3 tips to help you become stronger
Welcome to the weekly warble here at Ideanthro Movement.
This week I have 3 tips to help you become stronger.
But first, you might be thinking, "wait, you post a weekly warble? Why haven't I seen it before?"
Good question. We've been posting a somewhat weekly warble into our local Facebook community pages for a while now. From this week going forward we've decided to slightly change the format and how we're presenting it. We're posting it direct to our Facebook page and as a blog on our website.
Hence, if you're not in a member of our local community groups and seeing our warble for the first time, that's probably why.
Ok, let's get into it. Here are 3 tips to help you become stronger.
1) You need to challenge your existing strength
Have you ever wondered what it is about lifting weights or doing bodyweight strength training that actually makes you get stronger? Possibly not, and that's ok. But once you know, it will help to direct your effort much more effectively.
Your body, and everyone else's body is incredibly good at efficiently using energy. Our bodies don't like wasting energy.
They're always looking for the easiest way to do things. This applies to building strength as well. Our bodies only allocate precious energy to building strength when they think that's something we need.
How do they know if it's something we need?
Our bodies decide that we need to build more strength when we do things that challenge our existing levels of strength. They don't have to be right at our limit, but they have to be close enough that our body metaphorically thinks "wow, that would be easier if I was a bit stronger". When that happens, the body starts to commit energy to making you stronger.
To give a concrete example:
Lifting 2kg dumbbells when you're already capable of comfortably picking up a crying toddler (who is probably 10kg to 15kg) is not likely to make you stronger. The dumbbells aren't close enough to your maximum ability. They likely need to be heavier (caveat - like all things there are exceptions to this example, but hopefully you take the broad point).
To become stronger you must challenge your existing strength.
2) Technique matters. A lot!
This one sounds like a cliché, and for good reason. It's absolutely the truth.
When you first start strength training, initial gains come relatively easily. You're very likely to make moderate but noticeable increases in strength over the first few weeks to months. However, if you want to gain large amounts of strength it's a long and gradual process.
The speed by which you initially gain strength can't be maintained. Your progress will slow. Don't let this put you off, it simply means that you need to be consistent over the long term. And this is where technique comes in. Good technique is what allows you to keep training in the long term without injuries, tightness and whatever else.
Train with good technique and you'll become strong, robust and mobile. Train with poor technique and the outcome isn't likely to be great.
Prioritise technique and you'll become far stronger in the long term.
3) Variety is critical and it must resemble the movements you want to be better at.
Earlier on in this article I asked "Have you ever wondered what it is about lifting weights or doing bodyweight strength training that actually makes you get stronger?"
Well now I have another question for you...
Have you ever wondered in what exact ways strength training makes me stronger?
Or to put it in another way, which parts of my body get stronger when I train my...?
This is a critical question if you want your strength training to improve the quality and ease of movement in your daily life, rather than just in the gym.
In the fitness world there is a principle known as the SAID Principle. It stands for:
Specific
Adaptations to
Imposed
Demands
In a nutshell it means that you get better at what you do, and not at what you don't. When it comes to strength training it means that you get better at movements that very specifically resemble the movements that you're doing in the gym, and not much else.
If you have ever trained at a gym and found that you got much stronger doing the exercises at the gym, but that this has only made you feel a little bit stronger in your daily life, then this is the problem.
The solution is to make your training in the gym (or wherever you train) more closely resemble the things you do in daily life, and if you take the time to think about the things that you do (or want to do) in daily life, you'll realise it's a wide variety. Thus you must make sure you train with similar breadth.
It's for that exact reason that we incorporate so much movement into our training (e.g. in our natural movement classes) rather than simply doing exercises. And when we do stray from natural movements into exercises, they still closely resemble practical movement patterns (e.g. squatting, deadlifting, pressing etc in our strength and movement class).
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Congratulations. If you made it this far you're really interested in becoming stronger. Nice work!
If you'd like some help with that, by all means reach out to us. We offer a free 15-minute consultation where we are happy to chat about anything that you'd like to know about training. And of course we offer all sorts of one-on-one and group training.
Cheers
Jack @ Ideanthro Movement