How our training helps you become stronger

NOTE - This post was originally written for our 'weekly warble' segment in a few Facebook groups for the community local to our gym.


Welcome to the weekly warble here at Ideanthro Movement!

This week I'm going to talk about how our style of training here at Ideanthro Movement can help you to become stronger.

This is an important topic to discuss for two reasons. The first is that, while not everyone who thinks about joining a gym is trying to gain strength, it is a goal for a large number of people. The second is that while most of us are familiar with the fact that conventional weight training with dumbbells and barbells can help us to build strength, what's less well known is that other styles of training (including ours) are just as effective. That means that if dumbells and barbells aren't your cup of tea so to speak, you have other options. And that's awesome!

To begin this warble, let's take a very high level look at what's going on when we gain strength.

In general terms, if we want to become stronger, we need to send a signal to our body telling it that we want to gain that strength. The way we do this is by doing a physical activity that challenges our existing levels of strength. Our body receives this message, understands that being strong is important to us, and adapts to make us stronger. Let's take a look at how that works in a conventional gym setting.

In a conventional gym you might choose to do some squats with a barbell or perhaps some dumbells. You pick a weight that's challenging and you do your sets and reps. This sends the message to your body that being strong is important, and then between now and your next training session, your body adapts a little bit to develop more strength. You repeat this process over the coming weeks and months and gradually become stronger.

It's pretty easy to see how this works when you're using weights, but your body doesn't care if you're using weights. It doesn't care if you're in a gym. All that it cares about is that you challenge your existing strength, give it some time to recover (perhaps 24 to 48 hours to rest) and then challenge it again. So let's now take a look at how this works in our gym.

Let's imagine you come and see us at Ideanthro Movement. In one of your first sessions we're likely to do some form of vaulting. Vaulting is just a fancy term for 'getting over an object'. It can look like gymnasts doing crazy flips in the air off a springboard. Or it can be as simple as us stepping from the road up onto the footpath. Or it can be anything in between. You can see some examples of basic vaulting in the video that accompanies this post.

When you begin learning vaulting with us, we'll pick an option that's challenging for you, but which you can do safely. You'll then practice that option, and in doing so you'll send a signal to your body that having the strength to do that vault is important. You'll go home after the session and rest and your body will adapt by becoming a little bit stronger. Next time you come back in you'll be that little stronger and so we'll give you a slightly more challenging vault. This in turn will send the signal to your body to adapt some more and become even stronger and the cycle will repeat.

This cycle holds true for everything we do in our gym. Let's pick something that doesn't immediately look like it requires a lot of strength and show you how it works. Let's pick balance!

One day you come into our gym and we get out a balance beam and show you how to practice balancing on it. As you're doing this you start using all the stabilising muscles in your feet, legs, hips and torso. You don't feel the same obvious physical exertion as you do when vaulting or lifting weights, but it still challenges those muscles. This sends the signal to your body that you want those muscles to get stronger and...

Ok I get it. You understand how this works! I don't need to give you another example.

With that all said, it's nearly time to wrap up this warble. But before I do, I just want to clarify something important.

Getting the level of challenge right is really important!

Have you ever noticed how in a conventional gym, the people lifting weights are doing things like 3 sets of 5 repetitions or perhaps 3 sets of 8 to 12 repetitions. Have you ever noticed how they're picking a weight that allows them to do those 5, 8 or 12 repetitions with really good form but not having any energy left to do more?

They're doing this because that's the right level of challenge. The reason why they might choose exactly 5, 8 or 12 reps is beyond the scope of this warble, however what is important to remember is that you need to get the challenge right. If the thing you're doing is so hard that you can barely do it once and it feels like your head is going to explode because of how hard it is, you're not sending the right signal to your body for it to get stronger. Equally, if you pick something that's so easy that you can do it 50 times without tiring, well there's no challenge in that so there's no strength signal being sent.

Whatever you choose to do, whether it's in a conventional gym, at home or with us at Ideanthro Movement, if you want to get stronger then you need to pick a level of challenge that's tough but not crazy hard, and where you can still do the movement with good technique.

And that's the end of possibly my longest ever warble!

Congratulations if you made it this far!


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Jack Mullaly