isn't a relationship between the potential thickness of a muscle and it's length, assuming all other factors are the same (fiber composition, etc.). To illustrate this with some arbitrary numbers, for a muscle that is 10cm long to be 5cm thick it needs to be 50% of it's length. For a muscle that is 5cm long to be 5cm thick it needs to be 100% as thick as it's length. Are you really going to claim that somebody with high calves can get them just as big as somebody with low insertions? Come on now so much real world examples of this just open your eyes

And your argument re 90 year olds isn't very good because most 90 year olds I've seen were not very physically capable and most had a hard time even finding the strength to get up out of a chair.

Quote: (01-10-2019 02:43 PM)Kieran Wrote:  

Leverages play a greater role at certain parts of the range of motion though, it's not a static thing. Take the bench press for example, I'm sure you would agree that the mechanical advantage offered by having favourable leverages and insertion points is at play to a much greater degree at the bottom of the lift and then decreases until there is a much smaller mechanical advantage at the top of the lift towards the lockout. And yet the lifter with better leverages will be left holding far greater poundages at the top of the lift than the lifter with shit leverages - there's one way already that the lifter with better leverage is being exposed to greater tension.

It depends on the lift. True though, perceived effort should get easier or harder throughout the ROM depending on the lift because that's how leverage works.

I don't agree with the theory that favorable leverages man has an inherent muscle building advantage here because (as mentioned above) nobody does partial ROM movements or lockouts to grow muscle, and favorable leverages are always a way to either reduce the tension on the muscle itself or shorten the ROM, or both - and this results in being able to move bigger weight. When you do things like deficit snatch grip deadlifts, the weight can be light but it will feel heavy and you'll grow like a weed.

Favorable leverages for the bench press, for instance, would basically require short forearms (so the angle between forearm and upper arm never goes below 90 degrees) and a chest with big titties to reduce the ROM as much as possible, and even better with a big, gay 'powerlifting arch' in the back. That way you're never that far from lockout lol.

The crux of your argument here rests with the idea that more weight == bigger muscle gain, and while that can be true plenty of people have gotten big as shit on rep ranges that never went below 10.

We're talking about muscle growth here, not strength, and while no doubt strength (in terms of setting powerlifting or oly records) has a lot to do with leverage (if your arms touch your knees, deadlifting is now rack pulling), in terms of building muscle there should be almost no relationship or even a negative relationship with favorable leverages.

Quote: (01-10-2019 02:43 PM)Kieran Wrote:  

Regarding muscle belly length, I find it hard to believe that you could honestly believe that there isn't a relationship between the potential thickness of a muscle and it's length, assuming all other factors are the same (fiber composition, etc.). To illustrate this with some arbitrary numbers, for a muscle that is 10cm long to be 5cm thick it needs to be 50% of it's length. For a muscle that is 5cm long to be 5cm thick it needs to be 100% as thick as it's length. Are you really going to claim that somebody with high calves can get them just as big as somebody with low insertions? Come on now so much real world examples of this just open your eyes

And your argument re 90 year olds isn't very good because most 90 year olds I've seen were not very physically capable and most had a hard time even finding the strength to get up out of a chair.

It depends on what you mean by a big calf. One guy might have a calf muscle weighing eight pounds, another three pounds, but if the muscle and tendons themselves run along the y axis then the x-z axis cross section could be identical at their largest point. Since the internal forces run parallel with muscle itself then those element resisting (or contracting against) normal force are perpendicular to it, making the x-z cross section the only relevant one to the matter at hand. That was the point made and no more and I suggest you reread it.

Since tendons themselves signal to the brain that the muscle might tear I'd assume that they're less likely to break than the muscle itself so it could be supposed that the muscle is the weakest link in the chain. Again, I'm no anatomist but this "cross-sectional area" memery has to be clarified at best.

The guy with longer muscle bellies will have a calf with more mass but given that not even the NFL with millions of dollars can predict with any certainty the genetic limit of any of their athletes then the research is still out on whether or not a shorter muscle belly predisposes somebody to weakness, or in any case, less mass.

A skeleton weighs maybe thirty pounds. If you can move a thirty pound dumbbell around with one hand, what does that say about the theory that heavy skeletons require bigger muscles? Maybe it's the other way around here - perhaps frequently strained musculature causes bones to grow in thickness.