Well Rounded Resistance Training
Many people still have some of the benefits of training different load intensities, rep ranges, and movement styles confused. Many writers and coaches don’t even discuss the speed of the lift at all, let alone mention them in their Instagram training program, that only costs $19.99. Since many don’t talk about these aspects of resistance training, many miss out on performing the right moves, the right way, for the right goal. Years of gym talk, athlete interviews, and instagram posts may have been launching so much fitness information at us, that we might find ourself program-hopping, disorganized, and discouraged from a lack of progress in what we wish to improve through training. If you consider resistance training to be a part of your health and wellness, or sports performance training, analyze, and find out what you need to conquer your goal.
What you need to know
- A focus on strength training is purely about moving a maximum load for one repetition. You can see this in powerlifting, where athletes attempt to move weight through maximum overload.
- Muscular endurance training is about increasing your maximum repetitions with a certain level weight, for the sake of training a body to push through constant overload.
- Power training is about increasing your force output for a certain exercise. A simple way to visualize power, would be a hybrid of strength and speed.
- Athletes should have exercises for all three of these resistance exercise principles within their training routine, in one way or another.
31 Likes, 4 Comments - David Corrado B.S, CSCS (@trainathlon) on Instagram: "The caffeine rush is real, get a tub of PWO-MAX by @primenutra ,and crush your workouts harder,..."
In this video, you can see strength, endurance, and power all trained by seperate modalities.
Three ways to push past resistance
Push-ups, bench presses, clean and jerks, turkish get-ups, and battle ropes, though so wildly different, all belong to the same family; the resistance training family. While they all follow the principle of overload training, they all have a certain benefit to improving your physical performance, if and only if used properly for their purpose. In regards to resistance training, there are 3 main categories:
Muscular strength training
Muscular endurance training
Power training
Knowing which type of training, and how to implement it into your sessions will be what seperates you from exercising to sweat, to actually improving the hardware your body is made out of, for the task it’s built for.
Muscular Strength?
52 Likes, 3 Comments - David Corrado B.S, CSCS (@trainathlon) on Instagram: ""Where I go, I just don't know, I got to got to take that eccentric slow, I lift that hex bar with..."
If you’ve ever heard the Arnold-old adage, “Lift heavy weights at low repetitions for size, and lower weights at high repetitions to get cut,” you may have been misdirected in your strength pursuits.
While you may indeed notice muscular size and strength gains from either of these ranges of repetitions, if you want to get stronger, you are going to need to load more weight (intensity) on to your movement, and start pushing for higher weights, at the same rep range day by day, week by week. If on week one, you’re lifting 300 pounds for 5 reps, on week 2, you should be looking to hit 310 for 5. On week 3, 320 for 5, and so on.
One key thing that’s lost without pure, low-repetition strength training, is the need for your body to properly brace, engage the glutes, and cocontract the muscles surrounding your spine (abs, obliques), and clench your fist with a death grip, practicing to completing the movement through intense overload.
58 Likes, 2 Comments - David Corrado B.S, CSCS (@trainathlon) on Instagram: "#405 rack-pulls to end an intense week of travel. Good to be back to PR hunting. #fitfam #stronger..."
Rack Pulls or a short Range-of-Motion deadlift/hinge move that force you to brace the spine, squeeze the glutes, and grip a bar with brute force. If you can engage and stabilize your midsection in every compound exercise, strength will noticeably improve. This will also help prevent pain, and keep people in the category of "those who don't suffer painful deadlifts."
This type of lifting will improve your abillity to move more load, period. If your goal is to increase your one-rep-max on the compound lifts (Squat, Bench Press, Deadlift, and to many, including myself, the standing strict overhead press) you have to challenge your body in a way that makes it NEED to contract intensely, and put maximal force into the movement, to complete the repetition with proper technique, successfully. Better than the bench press for teaching this, is the weighted push-up.
34 Likes, 2 Comments - David Corrado B.S, CSCS (@trainathlon) on Instagram: "I like weighted pushups better than the bench press. It's much more of a structural exercise, as..."
Plates work for these as well, but the sandbags are so much more comfortable, and safe.
As opposed to the bench press, where many people will dig into their spinal erectors, and hyperextend their back. a weighted pushup forces you to keep your midsection braced tightly. If you have a partner and some weighted sand bags or weight plates, you can work the pushup at the same low, heavy rep ranges, and build your abillity to brace for maximal strength efforts in almost every other resistance exercise you perform. Just remember, a pushup is essentially a moving plank. If your back is sagging, you’ve got some muscles lacking.
Every athlete, or aspiring ass-kicker should implement some type of heavy, pure strength lifts into their exercise regimen. Pure strength training is about increasing your abillity to move weight, while staying at the bodyweight and lean mass that you currently are. Sure, you may lose or gain a few pounds doing so, but again, this wouldn’t be the focus, getting stronger is….If that isn’t very much of your focus (though it should be) working on muscular endurance might be more of your thing.
Muscular Endurance?
If muscular strength is about being able to put out a huge amount of power, for a little bit of time, than muscular endurance is about the exact opposite of this, moving less weight for a lot of time/repetitions. While a powerlifter might argue that anything over 5 repetitions is cardio, real muscular endurance training, in my opinion, happens at the 15–20 (and beyond) repetition ranges. Muscular endurance training builds your body in a way that helps it manage with increased resistance, for a sustained period of time, like in climbing hills, running on sand, holding a plank in yoga (Also known as the top of a pushup,) as well as many other physical tasks humans might face. Drop-sets, or doing a set with proper repetition until your form fails, and immediately decreasing the weight to keep going (again, with PROPER technique) are one way lifters try to increase their muscular endurance.
Even though weight would keep decreasing, the number of reps in that set only grows! That’s textbook definition endurance work.
Drop-sets are great, but not the only approach you can take to improving your muscular endurance. A more linear, progression friendly method you can use on a variety of lifts would be this:
Pick your exercise, pick your weight. Find out how many times you can move that weight in your exercise with proper technique, until you can’t (you have to be BRUTALLY honest about your technique, and leave your ego at the door when you do this.) Ideally, you should’ve picked a weight that you can move for anything from 10–15 reps before complete fatigue. Each week, or each session you should add one rep to your set, increasing your endurance of moving THAT particular weight, at that particular move. When you’re endurance with it has drastically increased (to performing 20–25 reps with the weight), add weight, and push through that same cycle again. Not only are you increasing your endurance in this case, now your starting to increase your strength (though not at the same capacity as training at very low rep ranges.)
If strength training is increasing your output with the bodyweight you have, endurance training might actually be for putting some more muscle, and more pounds on your body weight.
One thing you can’t overlook with training for muscular endurance, is your rest to work ratio. 30 seconds is the low end of the amount of rest time needed to promote hypertrophy from training, according to the National Strength and Conditioning Association curriculum. Needless to say, depending on what your sets look like, 30 seconds may not be enough. Your rest should all be relative to the amount of work you did during the working set. If you did 15 Arnold presses, 30 seconds might be enough time. If you did max-rep drop sets on the hack squat machine, your body might feel like its been taken as close to dying as it has been; in 30 seconds, you might still be crying and quivering on the floor. Needless to say, you would not attempt that for a second set if you only had 30 seconds in between; but two minutes later? Now you might stand a chance.
73 Likes, 15 Comments - David Corrado B.S, CSCS (@trainathlon) on Instagram: "Got a late night workout in before bedtime last night. I love being a part of team #homegym for..."
The Kettle Bell Swing is a staple, and it’s used across the industry. Swinging for sets of 15 or higher can be beneficial for full body muscular endurance work, as well as power exercises, which we’ll get into later.
The focus of each set should be on achieving the peak of your physical performance. Waiting the extra time to do the [insert brutal compound exercise] max rep drop-set is better than stepping up to the platform to fail miserably, and letting your emotions convince you that the exhaustion you feel isn’t temporary.
Don’t look at endurance training as self-victimization, look at it as conquering a new type of challenge on it’s own. If you’re trying to increase the size of your muscles (hypertrophy), and slinging around heavy weights (possibly with crappy technique) has not been working for you, let it be known that many of the most respected bodybuilders achieved their physique through high numbers of repetitions, not necessarily with the focus being on moving extremely heavy weight.
The Farmer’s Carry can be done heavy for short distances for more grip and core strength, or it could be done for many laps for grip and core endurance.
For anyone trying to improve your sports performance, unfortunately, these two styles of training mentioned above aren’t going to be enough to cut it for you. You’ll need to take your focus to a different place: Power.
Power training?
The last type of resistance training is critical for almost every athletic endeavor you could imagine. A golf club, tennis racket, baseball bat and ball, and Bumper-plate-loaded barbell only weigh so much, so how do you turn them into force against nature? Add velocity.
Power is the abillity to generate force, and it all depends on an athletes output of speed and strength. If it isn’t clear how this might be different from many of the compound lifts mentioned before, try a few of these examples to see the difference:
On overhead press can be used for strength or endurance, but a split jerk would be used for power.
Sumo deadlifting a kettle bell could be used for strength or endurance, but swinging the kettlebell would be for power.
Though your standard commercial gym may only have as heavy as a 30 pound kettle bell, rethink swings as a power training tool, instead of just and endurance training tool. Get an explosive hinge, and dominate your game (even if it’s just the game of life.)
A barbell can be rowed for strength and endurance, or it could be rowed with speed behind the bar for power, like a Pendlay row, or other variation.
Why you need to include power in your training
Power is all about sheer force production. Almost every athletic event is explosive, and explosive power is a physical attribute rooted in survival. A punch? A kick? Tackling an opponent? Survival comes from power. Getting your golf game down a couple strokes requires power. Better serves, spikes, and pitches come from having power. It’s one thing to be strong, but it’s another thing to be heavy. Don’t let your newfound muscle size and strength make you feel heavy and sluggish, implement power training into your routine in a similar way that you would strength. You might even notice an INCREASE in muscle-mass due to the increased demands on the fast twitch muscle fibers, which could cause hypertrophy in them.
Like in pure strength training, train for power at low rep ranges, or one rep at a time, with short to medium rest intervals in between. If you’ve ever heard of every-minute-on-the-minute sets, they work well with the olympic lifts, as well as box jumps.
Yes, your body can be enough weight to train for power. And a box jump can be done for a one-rep-max.
The olympic lifts are some of the best lifts for developing power and strength, but some athletes don’t have the time, training energy, or right risk-to-reward ration to reap the benefits of proper, effective, olympic training.
Fear not though, there are plenty of other tools you can use instead, with more simple, lower-risk technique involved:
Kettle bell-olympic lift variations.
This is the kettle bell high-pull, a more ergonomic version of the barbell high pull. Same movement, different package.
Sand bag exercises
Carry them, push them, flip them, toss them, slam them. Sand bags come in all shapes, weights, and sizes, and are optimal power training tools. Many MMA fighters and other athletes with a need for explosive power line the walls of their gyms with these.
Your own body!
There has to be a million different plyometric exercises out there. Your body is weight, and you can put some power behind it. Squat jumps, box jumps, long jumps and other exercises can help build speed and better power output, and the great news; they’re free. Just try to do them on a medium or soft surface, because what comes up, must come down. Protect those joints.
Pair plyometrics with strength exercises for the same muscle group in a superset, and improve in both!
Weight and elastic Bands
Elastic bands are condusive for building any athlete or powerlifters power. On any lift with a band of resistance on it, the lifter is forced to push with more force than needed at the beginning of the lift, as he or she gets closer to the end of the lift. Also, because the band keeps increasing in resistance as you get closer to the apex of the lift, which helps to prevent hyperextension. If you perform many of these lifts with the correct level of speed and intensity, you may find yourself overshooting the lift, and hyperextending, or tainting your form in another way. Don’t let this happen, band it up, and learn to accelerate properly.
Any type of pushing object (Beware of ego lifting, if you want to work on power)
Sled drags, prowler pushes, heavy tire rolls and farmers carrys can work for strength, endurance and power. How it benefits you is all based on how you load it! If you load it with heavy weight, and push it at a short distance, with no concern about speed, consider that for strength. If you take it with a little bit less weight, and focus on moving the weight a certain distance faster as your sessions progress, consider that for power. If you push or pull and object for lap after lap, consider it for endurance.
While this by no means touches on everything you need to know about resistance training, it’s a great place to assess what your routine is lacking currently. Different coaches have different opinions on programming for power, strength, and endurance training.
Many would separate it, training in blocks where a phase focuses on strength, then another phase purely for endurance, followed by another phase purely for power.
The focus on each abillity seperately helps insure that an athletes lagging performance abillities (like low strength, low endurance, weak power)are improved by the end of the training block/phase. Coming from a Tactical Strength and Conditioning school of thought, I believe in a more broadly focused, cover all bases routine for your average citizen, and a tactical athlete, for sure.
Here’s what a few workouts would look like in a well-rounded resistance training program, programmed for 3 days a week.
SAMPLE PROGRAM
Workout A-Upper Body
5x5 weighted pullups (if weight is needed) [STRENGTH]
5x5 Overhead press [STRENGTH]
3x20 rep drop set, incline bench press [ENDURANCE]
3x20 rep drop set, reverse flies [ENDURANCE]
5x3 Split Jerks (Focus on bar speed, not load) [POWER]
Workout B- Lower Body
3x15 Hamstring Curl [WARMUP/ENDURANCE]
5x5 Squat or Deadlift [STRENGTH]
3x20 rep drop set on Hack Squat or closed-foot leg press/squat.[ENDURANCE]
{4x5-10 Heavy Kettle Bell Swings [POWER]
OR
3x20 reps of Kettle Bell Swings [ENDURANCE]}
4x5 Box jumps or squat jumps [POWER]
Workout C-Full Body
5x3–5 Power clean, or Banded deadlift. (Power clean only if technique is on par) [POWER]
3x15–20 reps of squats/box squats [ENDURANCE]
3x15–20 reps of pulldowns/rows [UPPER BODY WARMUP/ENDURANCE]
5x5 Bench Press [STRENGTH]
3x maximum reps of Pushups [ENDURANCE]
{4x5–10 Heavy Kettle Bell Swings [POWER]
OR
3x20 reps of Kettle Bell Swings [ENDURANCE]}
Do the above with whichever one you DID NOT do in Workout B
David Corrado BS CSCS
NSCA Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist, TSAC-F. University of Florida Grad, training throughout South Florida.Performance over everything.