Muscle or strength?
 

When you first started lifting was it to build muscle or strength? I am also curious if you did change from one to the other, why you did so?

For me, to build strength IS to build muscle. Focus on the strength and the muscle will follow.

Depends on your goals. If you want to boost self -esteem or attract woman, lift for size. If you want to rip somebody' head off lift for strength. Since I've got my wife now Im concentrating on strength! :) .... But, seriously I think the bigger you want to get the stronger you need to be.

The bolded is the operative part of the OP's question. When I started it was to get in shape, then I moved toward building muscle before I learned that to build muscle I had to build strength first. Now my focus is on getting stronger in every way.

What my friend Dave said.

If I am being truthful I started lifting with no real goal in mind. I had a few bodybuilding books as a teen but I don't think I started to lift specifically for muscle. A couple months in I started to buy Flex and Muscle and Fitness from the college book store and really picked up a passion for bodybuilding.

Same as cheesy, then I started prison guarding and now i prefer head ripping off strength...lol

For my health, then it rolled over to Muscle symmetry, definition and separation.

I started for muscle building, I wanted to be IFBB pro off-season big. Still do, but my love is strongman now, so strength building has taken over.

I think I started with the goal of building both.

My more serious training started in my earlier teens while training for football. The program they had us on back then was nonsense, but as a newbie I responded fairly well to it.