Exercising to Build Strength

How to workout to build strength

As I mentioned before, building muscle and gaining strength are NOT mutually exclusive, and as one increases the other tends to as well. However in order to build muscle and strength as EFFICIENTLY as possible, its important to understand the difference between the Hypertrophy and Strength building training styles. My last segment focused on training for hypertrophy and increasing the size of the muscle. But lets face it; no one wants to be that big looking dude that can’t lift the weights. After all, you don’t just want SHOW muscles, you want GO muscles!

Strength Training

What is strength training?

Training for strength is a lot different than training to increase the size of your muscle. While training for Hypertrophy recall that the goal was to increase the size of the muscle by pumping more blood into it through slow and controlled muscle contractions. Strength training deals with teaching your brain how to RECRUIT those muscles and involve them in your lifts so you can increase your weight load (motor unit recruitment).

Benefits of strength training

Strength training has TREMENDOUS benefits and plays a VITAL role in helping you achieve your ideal physique. Strength training doesn’t focus on building muscle; it strictly deals with increasing the resistance load on your lifts. Unlike the 8-12 rep range required for MUSCLE BUILDING, Strength training has a much lower rep range (usually 1-6) but with a much higher resistance load.

The question you may be asking is “what’s the point of training to just lift heavier?”

I’ll tell you why.

1) Hormonal Response

Hopefully by now you understand that our body RESPONDS to the stress we introduce to it in the gym. Since compound exercises such as Squats, Dead-lifts and Bench press recruit the most amount of muscles in the movement, it places the body under the greatest amount of stress compared to other isolation exercises. In response to this stress, the body releases GH (Growth Hormones) and increases the body’s free testosterone production. These hormones are essential to helping you build muscle, recover, and burn fat.

2) Increased Strength

The second benefit is Obviously the increased strength. But how is a strength increase without any major muscle gains going to be of any benefit to you? Is there a point of just lifting heavy for the SAKE of lifting heavy? Think about it like this, even though you MAY not put on muscle while strength training, when you DO go back to training for Hypertrophy (muscle growth) you will be able to perform a much higher resistance load on the 8-12 rep range required to build muscle. This has obvious benefits for putting on size because as stated by the progressive overload principle, the INCREASED stress being placed on the muscles will help them grow BIGGER! Essentially, once you’re off that strength-training program, the weights you lift to put on MUSCLE MASS will have increased which will TRANSLATE into MUSCLE GAIN.

3) Denser Body Composition

Many people may have seen individuals with a small frame or “skinny/slim” build lifting a ridiculous amount of weight for their size. Don’t let their appearance fool you; unlike people who train to increase muscle size, these individuals have much more DENSE muscle fibre. This really DENSE and HARD look is achieved by lifting heavy weights. By strength training you wont necessarily increase the SIZE of the muscle, BUT you WILL increase the amount of MUSCLE FIBRE used by your body. The benefit of this DENSE muscle fibre is that it has a harder and more defined look to it and it is less likely to be broken down by the body if it goes catabolic.

Compound Exercises

Strength training doesn’t focus on increasing the resistance load on ALL exercises. The main focus for most strength training programs is COMPOUND exercises. Recall that a compound exercises is an exercise that works MORE than 1 muscle in the movement.

 

The following are a list of reasons why you should incorporate COMPOUND exercises into your routine.

-Burn more Calories per rep

-Work more muscles in the same amount of time

-Promote testosterone and GH

Now it’s time for the MILLION DOLLAR question.

 What if you don’t want to compromise between strength and muscle, what if you want both? Is it possible to build a hybrid program that allows you to build both muscle and strength? 

Of course there is.

This is a popular training style know as "power bodybuilding". There are many power bodybuilding programs and they all usually revolve around the idea of starting your weight-training session with the heavy compound lifts (squats, dead-lifts, bench-press) and THEN going on to focus on the bodybuilding exercises (increasing the size of the muscle). I will be posting some routines later on when I start talking about HOW to bulk to put on muscles mass, but for now I just wanted to help you guys understand an differentiate between training for Hypertrophy and training for strength.

Heres a short video by fitness expert Elliott Hulse who brefly talks about the concepts I discussed in this segment on Strength training vs training for Hypertrophy.

Hopefully after reading this and my last segment you have a solid understanding on the difference between training for size (hypertrophy) and training for strength and the benefits on incorporating each into your routine.

AND PLEASE...don't be Tony and Bob

Image by Cool Text: Free Graphics Generator - Edit Image