Training Fundamentals: How to Build a Base of Strength & Muscle for Performance & Health
Basic strategic programming to build muscle and get stronger to improve all performance qualities
Table of Contents/Topics Covered:
What is Strength? + Why it Matters
You are Probably Weaker Than You Think
How to Get Strong + “Strength vs Muscle”
Beginners v Intermediates/Advanced
Strength Standards
Beginner Routine
Intermediate Adjusted Routine
How to Lift Heavy + Why
Nutrition Requirements
Considerations for Sport/In-season vs Off-season
Closing thoughts
The purpose of this essay is to help any trainee build a solid base of strength for performance along with the muscle needed to support activity and metabolism. We will go over strength definitions and its nuances in just enough detail to keep you informed while still keeping this as a “fundamentals” post that remains practical. Those of you who do not have a true strength base (most of you) will need to read this in order to become more powerful, durable, and useful as an athlete.
What is Strength?
Strength, as a trait, can be defined super simply as the ability to produce force. More specifically, the ability to produce force against resistance. Every expression of strength is ultimately an expression of force. To move an object, you are applying force. To prevent an object from moving, you are applying force. When you jump, run, pick up, and throw anything, from your own body to a pencil, you are applying force. Force application is the essence of all action especially in sport. It is often the #1 thing you can do outside of skill practice to improve your ability as an athlete. This is why it is placed on the 2nd rung of training qualities. Strength, along with aerobic conditioning and sport play, are the highest return on investment training goals for broad performance you can make (not including “foundational health” - which rightfully is the most important and actual highest ROI for long-term performance).
Why Strength Matters
If you are reading this, I doubt I need to explain this because you are certainly already interested in being stronger. However, I believe it’s worth noting some considerations about strengths relationship to you.
Any time you interact with your environment, the element that facilitates that relationship is dictated by an application of force, and thus some level of strength. Speaking to your friends, chewing your food, and typing this essay is an application of force and therefore a usage of strength (to a small capacity, relatively speaking).
It is obvious why strength may have mattered during more primitive times; however, an average person might ask what purpose it serves in the modern world. It still serves the exact same purpose - the issue is simply that many of us as a society have lost our appreciation for what it provides us.
A strong body is a more youthful body. It is more difficult to be injured. Tasks both mentally and physically are easier to overcome and maintain. To be physically strong is to literally be a more useful person and lays the foundation for mental confidence and strength of character.
To be weak, in any respect, is to be useless in that regard and to become stronger is to become a more capable man or woman.
I won’t poetically describe what I think of strength philosophically any further - but it is literally the tool you use to interact with every other object in your environment. By increasing your strength, you increase your ability to impart your will on any object. No one has ever become less confident in themselves or less intimidating to competition by being physically stronger.
It’s clear why this is excellent for power sports, however other sports have a capacity to be improved by strength gain as well. This also goes for general living - carrying children, moving furniture, yardwork, and perhaps your job if it is physically demanding will be easier and safter with a stronger physical element on and IN your bones. It is also worth noting, that *remaining* strong as you age is critical - sarcopenia is one of the leading indirect causes of death and disease and by remaining strong you can make sure you are getting off the toilet safely when you are old (not a joke).
You Probably are Not as Strong as You Think
It’s common that guys tend to see themselves as stronger than they really are. Not everyone, as the exceedingly skinny guys tend to admit this. However, the “middle” guy often thinks they are “pretty strong”. They, relatively speaking, are often not.
How do they know this? What metric are you using to make that evaluation about yourself? Because grandma called you a “big strong boy”? It’s common that men just don’t want to admit they aren’t particularly strong when it is plausibly deniable. Unless you have an actual metric that you consistently or semi-consistently have measured yourself on then you have no legitimate reason to know that you are *particularly* strong. (Refer back to “measuring progress” in previous posts) If you aren’t “particularly strong” then you are likely just around average.
Women tend not to suffer from this mindset as much and their attitude makes them more coachable, generally speaking. It’s also important to note that what we’re talking about when saying “not strong” doesn’t necessarily mean “weak”, as in weaker than the average person, but simply saying one is not stronger than the average person, either. For anyone reading this it is highly likely that we do not want to be average and based on “average person” outcomes due to strength lack or loss in life, to be particularly strong compared to average is something desirable to strive toward.
So How Do I Get Strong?
The concept is simple - push the body to produce large amounts of force in the directions/angles you need to close to its limits and then allow the body to adapt to those consistent demands.
By pushing the limits and boundaries of what your body can do, like anything else, your biology and physiology will attempt to accommodate those demands by pushing the buffer-zone of what your limits are further than they were before. (Provided the stimulus & recovery was adequate) Then, after a period of recovery, you repeat this process again. Over time, by pushing the boundaries of your ability and then recovering - the baseline boundaries of your bodies capacity to produce will have moved significantly higher. (We will explain basic strategies on how to do this further below)
You may have heard this referred to as “progressive overload“. Simply, this is the concept of increasing the demand on the body overtime as the body becomes more capable of meeting those increasing demands.
I’m sure we’re all aware that resistance training is the best method to develop this. It is literally “resistance” training - which we define strength as the ability to apply force against resistance. (Obvious) I do need to mention, however, that it is still very common that people believe weightlifting “doesn’t build real strength” or “isn’t functional” and subscribe to some other training habits that they believe build substantial strength but do not.
There is no one that is far above average in raw strength that built it using things like yoga, pilates, dance, etc. These activities have their place but are not going to take you to high levels of raw force production. I will also add, that in MOST cases calisthenics is included here although they are a very useful training modality they are often practiced in a very limited way and thus most “practitioners” don’t make it to serious maximum strength levels beyond their high rep records in pushups and other things. Their training becomes endurance based rather than force application based.
Strength vs Muscle
It’s commonly stated in many “strength” circles that increased strength (higher force outputs) leads to increased muscle tissue.