Perhaps you’ve set your heart on getting stronger this year. You’ve got your lifting straps, your weight belt and have trained your eye on the squat rack. But if you are, you know, human and stuff, strength is a gradual pursuit where the addition of weight to the bar comes slowly…sometimes, frustratingly so. But you don’t have to fully surrender to the pace of your innate physiology.As luck (read: science) would have it, there are a few ways that you can see an uptick in strength in your very next workout. Try building any of the following five methods into your next routine to see a boost in the L-Bs you’re heaving about.
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Take Caffeine
Think you can benefit by being five pounds stronger right now? Then don’t skip your caffeine pre-workout, y’all. A study out of the University of Nebraska found that a 200 milligram dose of caffeine provided subjects with a five-pound boost to their one-rep max on the bench. A related study found that subjects were able to complete more reps on the bench at 80% of their 1RM when under the influence of caffeine. So, yeah…you need to have this stuff if you’re serious about strength.>> Get Strong: Taking caffeine in your pre-workout drink is fine, just be sure that it contains between 200-300 milligrams of the stuff. An even better alternative is to take caffeine anhydrous in the same dose, separate from your usual blend of creatine, glutamine, beta-alanine and BCAA. Your most effective window? Thirty to 60 minutes before your first rep.
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Train One Limb At A Time
Training two limbs at a time, as you do with barbell curls or skullcrushers, is fine and all but going one arm at a time may be best if your goal is to move more weight.Research shows that you are about 20 percent stronger when training one limb at a time than when training bilaterally. The exact reason why is not clear but one theory is that your brain, realizing that no one is coming to help, switches on more muscle fibers to complete each rep. For example, if you normally perform overhead presses with a 100-pound bar for 10 reps, you can expect to press 55-pound dumbbells one side at a time for just as many strength-boosting reps. As a bonus, once you hit failure, you can use the opposite limb to assist the other.>> Get Strong: Make your first move on arm or leg day a unilateral move. Single-arm dumbbell curls, concentration curls, single-arm overhead presses, single-leg extensions or single-leg hamstring curls, for example, can help you lift approximately 20 percent more weight for the same amount of reps.
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Potentiate
It may not roll off the tongue as easy as “negatives” or “drop sets” but post-activation potentiation (PAP) is a term that should be in your training vernacular. PAP is essentially the ability of one exercise to immediately impact the exercise that follows. By “tricking” your central nervous system into thinking that it’s in for a barrage of maxed-out loads, it activates more muscle fibers to join in the fight. So for those seeking to boost strength, you can take advantage of this phenomenon by lifting a crazy heavy weight and follow it a few minutes later with some heavier-than-normal working sets.>> Get Strong: Before a heavy lift (but after a thorough warm-up), set the weight at 90-95 percent of your 1RM and crank out a rep (or two, if possible). Rest 2-3 minutes, then dive back in with your 6-8 rep sets. You’ll find that you can either use slightly more weight at that range, or that you can grunt out an extra rep or two at the weight you normally use. You’re welcome.
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Go Negative
When training to get beasty strong, most guys focus on how much weight they can press or squat. But this usually leads to a lack of focus on the most important part of the lift: the negative.One study found that subjects were up to 160 percent stronger on the negative portion of a lift. That may be in the high range of normal but the point is you are able to resist gravity more effectively than you can overcome it. Researchers at East Carolina University found that subjects increased strength by 46 percent – wait for it – in a single week of using eccentric training in their routines.>> Get Strong: Since your first move in your routine is usually your big strength exercise, you should use negatives right out of the gate, when you’re fresh. Under the supervision of a reliable spotter, try 2-3 sets of 3-5 slow negatives using about 20% more than your 1RM. Follow this with your standard heavy sets and higher-volume work.
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Use A Dynamic Warm-Up
If you’re one who just likes to get under the bar and get to work, we salute you…and the physical therapist you’ll have to visit eventually. Starting cold, particularly when you’re training for strength, is just an injury waiting to happen. But it can also diminish your ability to press maximum amounts of weight.Dynamic warm-ups, where you stretch your whole body through movement, elevates core body temperature and prepares connective tissue for the work ahead. But it also wakes up the central nervous system, amping it up for the coming smackdown. Still not convinced? Research published in the Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research found that a 15-minute warm-up consisting of work on a stationary bike, various running drills and dynamic stretches improved quadriceps strength and hamstring flexibility. Groups performing static stretches or no warm-up at all saw no improvements.>> Get Strong: Ahead of your next workout, perform a 10-15 minute warm-up consisting of multi-joint movements that get progressively more difficult. An example would be 30 seconds each of jogging in place, jumping jacks, walking lunges, high-knee running, shadowboxing and alternating lunge jumps.
Perhaps you’ve set your heart on getting stronger this year. You’ve got your lifting straps, your weight belt and have trained your eye on the squat rack. But if you are, you know, human and stuff, strength is a gradual pursuit where the addition of weight to the bar comes slowly…sometimes, frustratingly so. But you don’t have to fully surrender to the pace of your innate physiology.
As luck (read: science) would have it, there are a few ways that you can see an uptick in strength in your very next workout. Try building any of the following five methods into your next routine to see a boost in the L-Bs you’re heaving about.
Take Caffeine
Think you can benefit by being five pounds stronger right now? Then don’t skip your caffeine pre-workout, y’all. A study out of the University of Nebraska found that a 200 milligram dose of caffeine provided subjects with a five-pound boost to their one-rep max on the bench. A related study found that subjects were able to complete more reps on the bench at 80% of their 1RM when under the influence of caffeine. So, yeah…you need to have this stuff if you’re serious about strength.
>> Get Strong: Taking caffeine in your pre-workout drink is fine, just be sure that it contains between 200-300 milligrams of the stuff. An even better alternative is to take caffeine anhydrous in the same dose, separate from your usual blend of creatine, glutamine, beta-alanine and BCAA. Your most effective window? Thirty to 60 minutes before your first rep.
Train One Limb At A Time
Training two limbs at a time, as you do with barbell curls or skullcrushers, is fine and all but going one arm at a time may be best if your goal is to move more weight.
Research shows that you are about 20 percent stronger when training one limb at a time than when training bilaterally. The exact reason why is not clear but one theory is that your brain, realizing that no one is coming to help, switches on more muscle fibers to complete each rep. For example, if you normally perform overhead presses with a 100-pound bar for 10 reps, you can expect to press 55-pound dumbbells one side at a time for just as many strength-boosting reps. As a bonus, once you hit failure, you can use the opposite limb to assist the other.
>> Get Strong: Make your first move on arm or leg day a unilateral move. Single-arm dumbbell curls, concentration curls, single-arm overhead presses, single-leg extensions or single-leg hamstring curls, for example, can help you lift approximately 20 percent more weight for the same amount of reps.
Potentiate
It may not roll off the tongue as easy as “negatives” or “drop sets” but post-activation potentiation (PAP) is a term that should be in your training vernacular. PAP is essentially the ability of one exercise to immediately impact the exercise that follows. By “tricking” your central nervous system into thinking that it’s in for a barrage of maxed-out loads, it activates more muscle fibers to join in the fight. So for those seeking to boost strength, you can take advantage of this phenomenon by lifting a crazy heavy weight and follow it a few minutes later with some heavier-than-normal working sets.
>> Get Strong: Before a heavy lift (but after a thorough warm-up), set the weight at 90-95 percent of your 1RM and crank out a rep (or two, if possible). Rest 2-3 minutes, then dive back in with your 6-8 rep sets. You’ll find that you can either use slightly more weight at that range, or that you can grunt out an extra rep or two at the weight you normally use. You’re welcome.
Go Negative
When training to get beasty strong, most guys focus on how much weight they can press or squat. But this usually leads to a lack of focus on the most important part of the lift: the negative.
One study found that subjects were up to 160 percent stronger on the negative portion of a lift. That may be in the high range of normal but the point is you are able to resist gravity more effectively than you can overcome it. Researchers at East Carolina University found that subjects increased strength by 46 percent – wait for it – in a single week of using eccentric training in their routines.
>> Get Strong: Since your first move in your routine is usually your big strength exercise, you should use negatives right out of the gate, when you’re fresh. Under the supervision of a reliable spotter, try 2-3 sets of 3-5 slow negatives using about 20% more than your 1RM. Follow this with your standard heavy sets and higher-volume work.
Use A Dynamic Warm-Up
If you’re one who just likes to get under the bar and get to work, we salute you…and the physical therapist you’ll have to visit eventually. Starting cold, particularly when you’re training for strength, is just an injury waiting to happen. But it can also diminish your ability to press maximum amounts of weight.
Dynamic warm-ups, where you stretch your whole body through movement, elevates core body temperature and prepares connective tissue for the work ahead. But it also wakes up the central nervous system, amping it up for the coming smackdown. Still not convinced? Research published in the Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research found that a 15-minute warm-up consisting of work on a stationary bike, various running drills and dynamic stretches improved quadriceps strength and hamstring flexibility. Groups performing static stretches or no warm-up at all saw no improvements.
>> Get Strong: Ahead of your next workout, perform a 10-15 minute warm-up consisting of multi-joint movements that get progressively more difficult. An example would be 30 seconds each of jogging in place, jumping jacks, walking lunges, high-knee running, shadowboxing and alternating lunge jumps.
