Maximize Each Workout: Train Like No One is Looking
Potentially - or probably - the biggest barrier keeping most people from making progress on their goals (fitness, build muscle, fat loss, strength, etc...) is their own state of mind. That feeling like "Oh, people are watching me, so I don't want to [X]..." [look like I'm trying], [fail], [struggle], [make a weird face], etc. But, all this self-limiting behavior successfully accomplishes is self-limiting progress. I've trained all over the place in a multitude of different environments and have often been seen doing off-the-beaten-path type exercises. But, even I sometimes get a little nervous about the liklihood of drawing attention to myself. When that hesitation kicks in, here are my top 3 reminders to keep my self-limiting behavior out of the way of accomplishing my goals:
1. No one is looking. Most of the time no one cares what you're up to in your daily workout and they really are not watching. Trust in this first rule.
2. Don't let your assumptions of someone else's perceptions affect your behavior. Okay, so you're doing something attention grabbing (read: weird) in your workout. Yes, you will probably catch a few eyes, so if #1 isn't working for you. Then ask yourself this: "So, someone is watching me train, why would I stop just because they're watching?" They're probably watching to learn something new. That's what I've found over the years. No one has ever approached me to tell me I'm "wrong" - rather it usually means I'll get to have a conversation with someone new about whatever it is I'm doing. They want to learn!
3. The world doesn't revolve around you. At least in the realm of weight training - I can't actually speak for other areas. This is really the bottom line. Whether you like drawing attention to yourself or dread it, the world doesn't revolve around you. So, keep your eyes down and power through on taking a small step towards whatever is going to help you accomplish your next goal.
The point in training for fitness, building muscle, or strength is making progress towards personal goals and achieving things you, personally have never achieved before. Don't allow those self-limiting behaviors derail your success!
Build Muscle: Top 5 MUSTS!
How is it some build muscle with, seemingly, little to no effort? Putting meat on the bones comes easy for some: they’ll do a couple curls and drink a glass of milk then BAM, they’re swole. For the rest of us, it can feel like we have to grind and suffer day in and day out for an ounce or two of muscle. The methods used and the advice given can sometimes become overwhelming.
Do this program... “Take these supplements... Eat 22.75 grams of protein every 76 minutes... Train each bodypart once every ten days.”
Sometimes you’ll hear fitness experts give advice that can be contradictory or confusing, or just plain unreasonable for you and your lifestyle.
Amongst the sea of information on the quest for building muscle out there, here are my top five tips for beefing up.
1. Make Strength a Priority
If your goal is purely to build muscle and you couldn’t care less about your deadlift max, that’s great! Good for you, and to each their own. However, understand that as you get stronger you can increase the muscle building stimulus by utilizing greater loads. We know we need time under tension via resistance training to stimulate growth, but if you continue using the same loading schemes over a period of time your body will eventually adapt and the stimulus dies.
How do we avoid this? Focus on getting stronger! Have a handful of “indicator lifts” to use to track progress. These lifts are ideally big compound lifts that you strive to become stronger in. Personally I use the the biggie compound exercises: back squat, deadlift, bench press, and overhead press to track my progress in strength. Other good options to use are any squat exercise variation (front, box, goblet), push-ups, pull-ups, single leg movements, row exercise variations, prowler work, or farmer’s walks. Heck, if your goal is to grow enormous biceps focus on getting stronger at the curl.
The point is we want to look back at our own records after months and years pass and see that we are capable of throwing more weights around. If you make awesome improvements in strength over a significant length of time I’d be willing to bet that you’ve made progress in your lean body mass as well.
2. Volume
This is where we see a big difference in the typical comparison of how a bodybuilder trains versus how a powerlifter By joining a RED franchise, you could earn in excess of ?1,300 more per year than at other national truck driving schools – and significantly more than if you choose to operate as an independent instructor. trains. The bodybuilder, whose primary goal is to build muscle, will utilize a ton of volume into their training. A bodybuilder"s workout for his (or her) chest may do something along the lines of the following:
|
Bench Press |
4x8 |
|
DB Incline Press |
3x10 |
|
DB Flyes |
3x12 |
|
Pec Deck |
3x15 |
The powerlifter, on the other hand, may work up to a heavy single on the bench, do a few sets of rows and go home.
Now this is a very simplified comparison of the two training disciplines but you get the message: if mass is your goal, you need more volume in your workouts.
More volume, however, does NOT necessarily mean that you have to be lifting in the 10-20 range for each exercise. If you did that, you’d be sacrificing too much tension to get those reps in. Try some different set x rep schemes that will allow for significant volume with moderately heavy weight. 7 sets of 4, 5 sets of 5, and 4 sets of 6 are all good options, especially for your “main movement” of the day.
3. Eat Better
This is a problem for a lot of younger athletes that stay very active year-round. You need food to live, and you need food for energy, but you need even MORE food to build muscle.
Be honest with yourself! You want to be bigger and stronger but all you had for breakfast was… nothing?! Re-think that strategy.
The nutritional side of muscle gain is underestimated too often, and it needs to be a consistent effort everday. If you eat like an infant all week, but binge at a Chinese buffet on Saturday it doesn’t count. Eat a lot of good food every single day.
Sometimes it’s not an issue of eating enough food, but eating enough of the right foods. A diet consistent with cookies and cokes probably won’t be the key to building a big strong body that you work so hard for.
Keep a food log and make sure you’re eating right. If your still confused and overwhelmed, just have Kelsey analyze your diet and she’ll tell you everything you’re doing wrong.
4. Aim for a Horomonal Response
Your hormones are the key to growth. Without them we’d be nothing. No need to go into a complex physiology lesson right now, but here are some quick tips you should keep in mind.
Testosterone: Stimulated by lifting heavy weights. Hit it hard and heavy, and get adequate rest between sets.
Human Growth Hormone: Stimulated by moderate weights, higher volume and lower rest periods.
Cortisol: Evil. Catabolic stress hormone that doesn’t want you to gain muscle. Keep it low by getting enough sleep and doing whatever helps you de-stress your life.
5. Be Aggressive!
Building muscle takes hard work and focus. You can’t just casually hit the gym once every couple of weeks and expect huge gains. Lift and eat with a purpose, and be stubbornly consistent. If you hit a plateau, change something up and keep grinding.
Make your goal important, and put in the necessary effort it takes to make it happen!
Strength: You're Doing It Wrong! Exercise Solutions
The canvas we’ll be working with today encompasses a number of pertinent topics within the landscape of getting stronger and becoming a more structurally sound human being; common training fallacies, pervasive myths, and foolproof strength training principles will all be covered as we move forward together.
On a daily basis - and, fortunately for you reading - I’m exposed to an extremely broad palette of individual scenarios within the respective realms of strength development and human movement, as I have the utmost pleasure of working as a strength and conditioning coach within the walls of SAPT, one of the Washington D.C. area’s finest breeding grounds and incubators for maximizing human movement capacity and enhancing athletic potential.
Be it teaching young athletes how to perform a proper jump or lunge pattern for the first time in their lives, helping a college baseball player learn to harness and produce power in his hips, facilitating the process of desk jockeys reducing the very knee or back pain symptoms that their doctors told them would never go away, showing young Padawans and Jedi’s-in-training how to construct and wield their first lightsaber, assisting a veteran lifter in adding an extra ten pounds to his or her max deadlift; each and every night I walk away with at least a modicum of new insight on how to help people feel, look, and move better. (And apparently, the ability to produce the longest run-on sentence ever seen on this website.)
I’ve written thousands of programs (literally), and overseen at least three times as many training sessions within the walls of SAPT. Given this, I’ve been able to observe what works, what doesn’t work (as much as I don’t want to admit when I’m wrong!), and collect an ever-growing pile of data. I’ve also had the luxury of being able to test and experiment with countless strength training strategies and modes on people of all ages, training goals, and genetic constitutions.
Essentially, I’m a researcher as much as I am a strength coach, and each and every one of my findings, successes, and failures within the SAPT Lab propels me one step closer to unlocking the gateway to untapped human movement and strength potential.
Since "I'd like/I need to become stronger" is one of my favorite goals to help people with, and given that improving one’s general strength is often (at the least) half of the solution to improved athletic performance, pain reduction, general sense of well-being, increased ninja status, and yes, looking better; that’s where we will spend our time together today.
To guide today’s discussion, I’d like to touch on a few of the common myths and fallacies surrounding the notion of “strength training” that tend to proliferate throughout the interwebz and many public gyms. Hopefully, I’ll be able to help you dispel a few of the fundamental errors many tend to make when embarking on the road of getting stronger, and to provide you a few central philosophies that can guide and direct you in successful training for years to come.
“You’re Doing It Wrong” #1 – Maxing Out Too Frequently
There’s a big difference between maxing out and training your max. The former should be reserved for a few select times in the year, while the latter should be employed on a regular basis. The former will invariably lead to stalled progress and becoming weaker, while the latter will lead to surefire progress and actually getting stronger.
Knowledge Bomb: You don’t need to max out regularly to make your max go up!
Oftentimes, well-intentioned people become so caught up in the “if I’m not moving forward, then I must be moving backward” mentality that they feel they need to max out every single week during their barbell lifts. It’s one thing to make weekly incremental improvements in your assistance work – for example, adding an extra chain weight to your back for a set of pushups, or using ten more pounds for a lunge variation – but pushing the limits of the “big lifts” on a regular basis will lead to frustration and fatigue at best, and missed lifts or injury at worst.
This isn't to say one should live in trepidation of performing anything over 90% of their max, but there's something to be said for treating strength as a skill and not as something to be trifled with. It's obviously okay to train around 90% from time to time, but understand there's an immense difference between 90-95% loading parameters, and 100%; the difference in neurological output and mental strain is unreal, not to mention the recovery time.
While I hope it goes without saying that this is imperative for the recreational “Joe or Jane” lifter who is training for fitness and general wellness, seeking to become stronger while remaining injury free, it’s also extremely important for the competitive athlete who has a plethora of competing demands outside the gym walls.
Since an athlete is regularly practicing skill work, sprinting, and competing, the strength coach has to carefully construct their resistance training program so that it still develops their strength and power while yet not interfering with the countless other demands (physical and mental) they undergo outside of the training facility.
Believe me, I understand and respect the drive to get better each day. But “getting better” isn’t necessarily synonymous with banging your head, repeatedly against a brick wall in workout after workout. Just because you may be using submaximal loads – honing technique and working on rate of force development – doesn’t mean you’ll fail to get stronger simply because you aren’t regularly pushing the literal limits of your body. In fact, you’ll be pleasantly surprised to find you’ll end up where you want to be much faster this way.
Dan John and Pavel said it best: "'Coax' the 80% poundage up, instead of forcing the 100%. This is the patient approach of the professional."
There's a reason the strongest individuals in the world rarely (if ever) miss lifts and only go for TRUE maxes on a select few times per year. It simply works!
"You’re Doing It Wrong" #2 – Pigeonholing Yourself Into What a “Main” Movement Is
Just because you may not be prioritizing a powerlift (barbell squat, bench press, deadlift) or Olympic lift (power clean, snatch), in your training doesn’t mean you still can’t build muscle and get stronger.
Don’t get me wrong, the powerlifts and O-lifts are phenomenal from an efficiency standpoint - you can pack on large amounts of muscle, strength, and power while keeping your exercise quiver relatively small – but remember that many individuals, you perhaps included, simply may not be in a place where it’d be prudent to perform one or all of these lifts on a regular basis. This could be because of structural changes (i.e. femoroacetabular impingement, reactive bony changes on the acromion, etc.) immobility, poor stability, or anthropometry concerns.
Have some sort of structural pathology going with your hips? Unable to maintain a good mechanical position while squatting, due to poor stability and/or mobility? Try subbing out all barbell squatting exercise variations for a unilateral exercise, such as a barbell stepback lunge with a front squat grip:
This way you receive all the benefits of axial loading, can garner plenty of strength and stability benefits, while yet satiating your palate for placing a loaded bar on top of you.
Have an insanely long torso and short legs, so you find conventional deadlifting problematic? Try pulling Sumo-style or using the trap bar.
(Note: As I noted in this article, you can find a deadlift variation to suite ANY body-type, age, or ability level)
Shoulder bothering you? Perhaps it's time to take a mini break from barbell pressing (it's okay, the earth will continue to revolve on its axis). Become really proficient with landmine presses and dumbbell bench presses with a neutral grip:
Experiencing low back pain, and bent-over barbell rows are giving you trouble? No worries, you can still pack on plenty of muscle and strength using a dumbbell row alternative or seated row to tide yourself over.
Back pain so severe that any sort of bilateral squat or deadlift is irking it currently? Get some work done with heavy sled pushing!
The possibilities are nearly endless. Many times it’s not worth it to fall into the bravado that surrounds the various barbell lifts if one (or a few) of them don’t fit well with you. Find what exercise* works for YOU to use as a strength exercise and as a gauge for measuring progress.
Well, I’m already at well-over 1,000 words, so I’m going to cut it here for today. Stay tuned for Part 2 in which we’ll continue where we left off!
*Except for the leg press.
Running Faster... It's Not Just for the Guys.
Today's post goes along with the string of themed posts about our new running program we're launching next week. Yes, that's right, a running program. But not just any ol' running program where you plod seemingly endless mile after mile. It's called RunFast... a simple name that explains exactly the purpose of this program. I strongly recommend reading the other blog posts this week, if you don't already, as they're stellar.I'm a Strength and Conditioning Specialist. Or, the title I prefer, Jedi Training Master. Either way, my job as an SAPT coach is to strengthen the bodies and minds of our trainees to support excellence in life (aka: cultivating Jedi Skillz). As SAPT athletes know, I advocate incessantly for hoisting heavy things on a regular basis and eating your vegetables. While I know the a solid strength foundation is essential for success in life, I also know that training the cardiovascular system (outside of a lifting session) is essential for across-the-board excellency. Most of you, I'm willing to bet, immediately thought of running for miles or hopping on an elliptical...
This post is specifically aimed at my ladies out there who think high intensity training for running is either a) for football players or other male athletes or b) inferior to long-distance running (eliptical-ing) for body composition changes. Both are incorrect suppositions.
*Note* I know I have a lot of distance runners who read this blog. I'm in no way advocating that you cease your running; however, I do think you'll benefit tremendously from training the other energy systems mentioned in Goose's post from Monday and cultivating a higher rate of force development.
So, convince me Kelsey, why should I step outside the cardio box and perform sprints, hill sprints, shuttles, and other such bouts of heart-pounding exercise?
1. They teach your body to produce force faster- Remember that Rate of Force Development thing? Ladies, if you want to run faster (and this means during a competitive sport, like soccer or lacrosse, too) you need to push off the ground harder (this propels your forward further) and increase your stride frequency (more steps per unit of time). There's an old adage, "Train fast to be fast." Training at a slower, continuous pace will NOT cause the adaptation in the muscles required to produce that burst of energy needed in sprinting down the field or court. What about sports that don't run much, like tennis or volleyball (only a few steps in each direction)? Training for power will make those few steps explosive and get you in contact with the ball sooner. Therefore, unless you're a cross country runner.... stop. the. slow. speed. stuff.
Excellent point.
2. It trains your phosphagen and anaerobic systems- As Goose laid out in his post, these two energy systems are responsible for the quick, explosive, and often the first movement, in sports. Every sport requires the use of these two systems to some degree; therefore, in order to maintain a high level of force output throughout a game or match, it's terribly important to keep these systems up to snuff by challenging them through training. An example to train the phosphagen system would be a short, but all-out, hill sprint lasting around 10 seconds or less. For anaerobic training, shuttles of 25-50 meters, or a burst of activity lasting 30-45 seconds or so. The cool thing is, the more developed these two systems are, the longer your body can rely on them for energy. This translates into the ability to produce high outputs of force for sustained amount of time, aka, sprinting further at higher speeds. Strong girls win right?
You'll also win lightsaber duels.
3. Higher intensity training is superior for body composition changes and maintenance- *This of course assumes you're eating a clean diet with lots of vegetables, lean proteins...* Without going into the physiology of it, high intensity exercise is a great way to raise your metabolism (even for hours after the activity is over, depending on the intensity) which leads to favorable body composition changes. Not only that, but high intensity exercise is muscle-sparing, meaning you maintain your hard-earned muscle mass (and ladies, we need all the help we can get in that department!). Long distance training tends to decrease muscle mass. Again, with a solid weight training program and carefully managed physical stress levels, a long distance runner can be perfectly healthy. However, from a body composition standpoint, it's more efficient for us non-runners to perform high intensity training. Plus, it's also quicker than spending 45 minutes on the elliptical... I'd rather to hill sprints for 15 minutes.
Want a visual? Look at the difference in body types:
Marathoner vs sprinter
Also, have you ever stood at the finish line of a marathon? How many people are limping? If body composition is on your list of goals, high intensity, short duration, cardiovascular training is the way to go!
No thanks....
4. Most people don't train this way- if 99% of the people are doing something in the gym, it's a safe bet that it's not the best nor most efficient way to accomplish your fitness goals. 'Nuff said.
If a TV is involved, you're not working hard enough.
Hopefully the above reasons are enough to convince you to step outside the standard "cardio" box, both from an athletic and body composition standpoint. Even my long-distance runners, train for power and watch your times decrease!
because he employed high intensity training...
Lifting & Running = Monster Benefits - An Intern Post!!!
This week we're going with one theme: RunFAST. This is the new program we've been developing that we'll officially take the lid off of on Friday. I have to acknowledge, we're offering something totally new, so we're gonna take it slow and start with a post a bit more traditional in terms of the usual SAPTstrength banter. But check the blog every day this week. We've got 5 killer posts lined up.
For the first RunFAST post, one of our interns has written a fantastic post describing in detail the benefits of lifting for ALL TYPES OF RUNNERS (yes, you distance folks can enjoy this, too!).
Why should you listen to this guy who I just admitted is an intern, well, he's a special intern. His name is Gustavo Osorio (or Goose from here on out) and he just graduated from George Mason. Goose was a member of the track team and a stellar decathlete who very recently repeated as CAA champion! Pretty cool, right? This guy knows his stuff. I learned a few things myself and, given that I was his strength coach, that means he really knows some awesome details about high-performance.
I opened up comments again, so please post your thoughts and share with friends. Here we go:
Lifting And Its Benefits For Runners!
“Strength is the foundation for excellence,” this is a mindset I’ve come to respect and adopt for myself after my short time here at SAPT. When you think about it a strong body is a health body, one capable of efficiently moving in any way and letting a person’s athleticism truly shine. Strength is without a doubt the foundation for speed and agility. This concept that may seem foreign to many runners because of all the myths regarding resistance training and running. Many runners and even some running coaches are under the impression that hitting up the weight room once in a while will only result in injury, getting “bulky”, and losing that speed they’ve worked so hard to achieve. When, in reality, a well-structured resistance training program can make the body bulletproof, make your muscles more efficient without bulk, and boost the training effects of your running workouts (aka make you faster).
Myth #1: Lifting (squatting and deadlifting) is bad for your back. Don’t do it!
When performed correctly and with the appropriate assistance work squats and deadlifts can help you build a bulletproof back, glutes, and hamstrings. All three of these muscle groups also happen to be three of the most common sites for sprains and injuries on runners. Coincidence?? I think not! When running you’re lower back acts as a shock absorber, while the glutes and hamstrings are used for force production to propel the body forward. If an individual doesn’t strengthen these muscle groups and continues to constantly hammer them with more running eventually the muscles breakdown from overuse and an injury occurs.
On the other hand, if an individual strengthens these muscle groups they reduce their chances of injury and increase the work load their body can handle. This means they’ll be able to put in more work on the track during practice and, when meet day arrives, fast times will be run!
Fun fact about elite runners, whether it be a sprinter or a distance runner, is that they have some type of year around resistance training program implemented into their training. When you get to the Olympic level and everyone is tenths of seconds away from each other, keeping your body healthy through resistance training makes the difference between being an Olympic medalist and not making the final.
Myth #2: Lifting will make you bulky and slow
A big fear amongst runners is that resistance training will put on too much “useless” muscle for them to carry around. Truth is, a resistance training routine will make you bulky and slow ONLY if you completely stop running and if you have no idea of how to make it sport specific. Just because you’re lifting weights doesn’t mean you’ll turn into the hulk overnight (or ever... let's be real here) but it can make your muscles more efficient at what they do. By training your energy systems through lifting you’re running can be exponentially enhanced. Think of your body as a car and that the energy systems providethree different types of fuel it runs on. These BIG 3 are: the phosphagen system, the anaerobic system, and the aerobic system.
The phosphagen system provide the equivalent of jet fuel for the body. It gives you tons of energy but it burns out super fast! How fast you ask?? Well it gives you enough for 6 to 10 seconds of all out exertion. It provides the energy for the beginning of every race and it is the most dominant energy system during short running event, 60 meters to 100 meters. It is also involved in any sport that requires any sudden bursts of speed and explosion such as basketball, baseball, football, and volleyball. This system is primarily trained through plyometrics and lifts that require high force production at high speeds.
The anaerobic system gives you a mix between jet fuel and regular gas, it still yields a high amount of energy and manages to last a bit longer, between 1 to 3 minutes depending on the intensity of the event. This system is the most dominant for the 400-800 meter distances.It is also involved in sports that require prolonged bouts of speed and some endurance such as boxing, wrestling, lacrosse, and soccer. This is a tricky energy system to train because it requires a mix of power training, muscular strength training, and some muscular endurance training.
The aerobic system gives the body the same effect gas would in a car, it doesn’t let you go blistering fast but it give you a constant stream of energy to keep you going for miles. This is the dominant system in athletes who compete in endurance events such as triathlons, marathons, long distance swimming, and cross country skiing. This energy system can be trained through circuit training and low weight/high rep/low rest lifting.
**WORD OF CAUTION: Train a certain energy system through lifting does not mean you’ll necessarily get faster. When you integrate a lifting program on to a running program correctly the two can complement each other quite nicely. However if all you do is lift aerobically and then expect to go run a marathon you most likely won’t finish.**
Myth #3: Lifting has no positive transfer to running.
Another great benefit of resistance training is the improvement in something called your Rate of Force Development (RFD). [Side note: Kelsey did an amazing job of going into great detail on RFD, if you haven’t read her posts I strongly recommend them! Part 1 and Part 2.] Basically what that means is how fast your muscles can produce a high amount of force. This is beneficial to runners and all athletes because producing higher amounts of force at a faster rate enable you to move faster. Through training this can help optimize your stride length (amount of distance covered per step) and increase your stride frequency (how fast your feet hit the ground) both of which will also make you faster.
This last bit is something most people often neglect, but it makes a world of difference in their running. Aside from improving energy systems and Rate of Force Development lifting can be used to improve running posture. When performed correctly the squat and the deadlift teach people to brace their core and to properly align their back so it’s in the neutral position. A lot of people can go through an entire running career (like myself) without ever realizing that this has a massive positive transfer to running.
The two pictures above demonstrate how the body should be aligned during the deadlift and squat. If you take a side picture of yourself you should be able to draw a straight line from your hips to the base of the head.
Let’s take a look at Tyson Gay coming out of blocks. You can make a straight line from his hips to his head, JUST like a squat or deadlift! Coincidence?? I think not! By keeping his back in a neutral position and bracing his core he is getting the most propulsion out of the power he is putting on the ground. By keeping his core rigid (not tense) all the force being placed on the ground is not lost or being absorbed by an arched or hunched back. Same thing would happen if you lifted with a rounded back, the spine would absorb a lot of the force going up (deadlift) or down (squat) instead of letting your legs and glutes do the work.
Now take a look on the right at Carl Lewis, he is in the Maximum Velocity phase of the 100 meters which means he is trying to maintain his top speed for as long as possible. The line from the hips to the head is still there which means he is getting the most out of the force production. But that’s not all! Notice how his hip are neutral and not anteriorly rotated, his butt isn’t sticking out. This allows him to get a higher knee drive, cover more ground with his stride, and keeps him from kicking his leg too far back. A great way to teach this to people is the finishing position in the squat and the deadlift often referred to as the “lock out”. And like the squat/deadlift lock out phase if his hips were too posteriorly rotated, too far forward, he would put his back out of alignment and sacrifice kick back range of motion.
Do What Strong People Do
Most of us in the pursuit of getting stronger and harder to kill often need guidance from those who have walked the walk and taken themselves to new levels of awesome. I think it’s important to see what they do and observe the common trends among those who consistently make progress and how they go about getting stronger. Before you come at me with an argument like “Herschel Walker simply did a ton of pushups and situps and benched over a trillion his first time in the weight room,” notice I said common trends. Herschel Walker is not common.
Lift Heavy, But Use a Full ROM
I’m sure you saw this coming. Lift heavy to get strong, duh. I hate to be Captain Obvious but it’s definitely worth emphasizing. You need to give your body a reason to adapt. Doing a light set of leg extensions would result in your body responding with a yawn, while a stimulus like a heavy 5 rep deadlift would receive a physiological response that’s more like “whoa, I gotta do something about this,” followed by anabolism.
With that said, lifting heavy is important, but not at the expense of cutting your range of motion down. Please don’t convince yourself that the benefits of a 405 quarter-squat outweighs those of a 225 squat to depth, because it doesn’t. Before we get into another “quarter-squat bashing” rant, know that this applies for any lift. Whether it be a pull-up, bench press, step-back lunge, or glute-ham raise, the goal should be to become strong through the entire range of motion (especially the hardest portion).
Practice Technique
Being able to demonstrate controlled basic movements properly with your bodyweight demonstrates strength, and being able to demonstrate that same movement under load demonstrates more strength. Yes, there are those that put up huge numbers with atrocious form, but I’m convinced that this raw brute strength approach can only get you so far. Without a dedicated focus on improving technique, you leave a ton of poundage to be desired on the bar. If you watch some of the strongest athletes at the top of their game, you’ll notice that their technique is impeccable. Watch the best Olympic weightlifters, powerlifters, sprinters, jumpers, and even strongman competitors. Have you ever seen the top guys in a keg toss event? Impressively fluid hip hinging technique.
Keep the Mission in Mind When You Lift
This was a big eye opener for me. When you get to the gym, your main focus should be set on accomplishing one or maybe two primary lifts. If you look down at your workout log and see that you’re scheduled for a heavy 3 rep deadlift plus some assistance work, don’t start worrying about the specific weight you’re going to be using for your DB Bulgarian split squats or the optimal set and rep scheme you should use for your hamstring curls. The heavy deadlift should be your primary focus, and you should put everything you have into hitting that main movement hard and clean. After hitting the main movement get some extra work in, but don’t overstress the assistance work. I've been guilty way too many times of overthinking the small stuff to the point where my big lifts suffered.
Milk a Ton of Volume Out of Your Warm-ups
Don’t rush your warm-ups! Warm-up sets leading into your work sets are a great place to increase the volume on your lifts. Did you know many elite level powerlifters still do their first warm-up set with the bar? Next time that you throw 135 on the bar for your first warm-up, really think about what makes you overqualified to use an empty barbell...
Anyways let’s go back to the volume thing. Here we’ll compare two lifters working up to a work set of 250x3:
Lifter A 135x5 185x5 225x1 250x3 Total Load Volume: 2,575lbs
Lifter B Bar x10 95x5 135x5 185x3 205x3 225x1 250x3 Total Load Volume: 3,745lbs (Win)
The extra volume will result in increased total work accomplished by Lifter B, but will also give the lifter the opportunity to practice the technique for more than double the reps as Lifter A.
Don’t Fail
You wouldn’t want to fail an exam would you? When you’re lifting to increase your strength, it is not to your benefit to miss a weight. You’ll probably just make a lot of noise (especially if you bail on a squat), increase your chance of getting injured, and crush your confidence. Sure there are times when strength should be tested (1% of your time spent in the weight room), but when you're working on building strength (99% of your time spent in the weight room), you’d be better off using weights you know you can handle and using compensatory acceleration to move it FAST. That way you know you’re getting the most out of the load on the bar even if you underestimated it. If you overestimated it, however, getting stapled by a barbell isn’t going to make you any stronger or better-looking.
Recover
Those super strong athletes aren't super strong because they train, but because they recover from their training. Eat a ton of good food, drink plenty of water, get as much sleep as you can and make sure your program is well thought-out so you're significantly stronger next year than you are now.
