3 Rules For Strength Training

Strength training is a skill. Basically, everyone is walking around with a “V8 engine” (their musculature) but only firing on “4 cylinders” — no one is actually using their muscles to their fullest potential.

Your body actually keeps you from using all the strength of your muscles, as a safey mechanism. Your strength generally does not exceed 30% of your tendon structural strength. For instance, when people are electricuted their muscles often contract so hard that they break their bone structures.

That said, you can become MUCH stronger by learning how to “fire” more of your muscles and get them to contract harder and with more tension…. if… you follow these three rules for maximum strength training:

Rule #1: Focus On A Few Full Body Exercises

Only focus on a few, full body exercises. You want your whole body to be strong, so you must train it all as one unit. Plus, you get optimal hormone stimulation by training your whole body this way. Squats, Deadlifts, Overhead Press, and the Bench Press fit the bill.

Rule #2: Focus on High Resistance

To build strength your lifts must be done with high resistance. This is done by lifting heavy weights (or doing bodyweight exercises with unfavorable weight distribution and poor leverage) and by maximally contracting (tensing) your muscles as you lift.

The idea is to recruit more muscle fibers by:

1. Tensing every muscle as hard as possible throughout the exercise and…
2. While keeping high tension lifting the weight as fast as possible.

Rule #3: Focus on Multiple Sets of Low Reps

Because strength is a skill you can’t practice “sloppily”. Practice doesn’t make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect. So you must practice being strong. Each rep must be done as perfectly as possible (according to the above guidelines). Keep the reps low so you can stay mentally focused. Also, this will keep you from getting fatigued and getting sloppy. Avoid muscle failure.

To sum it all up: Lift as heavy as possible. As often as possible. While staying as fresh as possible.