Strength is the ultimate sign of well rounded athlete. Not only does it allow you to lift heavy weight effortlessly, it also gives you the ability to become more explosive, increase endurance, and build more muscle which is KEY as a dedicated athlete. The mantra here at Frontline Strength is “a stronger athlete is a better athlete.” It is because of this that I believe strength is the most important aspect of training for an athlete, and should be the top priority. It will transfer to every other aspect of performance needed to perform at the top level.
Progressive Overload
The most important aspect of strength training is progressive overload, which basically means putting an increased workload on your body overtime. In this case, the most efficient way to progressively overload for strength is adding more weight to the bar. It’s really that simple. As long as you are overloading the body overtime, you will get stronger.
Knowing how much weight to add to the bar and when to do it is an important thing to consider when learning to train optimally for strength. A common problem people run into is adding too much weight too fast, leaving them stuck at a “plateau.” It may seem like common sense to increase the weight in small increments, but adding too much weight too fast is honestly a huge problem even among athletes. As a general rule, don’t ever add more than 5 pounds at a time to the bar when increasing the weight on an exercise. As a beginner with little resistance training you can typically add 5 pounds to a lift more regularly than an advanced lifter. But you should never add weight too quickly, or you will not grow stronger, and worse injure yourself. Here’s an example of the best way to make sure you are increasing weight at an appropriate pace. Take an exercise, in this case the deadlift, and do 3×3 reps. Lets say you get 3 reps the first set, and only 2 on the last two sets. You would keep the weight the same until you are able to get 3 reps on each set, only then you would you increase the weight by 5 pounds. That would be a perfect example of properly executed progressive overload. You would keep repeating this. Remember, as you get advanced, you may not be able to add weight as quickly, but keep at it, and you can still get stronger.
Reps and Sets
Another important question often asked when training for strength is, “how many reps and sets should I be doing?” While I preach that there is no magical rep and set range for any one particular goal, there are basic parameters you can follow that will allow you to get the most out of strength training.
When gaining strength as the primary goal, you need to make sure that you are more focused on INTENSITY rather than VOLUME. The higher the intensity is, the lower the volume of the workout should be. For example, if you are working with higher reps, your sets should be lower. If you are working with higher sets, your reps should be lower. Making sure there is a balance is hugely important.
A basic guideline for the amount of repetitions to do when strength training, typically falls in the 1-5 range. Anything past that and you’ll be moving more into hypertrophy training. As for sets, the higher the reps are (5 reps) the sets should stay around 3-5. The lower the reps are (1 rep) the higher the sets can be. In some cases I’ve done 10×1 for deadlifts. It all depends on your specific goals. With this basic guidelines, you are well on your way to becoming stronger.
Exercise Selection
For strength, we need to stick to big compound movements that will involve our whole bodies functionally. Especially as athletes, we can’t afford to train with exercises that won’t transfer over to our performance in our sports. Below are the top exercises all athletes should be focusing on when trying to get stronger.
Click on the links below for more info on how to perform them properly.
Weighted Chin-ups
Nutrition
When thinking about nutrition and strength training, you have to think about your specific goals as an athlete. Some athletes, like long distance cross country athletes, don’t want to be big and bulky because it will actually DECREASE their ability to perform at the top level in their sport. That’s the awesome thing about training for strength. It doesn’t equal big muscles, when you diet right. To gain muscle, you have to be in a caloric surplus, and most mass gain comes from high volume training. As a distance runner, you burn so many calories running, that when you strength train, it will only increase your ability to run, by strengthening the joints, tendons, and muscles, with little to no increase in size. The same can be said for a football player who needs to be big and bulky to increase his performance as an athlete. Eating in a surplus while training for strength in a bit higher volume setting with yield larger, more dense muscle. So as an athlete, eat to fuel yourself specific to your sport. Strength will come through training and proper nutrition, and it will increase performance as an athlete no matter what sport you are in.
Closing
Training for strength is the key to becoming the best athlete you can be. Taking the tools given, apply them to your workouts and allow the results to speak for themselves. Through getting stronger you will increase energy, power, muscle and endurance to rise to the top of competition and become a truly GREAT athlete.