Body weight training makes you small?

Which Approach to Training (Above) Do you Take?

Today a fella approached me in the gym as I was "dismounting" non-gracefully from my rope trainer and asked when I do weights? I responded, "Weights, I haven't really touched an actual weight in several weeks, at least since I had hurt my back, and even before that had gone almost completely body-weight". He was amazed and shocked and immediately questioned me: "Well, so, you CANNOT maintain 'real' muscle mass with only body weight training, right? Because with body weight there is no way to bring progressive overload to your muscles helping them to grow, it just can't happen." OK, so before I continue with the text of my conversation I generally smirk and distrust anyone in a gym who uses terms like "Progressive overload" b

ecause it means one of two things: 1) you are a physical fitness trainer (or some other sports/fitness professional, and I don't mean athlete), in which case you should introduce yourself to me as such so that I DO believe what comes out of your mouth or 2) you read too many muscle mags (FLEX, Muscle & Fitness, and the like). So, I say, quite humbly I might add, "Right, what exactly is, or do you mean by, progressive overload?" Fucking huge mistake! The fella goes on for about 5 minutes (my time is precious!) explaining to me that progressive overload is tantamount to increasing weight or reps so that you work your muscles to complete failure. You break down the tissue and that helps them, actually he said "causes" them to grow. So I responded with my dumb founded, un educated response that seems to usually shut people up long enough that I can abscond back to my workout, "Have you ever seen a fat gymnast?" This guy in a complete lack of awareness of what I was trying to do there, responded! Yes, actually responded: "No gymnasts are not fat, but you also never see a large, muscular, fast twitch built gymnast either." Oh, ok, so we are obviously going to argue here and use technic

al jargon, in the fucking gym. (Fast twitch fibers, for those of you who might not know are the ones involved in anerobic exercise; i.e. weight training and muscle building, slow twitch are more involved in endurance (e.g. marathon muscles). ) Ar you fucking kidding me dude? I hate ever so much to toss around my education (PhD in evolutionary BIOLOGY and Cognitiv

e neuroscience, with education in all forms of hard science), but on occasion I need to draw this weapon. However, this was not the case in this situation. Rather, my funny, teasing side (something I picked up in England, who am I kidding, I was born with it!) took over and so I said, "Whoa dude. You really seem to know a lot about body building and lifting. I could probably learn a lot from you." In between hair flicks and obvious expressive feelings of grandeur I threw in this comment: "Before I take down my rope, you wanna try some rope dips, or a suspended L-sit. I mean, I don't know if they work slow or fast twitch muscle fibers, but maybe you could tell me by trying it..." His response: "i am already into my workout, maybe next time if I catch you in here I will try, or you could workout with me". Um, no thanks. 

Generally, while I can recant this little incident in a slightly humorous manner, this interaction did upset me. It got me thinking, and asking my wife - are my muscles getting SMALLER? For fuck's sake, I realize I am an old bastard, but the last thing I want to be doing is training to be smaller and less muscular. Any thoughts on whether body weight training can decrease the growth of muscle would be greatly appreciated. Here are a few examples that keep me on my path...