History Main / MusclesAreMeaningful

* While some suggested Shuhei Taniguchi was spared the ButtMonkey treatment rookies from Wrestling/ProWrestlingNOAH usually get for his accomplishments as an amateur wrestler(competing in the All Japan Championships), more cynical critics suggested they named him TheAce of his class because he was a heavyweight.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans'': This is a ZigZaggedTrope. Cyborg is ''much'' stronger than Raven, Beast Boy or Robin, and he looks absolutely hulking next to the rest of the Titans. He's, at least physically, the second strongest titan. The first however, is Starfire, who while clearly fit, definitely doesn't look the part and is quite lithe. Despite that, by all showings it's abundant clear that were they to fight physically, Starfire would stomp him.

* In ProfessionalWrestling, "large" wrestlers (275 lbs or more) are usually given [[SquashMatch squash matches]] and power [[FinishingMove finishing moves]]. Smaller (200 lbs or less) are usually in matches that demonstrate acrobatic or high-flying moves. Some "large" wrestlers such as Wrestling/HulkHogan and Wrestling/MikeAwesome were actively discouraged by agents from using more elaborate forms of offense and technique because it was deemed fans would not buy wrestlers their size acting that way. Specifically, Wrestling/{{ECW}} personalities such as Wrestling/JoeyStyles would often mock Hulk Hogan's lack of finesse, negatively contrasting him to Awesome only to see Awesome suffer the same problem in larger promotions(read, Wrestling/{{WCW}})

* Franchise/SpiderMan:

* Franchise/{{Batman}}
** ComicBook/{{Bane}}, Clayface, Solomon Grundy, and other "melee" villains who were larger than Batman.
** Batman is an especially obvious example of this trope. In comics where he had to fight, he was drawn larger than average (''ComicBook/BatmanTheDarkKnightReturns''). In comics where he used his detective skills, he was drawn slimmer and less muscular (''ComicBook/TheBraveAndTheBold'').
** In films, Batman traditionally wore a padded Bat-suit, but appeared slim as Bruce Wayne.
* Franchise/{{Superman}}'s villains who fought with him were drawn larger (e.g. Doomsday, ComicBook/{{Darkseid}}, Mongul, Post-Crisis ComicBook/{{Brainiac}}, etc.) However, the villains that outsmarted him were drawn smaller, e.g. Mr. Mxyzptlk, ComicBook/LexLuthor, Pre-Crisis ComicBook/{{Brainiac}}, etc.

* ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1987'': [[PunchClockVillain Bill Baker]] and the White Magician (in his final form) are drawn as huge men with an impossible level of muscle mass and both shrug off attacks by ComicBook/{{Artemis}}, though the fact that they are enhanced magically might have something to do with it. In his final moments the White Magician was so tough that Franchise/WonderWoman needed the [[AmplifierArtifact gauntlets of Atlas]] in order to put up a decent fight and the only reason it ended without her needing serious medical attention was that his magic turned on him and killed him.

* Plenty of ''Franchise/{{Touhou}}'' fanworks tend to portray Yuugi Hoshiguma as an AmazonianBeauty to emphasize her status as [[RedBaron "Yuugi The Stong"]], the [[WorldsStrongestMan physically strongest]] of all {{oni}}. Given that many fanworks latch on to the theory that Yuugi's suitably vague signature ability, "The Power to Wield Kai-Riki-Ran-Shin" -- a nebulous Buddhist concept meaning "Anomalies, Strength, Disorder, and Spirits", a metaphor for "Unexplainable Phenomena" -- is an extension of her physical power, the meaningfulness of Yuugi's muscles seems to be that she can accomplish feats of strength that defy explanation... This says quite a lot what with Suika Ibuki, the oni who is second only to Yuugi in strength, once shattering the Moon as if it was made out of glass using nothing but physical strength alone while still standing on the Earth. (Thankfully, Suika is also magically powerful enough that she was able to repair the Moon again by [[GravityMaster pulling the shards back together]].)

* Played completely straight in ''Manga/KenganAshura''. This is exemplified with [[TheBrute Julius Reinhold]], "The Most Muscular Man On Earth". A literal walking mass of pure dense musculature, Julius completely [[NoSell blocked]] Sawada's strongest attack using only his trapezius muscle.

** Wrestling/TessaBlanchard was notoriously slim, but bulked up considerably in preparation for winning the Wrestling/ImpactWrestling World Championship belt from Sammy Callihan, even though Impact had removed "heavyweight" from the title to ensure Blanchard's victory would be as believable as possible. She was also dominated shorter and or slimmer knockouts to justify her leaving the division while keeping those of similar size or larger away from her.

** Played straightest with the WorldsStrongestMan [[Anime/DragonBallSuperBroly Broly]], much like Kale his muscle mass is an indicator for power but unlike Kale whose base form is petite, Broly's base form is more muscly than Goku and Vegeta combined and he can even overwhelm them in their PhysicalGod transformations without even going Super Saiyan himself. When he does go OneWingedAngel Broly [[HulkingOut hulks out even more]] and nearly destroys the whole planet forcing Goku and Vegeta to fuse into Gogeta to actually defeat him. To balance things out Broly is UnskilledButStrong.

** Averted in 2013/2014 as Wrestling/AJLee became the longest reigning Divas Champion at the time and was the most popular woman on the roster. She is 5'2 and weighs 99 lbs, 115 at her heaviest. That's less than Wrestling/{{Hornswoggle}}! In the late 2010s they played it straight again with Nia Jax, who was quickly taken out of their developmental program with even less ring or mic skills than Tamina but pushed even harder than her on account of being even larger than Snuka.

* While American wrestling has the reputation for jacking up its rosters, the Wrestling/{{N|ational Wrestling Alliance}}WA wrestlers have mostly remained around the same sizes across the board from the 1940s to 2010s. This is of course because WCW and the WWF became the trend setters while the NWA was reduced to a niche market. Conversely, when Wrestling/AllEliteWrestling started up with a locker room full of legitimate cruiser weights, the NWA could finally boast about having larger men on its roster than one of the major US companies.

* In ''LightNovel/JigokuNoGoukaDeYakaReTsuzuketaShounen'', Flare is ripped to kingdom come and is strong enough to beat multiple people senseless with his bare hands even while they're flinging magic at him. After emerging from Hell, his strength is enhanced to the point that a huge sack full of supplies and even a suit of heavy armor feels like a backpack to him. He casually riddles a suit of treasured holy mithril armor from the White Pearl Kingdom full of dents with regular punches.

* In ''LightNovel/RebuildWorld'', Akira is noted to be short and scrawny for his age because of how young he is and how little he got to eat before he started making money with Alpha's help. Because of this, he can't comfortably carry and fire more than a single assault rifle at a time without the help of an augmented suit, compared to older, more fit, and more experienced hunters who are armed to the teeth.

* ''LightNovel/TheAsteriskWar'': Lester [=McPhail=] is probably the one packing the most muscle when he wears his gray shirt and he shows off the bottom portion of his abs.

* ''Literature/TheLockedTomb: Literature/GideonTheNinth'': Zig-zagged. The cavaliers, who are the "sword" part of a SwordAndSorcerer duo with necromancers, are in general pretty built, and the younger ones are very impressed with Gideon's biceps. A key plot point is that [[spoiler:necromancers can merge with their cavaliers to become the super-powerful Lyctors. This turns out to be the reason rapiers are the traditional cavalier weapon--the cavalier always ends up inside the necromancer, so they need to carry blades the less-fit body can handle. ''However'', when a particularly {{Jerkass}} necromancer figures this out and forces a merge, the fact she's tiny and stick-thin means she quickly has to switch to magic when dueling a rival cavalier, because all the skill in the world does not make up for the fact he's about twice her size. However, this seems to be at least partially because her cavalier is actively fighting her. When Gideon willingly sacrifices herself to turn her necromancer Harrow into a Lyctor, they wield Gideon's longsword with only momentary trouble (though Gideon mentions Harrow will have to start lifting weights)]].

* In ProfessionalWrestling, this is taken to extremes, as few fans will accept a smaller (Wrestling/ReyMysterioJr, Wrestling/EddieGuerrero) or average sized wrestler (Wrestling/BretHart, Wrestling/AJStyles, Wrestling/ShawnMichaels, even Wrestling/StoneColdSteveAustin himself) as a main event contender without years of development. Whereas larger wrestlers (Wrestling/{{Kane}}, Wrestling/BrockLesnar, The Great Khali) may be advanced to the main event scene almost immediately after debuting. This is particularly noticeable in Wrestling/{{WWE}}, where 1) the promotion has access to much larger wrestlers than smaller promotions, and 2) the CEO Wrestling/VinceMcMahon and WWE Executive Producer Kevin Dunn, don't like smaller wrestlers and are reluctant to push them. Nowhere is this mentality more apparent than in the career of [[Wrestling/TheBigShow The Giant (Paul "The Big Show" Wight]], who had his pro wrestling debut (not just his first televised match, but his first match ''ever'') in the main event of a Wrestling/{{WCW}} Pay-Per-View for the world championship -- and won!

[[YouShouldKnowThisAlready It should go without saying]] that this is TruthInTelevision. Combat sports have strict weight classes for a ''very'' good reason, after all. Even ten pounds of muscle is considered a huge advantage.

* This {{trope}} is almost the entire plot for the [[Comicbook/IncredibleHulk Hulk]], as any character's superpower can be easily identified by which body part is the largest (The Leader, the Abomination, etc.) In the movie, the Hulk himself would also get larger as he got angrier/stronger. Sometimes (but in no way consistently) depicted this way in the comics too.

* ComicBook/TheKingpin is a subversion. Inexplicably stronger than Spider-Man ([[DependingOnTheWriter sometimes]]), but when Spidey makes a fat joke he finds out the hard way that Kingpin is also a LightningBruiser with almost no fat.

[[folder:Film]]

* ''Franchise/{{EXTRAPOWER}}'': In this WorldOfBadass, no character has purely cosmetic muscles. Buff heroes like Sharkungo, Forcestar or Wolf are powerhouses of physical fitness. Zophy is perhaps [[CharlesAtlasSuperpower the most powerfully built]] human in terms of muscle mass, and that grants him the power to punch through solid boulders or fling humans or even elephants with ease. While other teammates in ''[[VideoGame/ExtrapowerAttackOfDarkforce Attack of Darkforce]]'' make do with weaponry, alien powers, magic, or whatever else, a solid punch from Zophy gets the job done just as well or even better.

[[folder:Web Original]]
* ''WebAnimation/DSBTInsaniT'': Andy and Dave get them as part of the ArtEvolution in episode 7. Andy's battle against brainwashed Bill and Martha shows he can put them to good use, and Dave has been shown plenty of times beforehand to be quite the brute.
[[/folder]]

* ''WesternAnimation/{{ReBoot}}'': After the TimeSkip in Season 3, the now-adult Enzo Matrix is big and buff, and it shows when he can take on the super-strong Megabyte in a straight-up fight, and ''win''.

* ''LightNovel/TheAsteriskWar'': Lester McPhail is probably the one packing the most muscle when he wears his gray shirt and he shows off the bottom portion of his abs.

* Luisa in WesternAnimation/{{Encanto}} has SuperStrength as her magical gift, and has a very muscular body as a result.

This frequently carries the opposite meaning too: small characters are usually elusive, quiet, agile, stealthy and quick, while large characters being such will not be believable.

* The singles largest box office draw every recorded anywhere in professional wrestling, "The Golden Greek" Jim Londos, was only 5'8 200 pounds. Granted, he was pretty muscular for his height. His neck was thick, his legs were tree trunks, his abs were terrifying, but he also had small pectoral muscles that made his head look too large for his body. His impressive musculature only became apparent when his body was in motion, such as stretching out and pinning an opponent, but most of what little footage of him exists was not considered good for television. Luckily for Londos most of his wrestling career was before television became big money.