The Five Pillars of Effective Strength Training
The story goes like this. You realize that you want to get stronger for various reasons (muscle mass, injury prevention, bone density, etc). So you decide to join a gym. When you walk into that gym, you see countless trainers and classes telling you how to get strong.
You decide to join these classes. In the class, you’re definitely feeling like you’re getting a great workout in. You’re breathing heavily and sweating. Initially you seem to get a little stronger but you notice after a couple of months, you aren’t seeing any more improvements in your strength.
You may feel fitter, but you don’t necessarily feel stronger. That’s because typical classes in the gym aren’t actually structured to get you stronger. They’re structured to keep you moving and keep your heart rate up.
And by the way, I’m not saying these classes are bad, I’m just saying that if your goal is to get stronger, High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) isn’t the way to do it. You would think more work, in less time gets you the results that you’re looking for but unfortunately this isn’t the way that our bodies work. There’s no shortcut in strength training.
However, the good news is, getting stronger is a lot simpler than you think. Here are the five pillars of strength training that will make all the difference in your strength goals:
Keep It Simple. When you scroll on Instagram or Facebook, you see tons of athletes and trainers doing absolutely crazy and creative exercises. They don’t do this because that’s how you gain strength, they do it because they need to stand out on social media. And of course everyone wants to be able to do cool things, but the bulk of strength training is actually relatively simple.
The types of movements you should train are basic. You need push exercises (pushups, bench press, overhead press), squats, hinges (deadlifts), pull exercises (pullups and rows), and some core work. That’s the foundation of a good strength training program. Pretty simple, right?
Learn Good Form. Now that you’ve chosen your exercises, make sure you learn proper technique from a qualified instructor so that you can lift safely. A lot of exercises are pretty nuanced but once you learn the basics, you’re ready to go!
Keep the Volume Lower. Doing light weights with a ton of reps (12-15+ repetitions per set) isn’t going to make you stronger. A lot of reps per set is actually training muscular endurance rather than strength. If you want to truly train strength, you need to lift weights heavy enough where you can only do 5-8 repetitions of a given exercise.
Rest Between Sets. If you’re spending an hour at the gym, and running from one exercise to the next, you aren’t training very effectively. In fact, you’re going to hurt your strength gains because you’ll completely deplete yourself of energy after your first circuit. To effectively strength train, you have to rest longer than you think after every set so that your body has time to restore energy to our working muscles so that you can do the same thing again and as effectively.
For strength training, you need a work to rest ratio of 1:3 or 1:5. That means if it takes you 30 seconds to complete a set, you need to rest a minimum of 1.5-2.5 minutes between sets!
If you don’t rest and you try to keep the weight the same, you’ll notice that your form starts to worsen or you won’t be able to hit your reps, so make sure you set a timer and actually rest!
Progressive Overload. Over time as you train, your body adapts to your workout which is a good thing because it means that you’re getting stronger! But it also means you’ll stop getting gains if you don’t start adding more weight or volume to make it harder in some way. This means that when you workout, you should be striving to add more load consistently. Sometimes this means adding in another set and sometimes it means going up in weight.
In the beginning of your training program, you’ll probably be adding weight fairly quickly, possibly even from workout to workout due to neurological benefits. But if you train for a long time, you may notice that it’s harder and harder to add weight due to you getting closer to your genetic potential. Regardless of how easy or hard it feels, it’s important to keep striving for progressive overload.
So now that you understand what it takes to actually build up strength, compare these pillars to your training now. In what ways can you make your current workout more effective? Do you need to rest more? Do you need qualified instruction to lift safely? Or do you need to actually lift heavier weights?
But wherever you are on your path to getting stronger, whether you’re brand new to lifting weights or you’re a seasoned lifter looking for some guidance to improve your current program, I’m sure that my 13+ years of knowledge and experience can help you on your journey. Click here to book a session with me today.