Principles of Gaining Strength

As a lifelong meat head, it’s been really great to see the interest in getting stronger grow the last few years. Whatever drew people to be interested in strength doesn’t matter as long as they continue to see the benefits and have fun with it. For many years, the thought of strength was seen as neanderthal or for the jocks, but not for the well respected educated people. Luckily this has shifted and now people are better educated about the benefits of being stronger especially when it comes to things like body composition, joint health, and overall longevity. While this increase in interest is great as whole, I believe we need to lay the ground work and help explain what we know to work and even more importantly, what doesn’t work. Whether you’re wanting to build some muscle or have a little more strength to take on daily activities, these principles will help you in your training. 

“If you think lifting weights is dangerous, try being weak. Being weak is dangerous.” – Bret Contreras 

  Give it Time

Give yourself some time to build strength. Likely more time than you believe it should take to get stronger. Gaining strength takes a long time. The strongest people in the world didn’t become that way on accident and you shouldn’t think you deserve to be on the same level as them for picking up a barbell a few times. If you add 5lbs every week to an exercise, you’ll increase 60lbs each year. Of course this can’t happen every year forever, but it shows that a little progress compounded does wonders to the overall goal. 

Technique First

The only training worse than no training is bad training. Once people learn poor movement patterns or have developed compensations in their movement, you’re now trying to correct those issues while learning a new movement pattern. This is obviously a much more difficult task for your brain to handle than just learning the correct movement pattern first. The weight on the bar will come as time goes on, but with piss poor technique the amount of weight lifted will always be lower while the risk of injury will be higher. 

Keep 1 Rep in the Tank

When I was starting out, this would have been very useful advice for me to hear. I made great progress early on by taking every set to failure. This worked well until it didn’t and I started getting small injuries on top of it. When you push your body to true failure, it takes longer to recover and you’re likely using poor technique to push the last rep. Keep a rep in the tank and it’ll lead room for improvement the next time you come back to that movement. 

Don’t Miss Reps

This is especially true for aging adults. As you get older, the risk of getting hurt because you missed a rep doesn’t come close to the potential benefit. There is also a psychological aspect to this. If you’re use to missing reps, your brain will associate that with normal in training instead of having success in training. Even the best strength athletes in the world will very rarely miss a lift because they understand the benefit of having success every training session. 

Eat to Fuel your Goals

If you want to gain strength or muscle, then you have to eat like it. If you want to build muscle, then being in a calorie deficit because you’re doing a Keto diet likely won’t help. Nutrition will make all training efforts better or worse based on the quality and quantity you provide your body to compliment hard strength training sessions. Learning to cook will go a long way for this area as you can make better tasting food that’s healthier than what’s available at most restaurants. 

    Train with Intent

The best training plan ever written is just words on paper if the intent in the training is shit. Intent is the difference maker. Someone on a poorly designed training plan will likely have better results than someone training with low intent on a well designed plan. It’s cool to try on things you really care about and training is no different. It takes a lot of energy and focus to get stronger. Most people would be better suited learning how to train with high intent before they sought out a specific training plan or even a tub of protein. 

This list could go on likely forever, but these are guidelines that will make a ton of progress for anyone at any level. Getting stronger and building muscle can be really simple, but it’s not very easy. I can say with full certainty that the people I’ve been around who helped teach me the basics and advanced training techniques streamlined my length of time it took for me to learn and understand. If you can find quality people to help you, I would highly suggest reaching out to them. If you can’t find any of these people in your area, reach out to me at nick@showtimestrength.com and we can get you on the right path. 

Nick Showman

Showtime Strength & Performance

www.showtimestrength.com