An Approach to Strength

The last few weeks, I have been doing a lot of studying in terms of Physiology. I always studied a lot, but of late its getting to the point of an obsession.I have had these phases before, but never so intensely.


It started with the quest for ultimate recovery methods. As expected, western research is woefully inadequate on the matter. I turned to Russian research and found a lot more info, but to be honest, no real conclusions. It would seem that the capacity to recover is a skill in itself, the exact components of which no one really knows. Thus, we are unable to break it down and understand how to get better at this skill. Presumably, the one who would master this skill, could make the fastest progress.


In the end of my research I came to the following conclusions about recovery-

1. Sleep seems essential for it.

2. Muscle recovery happens while you are awake.

3. For the most part, Endocrinol and neural recovery also happens while you are awake.

4. Nobody really knows why we need to sleep.

5. Nobody really knows what causes fatigue.

6. Nobody really knows why you hit strength barriers.


Don't get me wrong, I learnt a lot during this time. But I learnt more from what we did not know, than what we did know.


So I decided to approach the problem from a different angle. I asked myself the question- Why do we need to recover in the first place? Because a strain has been put on our system, and the energy needs to be restored. More importantly from our point of view, some kind of super-compensation is required in order to deal with the work load. This super-compensation happens in 2 forms- hypertrophy and strength increase.


This theory would have us believe that an endless progressive cycle would lead to endless gains. But we all know this to not be the case. Interestingly, gains in strength are not directly proportional to hypertrophy. Other than the fact that increase in the size of the muscle fibers themselves (not sarcoplasmic hypertrophy) will lead to some increase in strength, there seems to be no real relation or rather no constant. In fact, empirically, after about the first 50 pounds of muscle mass, (generally) the amount of strength added for each pound of increased muscle mass would be lesser than the weight of the muscle itself. This explains why after a certain point, people can continue to increase their strength only by adding increasing amounts of bulk, assuming that that is the only way they are seeking to improve strength.


It is worth noting that most Russian research on the topic, and current western research, seems to indicate that the greatest factors effecting strength are functional rather than structural. This means that beyond a point, strength can be increased more fruitfully by focusing on functional adaptations, like increased neuro muscular drive, increased connective tissue strength, better stretch reflexes, more muscle fiber recruitment and more efficient utilization of skeletal leverages. Adding muscle mass beyond this point seems to take away from the overall efficiency of the body. This, and not to mention a lot more research seems to indicate that there may be an optimal level of hypertrophy, beyond which increase in size takes away from the abilities of the body.


In this case it is important to understand that strength as such would be best defined, in the context of this topic, as the amount of force that can be produced in certain movements by the body, relative to body-weight  Thus beyond and below this optimal hypertrophy point, the strength to body-weight ratio declines.


What is interesting to observe is that even those athletes who train strictly in order to increase proportional strength, like gymnasts or olympic weightlifters (in weight classes) , undergo SOME hypertrophy and structural changes, along with increases in strength, even while they focus their entire training on increasing strength through functional adaptations. It would seem that this increase in muscle size is the minimal amount required in order to support the increase in proportional strength. Thus, every increase in weight for these athletes, assuming they train using only functional methods, would get them closer to their ideal body-weight  This is of course assuming they are fairly lean and do not increase body fat levels, and their training in focused on simply moving more resistance (barbell or body-weight  relative to their body-weight  Thus once they reach this size, more increase in size would not occur, as increases in strength cane be increased to a more efficient degree, through functional training beyond this point.


What is important to observe at this point is that it seems fatigue is one of the pre-requisites to dramatic increases in size. It is well documented that heavy loads, lifted to failure or rather forced to be lifted for extra reps, leads to incredible growth. But what is more interesting is that the increase in strength from this hypertrophy is never anywhere as much as the increase in strength from the same level of hypertrophy in someone who never tried to push for size gains i.e never went close to fatigue. Of course such a person would not gain size anywhere as fast as the first person, but this goes to explain why bodybuilders and olympic lifters of the exact same weight are never even in the same league of strength.


This is further borne out by the fact the largest and the strongest (proportionally) muscles in almost all mammals are the ones that are least used. This would suggest that the phenomenon of increase in strength is more of a learning curve, than a size curve. Essentially the body must learn to get stronger, and must make the structural changes required to support the higher levels of tension. This is why hypertrophy is required to increase strength, just not as much as we think.


The fact of the mater is, if we hypothetically divorced ourselves from lifting poundages and defined strength as the ability to move the body, we would practice moving the body in harder and harder ways to get stronger. Thus, we would be focusing on learning movements, like learning an art, or dance. Any bodily changes are a welcome side effect, but the objective would always be strength (i.e movement). If you can maintain this thinking even with barbells, then you have the same mind as an olympic lifter.


Seen from a cost benefit analysis, hypertrophy being the cost and strength being the benefit, it would seem that doing the minimum required, in order to increase strength would be the best way to learn the skill of strength.


Thus when we cut down the intensity and workload of each session to the bare minimum required to make progress, we can keep practicing the skill of producing power- i.e strength (in certain movements of course), without fatigue stopping us. Think about it- if strength were treated just like mastering an art, you would never encounter fatigue in the first place, for recovery to be an issue. And just like an art, you grow stale only when you over practice it- as then your mind grows stale from it.


Hence it would seem that if intensity and workload per session were reduced to the minimum required to make any progress, and the frequency of practice regulated to prevent mental boredom and overdose from the movements, all the laws of training we take for granted wont apply. Periodization wont be necessary, and over training will never happen.


Thus it would seem that the best way to get out of fatigue, over training and a strength barrier is to simply never to get into them in the first place. Never train to fatigue, treat your training as practice and not working out and master strength like you would master playing the guitar.


I am not suggesting what I am saying here is necessarily true. I have after all come to these conclusions only recently. But I feel we might be on to something here.


So as a personal experiment, from today on-wards I am going to limit my strength training to the minimum amount required to make any progress. I will not train more than 6 movements- I pick push ups, pull ups, handstand push ups, bridges, squats and leg raises. I will focus on mastering only one lift- I choose the pull up. The ultimate objective would be the one arm chin up for several reps. Everything else will be reduced to the absolute bare minimum level required to make progress , or at least what amount in my experience allows me to make some progress.

In this case 3 heavy (rep range 2-6 with a weight that allows 4-8) sets per exercise a week, 3 medium sets a week, performed on 2 different days.

The pull up I will train as and well I feel like doing them. I will limit my practices to one set a session, just enough to practice it, with as many reps as can be performed in perfect technique with perfect control and contraction, never going beyond 8. The intensity will fluctuate constantly, just like mastering a song, and the long term objective would be to graduate to harder steps. (see the post on pull ups). I may perform no sets of pull ups a day, or a may do 10, depending on how fresh I am and how motivated I feel. Since I will never be going anywhere close to muscular fatigue, the main factors controlling frequency of practice will be my mental and nervous state.

Always, as many times as can be done, with a fresh, charged and enthusiastic mind- without ever training on the nervous edge.


I will use this approach for sometime, and lets see how it works out. Anybody else who may want to try this system may try it too, but please keep a record and we can correlate our data.