IMPROVING MUSCULAR STRENGTH

IMPROVING MUSCULAR STRENGTH

Muscular strength is the first component of fitness that I mentioned in my previous post. It's all about the max weight that a certain muscle can lift. Today let's talk about how to improve muscular strength.

First of all, a reminder of what muscular strength is. It is the maximal amount of weight a specific muscle or muscle group can lift for only once. This definition makes clear what kind of a workout one should perform to improve their muscular strength. 

It is obvious that in order to become stronger, you have to lift a weight that is close to your one-rep max. For example, if you can bench press 100kg, then, in order to improve your bench press, you will have to select a weight around 70-75 kg and perform 3-5 reps with it. That way your muscles will get used to lifting a weight close to your max, and as time goes by, they will be able to increase not only this specific weight, but also your one-rep max.

The way things work is that every time you force your muscle to lift such a big weight, you actually cause injury to your muscle. Your body wants to naturally heal the injured muscle, so that it does not get hurt the next time you choose to hit the weight room. Consequently, your muscle gets bigger because of this fact. This is a process known as muscle hypertrophy.

Now, let's clarify some things. Muscle size is not always directly connected to muscle strength. For example, we all see the so called strongmen who are a lot stronger that bodybuilders without being so muscular. That is because of the type of training they impose to their routine. However, muscle size is NOT independent on muscle strength (I've never seen an untrained and low muscle size person lift or move a big weight. Or at least not as easy as a larger person of the same training level would). The truth lies somewhere in the middle (I am not going to go futher into the subject. I will do so in future posts).

In the next post I am going to discuss cardiorespiratory endurance. From the 6th post on, I will start posting videos of exercises or workouts for all types of fitness components, as well as martial arts conditioning and nutrition. Stay tuned!