Strength training

Good Morning!

It's been a busy week for me Personal Training in mornings and evenings this week - with nearly every aftenoon off! Sometimes the early night is a good option :)

Between my appoinments this morning, 2 Village gym instructors asked me about strength training - as they were discussing muscles, muscle fibres, and their roles.......and how if differed from typical hypertrophy (size) training. Strength Training uses lower repetitions (reps) than Hypertrophy (size) training, and this was put to me in search of an answer.

The answer I spoke about was that strength training does obviously use muscles to move the (heavy) weight.............but they were ignoring the nervous system and the motor units involved in moving an object. I spoke about this training principle in my article "Training for muscle" - which highlighted the need for strength training prior to - or in conjunction with higher reps for increased muscle size.

After all - what is most likely the bigger muscle? A muscle that can push 60kg for 10 reps or a muscle that can push 80 kg for 10 reps? While not the rule - a bigger muscle will more than likely be stronger. (There are exceptions, and this can be seen in various types of athletes that use maximal weights).

The strength training the 2 instructors were referring to is quite taxing on the nervous system and should be handled in terms of intensity, volume and recovery. This brings about topics like periodisation, deloading, tapering and more.

Just thought I would let you know that there is a difference in training for strength and training for size! Its not just "lift heavy weights to get massive!"

Here's that link again ( Click here )

Have a good weekend!

John

PS Heavy weights are an essential component of the Bootcamps I am running. Many people think these are like traditional circuit sessions where you are out of breath from lifting 3kg dumbells a thousand times. If you like to lift heavy, get strong and fit - then click here to see what stuff REALLY goes on in Saturday morning Bootcamp :)