Gaining Strength Over Time
Lifting weights for the first time is exciting because of the fast results, especially within the first couple of years.
What seems to effect almost everyone is when most of that progress comes to a grinding halt.
You used to add 5 or even 10lbs to the bar every week, but now you could barely lift what you did the week before. You might have even lost some strength.
What happened is well known by other gym rats as a plateau or in this case a strength plateau. Strength plateaus can suck because if you don’t know what you’re doing, you can get stuck there for a long time.
Without having the ability to improve your diet and nutrition over time, your hope starts to dwindle as your goals seem further away than you thought.
In the science of bodybuilding, what has been proven from studies is that strength is the biggest correlation between muscle size and growth over time.
By focusing on steady strength increases over a period of time, we can complement an effective diet and nutrition program with rigorous training to get the best results from our workout programs.
So let’s figure out how to get the most strength for the amount of time we spend in the gym.
How to Gain The Most Strength in The Fastest Time Possible
Your ability to adapt and change to your environment is one of the best tools of strategy to have in your arsenal. And doing it fast is even better.
There are basically 3 straight-forward rules that are almost guaranteed to send your strength numbers soaring:
- Compound Movements: Bodybuilding exercises in or out of the gym are either isolation movements or compound movements. Compound movements are almost always more effective because of the number of muscle fibers that are activated with each repetition.
Compound movements should be a staple in your routine if you want major strength to accumulate over time. Large strength increases rarely originate from isolation movements like lateral raises, or pec dec flyes.
- Linear Progression: In this era of mix flashy workout DVDs and exercise videos seem to focus on this concept of “muscle confusion”. All muscle confusion does is create more confusion, since you never stick with one exercise long enough to see any noticeable progress.
Avoid fitness trends like this by sticking to a path of linear growth. Linear growth comes from doing from basic and simple exercises consistently for long periods of time to reach your goals. Rather than doing exercises sporadically and without any kind of focus.
- Lower Rep Range: The strength that’s going to come lightning quick is from your very heavy, low rep range exercises. These lower rep exercises work well because of muscle activation sequence from the Size Principle. Performing your 1 rep max on compound lifts for new PRs (personal records) can get you to gradually increase your strength with time as well. To calculate your 1 rep max for your exercises, you can use this calculator here.
What Could Slow Down Your Strength
Whenever you perform one of the big compound lifts with a barbell (deadlift, shoulder shrugs, rows) do you feel extra tension on your wrists? If so, you may have poor grip strength that’s causing you to tire out too soon (see How to Build Grip Strength For Better Lifts).
As forearms are a weak area for me, I’ve noticed that my strength on different workout days would vary. One minute I was deadlifting 315 for reps, the next month I’d have problems doing the same weight for reps (this could also be caused by other factors).
Your forearms muscles are mostly designed for pronation or supination of your wrist (rotation) and assistance with picking up objects. If your forearms are underdeveloped, you’ll have problems lifting heavier weight amounts and they’ll give out before your larger muscles do.
To make sure this doesn’t happen to you when you’re training, you may want to add some sets at the end of your workouts to strengthen your forearms once or twice a week. You can try holding a barbell for 30 seconds or less after you finish the last set.
Not Writing Anything Down
It’s important to record results to have some kind of accountability for your weekly training. When you don’t record workouts, progressive overload workouts becomes impossible since you don’t have a clue about your last training session.
A well-detailed training and nutrition log is almost required to build a healthy, impressive physique slowly over time.
Without a training log to guide you, neither a personal trainer or yourself can make dramatic improvements to your physique. To keep motivated while you’re training, you want a visual log showing improved strength numbers during the course of your workout program.
Inconsistent Working Out
The last enemy of strength is just being lazy. It’s easier to hit the snooze button and call off the workout you need than to just get up and push yourself through a workout.
Often times, we miscount how many times of the week we go to the gym. For every day you take off from your workout schedule, you set yourself back from continual progress made from progressive overload (see What is Progressive Overload).
We can prove this.
Protein synthesis is the production of protein, usually heightened 24-72 hours after an anaerobic rest period. When you take more days off than you should (more than 1 workout per week skipped), you slow this process down and create bigger gaps for improvement in the workout program.
To take your physique to the next level, you want a workout schedule that you can commit to without becoming complacent. Finding reasons not to workout in the week will cause you to waste time and effort better spent doing something else.
The Wrap Up
Strength comes from several years of working out at the gym with a training plan and proper rest. Compound movement lifts, being consistent, and some kind of progressive growth is always needed to grow bigger. If strength is necessary for you going to get the physique that you want, it can happen by recording what you did in the gym. Reflecting back on the log will show you how much stronger you got over time.
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