How To Build Strength When Working Out
A lot of us share this common desire to become stronger. It’s the number one request I get from people who sign up for my StrongFit Online Coaching Program.
I know I am always looking to get stronger. That’s what got me into fitness over 10 years ago.
The great thing is, it’s never too late to gain strength. You can get stronger at any age and as a matter of fact, the more strength you have as you get older the better off you are going to be.
It doesn’t matter if you are 18, 28, or 48, you can benefit from strength training regularly.
If this is something that interests you then you are in the right place because I am going to teach you everything you need to know about building strength.
I’ll not only teach you how to get stronger relative to your current fitness level, just by going through the basics and challenging yourself. But I’m also going to teach you the science of strength training so when you are ready to take your fitness to the next level, you are prepared.
Benefits of Strength Training
Reduces the risk of injuries
Builds muscle
Burns fat
Improves joint & bone health
Creates independence
Gives you confidence
Getting Stronger
To get stronger with any type of exercise or activity, you need to put some sort of extra load on the body that requires any of the bodies systems to say, what we have right now isn’t adequate to continue doing this, so it has to grow, adapt, and develop.
If you are someone who lives a sedentary lifestyle because you work a lot and have a busy home life then you could get stronger by walking or doing bodyweight aerobic exercises. If you are used to walking 200 steps in a day and start to walk 1,000 steps per day, that extra load you are putting on your body’s systems will require the body to grow and develop. You will get stronger.
Eventually, though, your body will adapt to those 1,000 steps and you will have to walk 2,000 steps before your body says, what we have right now isn’t adequate to continue doing this. And you’ll have to push through that change.
Doing more of anything is a great way to get stronger. That’s why 30-day fitness challenges are so beneficial. If you do a 30-day squat challenge then you are going to get stronger at your squats.
Making small, incremental changes with any activity will make you stronger. If you don’t know where to start, try walking around your neighborhood, walking up and down your stairs, walking the perimeter of your house or a local park. Start with something that is somewhat challenging and do it until it’s too easy. Then make it more difficult.
Either do it for a longer time, at a higher intensity or while taking less rest.
When it comes to strengthening a body part or a specific movement the same concept of progression can be applied but it has to be more specific.
The Principle of Specificity
The principle of specificity comes from the observation that the adaptation of the body during exercise is specific to the type of training it is undertaking.
In other words, your body is going to react differently to training strength compared to training endurance, power, or hypertrophy.
The same way you can't train for a sprint the same way you train for a marathon. The way we can dictate that in our workout is with the correct programming of the acute variables.
These are the most fundamental components of designing a training program. Acute variables can be anything like the number of reps and sets we do, how long of a rest period we take, our tempo, or even training frequency and duration.
These variables determine the amount of stress placed on the body and, ultimately, what adaptations will occur in the body.
The same variables that build strength are not going to be the same variables that build endurance or hypertrophy.
To help make a little more sense of this I am going to provide some definitions below.
Strength: The ability of the muscles to produce internal tension to overcome an external force. Or your ability to work against resistance, whether it be by lifting weights or using your own body. (Usually 5-10 reps)
Endurance: The ability to produce and maintain force for longer periods of time, as well as the ability to recover quickly from fatigue. (Usually 12-20 reps)
Hypertrophy: The enlargement of muscles in response to being recruited to develop increased levels of tension, this is how our muscles actually grow in size.(Usually 8-12 reps)
Power: The ability of the muscles to produce the greatest amount of force possible for the shortest possible time. (Usually 1-3 reps)
After reading these definitions individually it can be much easier to understand how each one would require a different set of acute variables.
Definitions of Acute Variables
Reps: A repetition is one complete movement of a particular exercise. Most repetitions involve three muscle actions: concentric, isometric, and eccentric.
Sets: A set is a group of consecutive repetitions. If you do 10 reps of a bicep curl, two times, then you just performed 2 sets.
Rest: A rest interval is the time it takes to recuperate between sets or exercises. Each exercise that is performed requires energy and resting in between sets allows your energy to recover to be used for the next set.
Acute Variables for Strength Training
Reps: 5 to 10 Sets: 3 to 5 Rest: 2 to 3 minutes Tempo: Slow & Controlled
Resistance training is the best way to build strength throughout the body, it doesn’t matter if the resistance is a weight, a band, or leverage from your own body. The resistance can change but the variables will always remain the same.
Example strength training rep/set/rest scheme:
3 to 4 sets of 10 reps - 90 sec. to 2 min. rest
3 to 4 sets of 8 reps - 90 sec. to 2 min. rest
Reps in Reserve
Another concept that is important to understand when strength training is something that’s called reps in reserve.
Reps in reserve are the number of additional reps you could have done with good form after you stopped.
If you want to build strength when working out then you should leave 1 to 2 reps in reserve after each set. In other words, do not go to failure.
That means if you are doing 10 Goblet squats then you should be working so hard that when you stop at 10, you would have only been able to do 1 or 2 more with good form.
I’m talking gun to your head you would only be able to do 2 more with good form.
Just as I said above, if you can do 15 goblet squats with a 20 lb kettlebell then they are too easy.
At that point, I would ask you to grab a heavier weight so that the exercise is more difficult and you can only perform 10 reps with good form and have 1 or 2 reps in reserve.
Choosing the Right Exercises
So how do we choose the right exercises to help us build the most strength possible? When working strength we want to think of strain, or strenuous.
This is what made it click for me. If it’s not strenuous then it’s not putting strain on your body and you aren’t building strength.
When it comes to weight lifting it’s easy to find an exercise to build strength, you adjust the weight accordingly.
If you are doing bench press, chest press, or shoulder press, choose a weight that is challenging for you to do 3-5 sets of 8-10 repetitions.
If you are doing squats, leg presses, or deadlifts, choose a weight that is challenging for you to do 3-5 sets of 8-10 repetitions. If you pick a weight and end up doing 20 reps then obviously the weight was too light and it was too easy. So next set you’ll bump the weight and do fewer reps.
Take a note on your phone and next time you do that exercise you’ll know what weight to start with. Eventually, that weight will become too easy and you will have to increase it.
Calisthenics (bodyweight training) is a little more difficult because we use leverage instead of weight to make an exercise easier or more difficult.
For example, in a push up you are pushing about 65% of your body weight but when a push-up is performed from the knees you are pushing about 50% of your body weight.
During the knee push-up, you are putting less weight into your hands so you are cutting the leverage or weight you are pushing, which makes the push-up a little less strenuous.
If you want to make a push-up harder then you would put more weight in your hands by elevating your feet on a box or stool.
When you have more weight in your hands you are pushing more of your body weight.
If you are reading this and have a hard time doing push-ups on your knees that’s perfectly fine because everyone starts somewhere. In this case, I recommend starting by doing push-ups with your hands on a wall.
You won’t feel a lot of weight in your hands so these shouldn’t be too difficult.
Once you can do 3 sets of 10 of these, then put your hands on a countertop. This puts more weight in your hands so the push-up will be more difficult.
Once you can do 3 sets of 10 of these, then put your hands on something lower, like a couch or bench.
Once you can complete 3 sets of 10 push-ups with your hands on a couch or a bench then you can start trying push-ups on your knees.
Final Thoughts
As a personal trainer, I can say there is a lot that goes into programming for a client or class.
It’s been years of education and training to find the best approach to getting the right results and not everyone has that time if it’s not their profession. But that shouldn’t be a reason to be misled or not have the information at hand.
A lot of information I have learned through continued education are things I can say I wish I knew when I was in your position.
It’s my goal as a fitness professional to save you from the same problems I faced. This approach will make you stronger, save you time, and keep you safe so I hope you have found it useful.
If you are interested in finding out more about how this programming can be applied in a full-body workout to develop the true strength we all deserve, check out my online coaching program, StrongFit.
Thank you for taking the time to read my blog, I hope you find it useful for your training.
Much Love,
PLD
