Does a gain in strength mean a gain in muscle mass?
Not necessarily. Big, muscular, powerful and strong don’t always go hand in hand. There is a definite relationship between muscle size and muscle strength but it is not perfect. A person can be muscular, powerful and strong without being ‘big’, for example, gymnasts and Olympic lifters. It depends on your training routine as to the results you will see. Muscle strength and muscle size cannot be concurrently developed because one requires high volume and the other requires high intensity. This is why long term routines roll from one strength characteristic to another. If you are in the first stage of your resistance training, your gains in strength could be due to neural adaptations where your brain learns how to recruit more muscle fibres.
