“Strong people are harder to kill than weak people and more useful in general”
-Mark Rippetoe
Strength is an integral component of fitness, and one that must never be undervalued. It enables you to move yourself through space in awe-inspiring ways, and move external objects in ways that impress and inspire. Calisthenics Athletes, Rock Climbers and Gymnasts show the most unbelievable abilities to move their bodies through space. Olympic Weightlifters, Powerlifters and Strongmen show what it’s like to be able to move extremely heavy external objects. I think both of these attributes are incredibly important for being healthy, robust, useful individuals.
Strength must be measured to ensure your training is effective. Testing protocols can, and should, evaluate people’s lower bodies, upper bodies, pushing-abilities, pulling abilities, max strength, and strength endurance.
When a person can squat and deadlift heavier, perform cleans with higher power output, and do more reps of dips and pullups - they are more likely to be able to perform any task in front of them.
Strength Training vs Hypertrophy Training
“Can I clean here?”
-Anatoly (Vladimir Shmondenko)
Hopefully you’ve watched the hilarious videos of a relatively thin young man casually lifting hundreds of pounds that huge bodybuilders are struggling with. He presents a wide variety of adaptations including super powerful neural drive, as well very strong tendons & other connective tissues. You can read more about my thoughts about tendons and connective tissues in my article about “Training to Improve your Joint Health”.
Neural drive refers to the signals sent from the central nervous system (CNS) to the muscles, instructing them to contract and produce force. It’s a crucial factor for strength, and luckily for us, adaptations to the nervous system occur quite rapidly. It’s not unheard of for people to improve their strength very, very quickly by biasing their training towards neurological development.
That said… I don’t want to have that ability but look like I don’t even lift. You likely don’t either. Hypertrophy, or building muscle, is also an essential goal many of us have. It could be for aesthetic reasons, it could be because having more muscle increases strength itself, or it could be due to the myriad health benefits of carrying more muscle tissue. Whatever your reason for wanting more muscle, I think we can all agree that a generous balance between strength & hypertrophy is the best of both worlds.
That said, I like to “periodize” people’s strength training. That means we prioritize hypertrophy most of the time, since it’s a fairly slow process that pays big dividends in the long-term, but we also prioritize neurological development during some periods of the year, since it helps us develop maximal performance and keeps us strong for anything that comes our way.
How does your training change in order to accommodate whether we’re focusing on neurological adaptations or hyperthrophy?
Strength Training & Hypertrophy Training
“While you're doing curls and tricep extensions we're doing squats and cleans and when we meet on the field we'll see who's stronger”
-Unknown
Most people stagnate in their strength training journey somewhere around the 18 month mark. That’s when they exhaust their “newbie gains”, the stage in their development where doing ANYTHING is enough to create a powerful stimulus for adaptation. People who are a bit more resourceful that learn the basics of what makes strength training good can prolong their development for another 2-4 years. But most people eventually start plateauing after about five years.
The keys to continue making progress, year after year, decade after decade, is working with a coach who has spent many years obsessing over learning the sources of strength. The main variables I manipulate, ever so closely, when programming for my clients include:
Exercise Selection
Frequency
Set Volume
Rep Volume
Absolute Intensity
Relative Intensity
Rest Intervals
Method of Progression
For a better breakdown of my thoughts when programming each of these variables, please read my article “Program Designing”.