Weight Training Basics – What Is Strength Training?
Strength training isn’t just about hitting your 1RM every workout and hoping to make progress. No, training for maximal strength is much more complex than that. From linear and non-linear progressions to deloading and overloading, there is a lot to consider when creating a program to build maximum strength.Strength training is a type of weight training that focuses on developing maximal strength and power. Overall strength is what you attribute to the age-old question: what do you bench? Power is something a little different – it is actually submaximal strength with maximal explosion. High box jumps or even clap pushups are an example of plyometric power. This blog post is going to focus on the basics of strength training – lifting as much weight as you possibly can for a few reps per set.
Who Should Be Strength Training
If you are dedicated to fitness and improving your overall level of fitness, you are going to want to be strength training. I’m not saying that you should be hitting PRs every workout, but you should definitely have specific strength phases lined up in your, hopefully, well developed plan. Focusing on heavy compound moves is a great way to improve in a lot of areas of physical fitness.
If you are a powerlifter, or powerbuilder, you obviously want to put strength training at the forefront of your program. Strength training becomes a necessity here, and should be your primary focus 100% of the time for training mesocycles. If you are a powerbuilder, you can focus on hypertrophy too, but strength work comes first. In this way, strength work will actually boost muscle growth. If you were to train the opposite and put hypertrophy first, you would see lower strength numbers and no additional benefits of extra hypertrophy (just personal experience here).
The only population that shouldn’t be doing strength training is those with serious injuries. Back, knee, hip, and shoulder injuries are a contraindication and shouldn’t be looked over just because you want to boost your numbers. There are ways to overcome injuries and train for strength in modified ways to reduce joint impact. Make sure to research those if this is the case for you!
Basic Strength Training
If I were to recommend 5 exercises to a beginner looking to boost strength, they would have to be: bench press, deadlifts, squats, Cuban press, and weighted pull ups. These 5 moves will get you very far and actually improve your physique a lot if your diet is in check as well. You can add accessory work if you want to build muscle along with the strength training. Just make sure it comes after the strength work each workout.
Advanced Strength Training
When a lifter stalls on beginner routines and needs a switch up, the law of individual differences rears its head. Advanced strength training is a very individualized thing in which each person needs to learn how their body develops and reacts to different training stimuli.
Most of the time, linear progressions are not the best route to go for intermediate-advanced lifters. Deload and overload phases will need to be programmed and everything needs to be spelled out perfectly. Accurate training logs and progress tracking is necessary to know when changes need to be made to a program. Basically, once you hit this level of lifting, you need guidance or enough self-knowledge to know how to program a great strength program for your specific body.
Time To Put In Work!
So, you have learned the basics of strength training. Stay tuned for the next two parts in the Weight Training Basics series! Hit the gym and build some strength that you can be proud of! For more detailed info about strength training programming, make sure to contact us and inquire about a custom training plan!
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