Building strength with natural movement
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. This week we're talking about getting stronger. Specifically we're answering a question that a lot of people ask us when they first see our training.
"Will I get stronger training with you?"
The reason that people ask this is that they see our photos and videos and don't ever see us doing any specific strength work. We're a gym, but you never see us post a photo of anyone back squatting, bench pressing, doing pull ups or anything else that we typically associate with strength training.
The short answer to the question is 'yes, you will get stronger training with us', but the interesting part is why; and that's what I'm going to warble on about today!
There's a few different ways to think about answering this question. I'm going to talk about just one of them today.
To understand how you can build strength without doing specific strength work you need to understand something called the SAID principle. SAID stands for:
Specific
Adaptations to
Imposed
Demands
What the SAID principle tells us is that we get better (adaptations) at the things that we do (imposed demands); but nearly only at those things (specific). For example, if you run a lot, you will mainly get better at running. You might also get a little better at swimming if the running makes you fitter, but you'll mainly get better at running. If you do lots of squatting you'll get better at squatting. You might also get a bit better at running if leg strength was holding your running back, but your running won't improve much.
Now that we understand the SAID principle, we're going to take that knowledge and apply it to traditional, dedicated strength training approaches.
A typical approach to building strength might include some upper body pressing exercises like overhead press and bench press. (Note - Overhead press is where you stand upright with weight in your hands at your shoulders and you then press it straight up overhead until your arms are straight. Bench press involves lying on your back with weight in your hands at your chest and pressing it upwards which, because you are lying on your back, is straight out in front of you). Both these movements involve pressing to straighten the arms, but one pushes the weight up past the head and one pushes it out in front. You might think that because both involve straightening the arms that building strength in one would really help improve strength in the other; but in fact the SAID principle (and observation) tells us that they don't help each other much at all. Each builds its own narrow base of strength, isolated from the other and from all other movement. Put in the language of the SAID principle, each exercise imposes a demand on the body to which it adapts, but only very specifically.
Another way to look at these two example movements is in their complexity; or more specifically, their lack of complexity. Both the overhead press and bench press involve moving the weight in more or less a straight line. Compare this to a nature movement like crawling for example.
With crawling, you start by supporting your weight on your hands and feet. You are pushing into the ground to support yourself. You are using your strength. As you begin to move, the angle at which your arm is pushing changes. Every time you take a step, your arm begins by reaching out in front. The initial push is out in front of you, but as you shift forward, the direction of the push changes. You're using your strength, but in a far wider range of positions and angles. As a result you build more strength, not only in a couple of different positions, but in a huge array of different positions. In this way, the strength that you build is holistic, integrated and reflective of the way we naturally move. What's more it fills in all the gaps bench traditional strength training exercises.
So in fact our training doesn't include strength training. It's built into everything that we do. As a result you will get stronger training in us.
To put it in a nutshell:
Will our training help build strength?
Yes!
How will it help to build strength?
It will help to build strength because integrated strength work is built into everything that we do. We might not separate it out on its own, but that's a good thing, because the best and most useful strength comes integrated within movement.
Who can build strength this way?
Everyone, because natural human movement is for everyone, and we adjust the difficulty to suit your current ability level.
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