Tips For Creating A Strength Building Workout
Last week we discussed goals directed to fat loss, this week I’d like to focus on increasing strength. Yes, strength increase will come during a muscle building phase. If you are looking to increase strength however and not necessarily get bigger, your workout structure will look a bit different. I wanted to focus on muscle building first to emphasize the fact that if you are new to exercise and looking to increase strength you will still want to incorporate muscle building to lay a good foundation that can then be played with more depending on goals. We need to have muscle on our bodies to get stronger, but we don’t necessarily always need to get bigger to get stronger. The majority of our muscles contain two kinds of fibers that help you move: slow-twitch fibers, which use energy slowly (aerobic) but help to keep you moving longer. fast-twitch fibers, which use energy faster (anaerobic) help you move faster and more powerful but for a shorter time. During a strength building phase, our fast twitch muscle fibres are worked more than during any other phase. I would recommend anyone to do a strength phase at some point in their workout life, as it can tap into different fibres that we won’t get to use in any other way.
The strength building type of workout shown is just an example of many difference ways you can approach it, this is just more of a beginner style. The “5x5” program shown today can still be a good place to begin from, but we must still keep in mind the importance of proper nutrition. Carbohydrates are the main source of energy when we use our fast-twitch fibres as they rely on stored energy sources already in the body like glucose. These energy sources get depleted quickly so we must make sure we are properly nourished when doing these type of workouts and are also having a carbohydrate source the day before. When it comes to losing it is preferred to be in a caloric deficit so therefore when we are looking to build we will need to be in a caloric surplus. For strength.. this varies from person to person, however no matter what you do not usually want to be in a deficit. If your goals are to not gain weight and get stronger, you don’t want to go above the calories you are putting out, so where those calories come from is very important (your macro’s). Whole natural foods for every phase of training at all times of life is key :).
Tracking our caloric intake can also be a big help here with apps like myfitesspal as well as putting in your energy output to maintain calories. As mentioned for muscle building eating enough protein to build muscle is important, during a strength phase is similiar to the fat loss phase in the sense that we want to make sure we have enough protein to maintain our hard earned muscle from working on hypertrophy. The '“if you don’t use it, you lose it” principle with muscle is very real!
I’ll show a basic framework of what a strength building workout would look like, also keeping in mind everyones goals and what works for their bodies are different so your workout may still look different than this, this is just a framework I have created that tends to be successful.
**Strength building workouts tend to have a bit more math involved.. at some point you will want to find a projected “one rep max” and base your lifts off of these numbers. Each week you will increase the percent of your one rep max in which you work at, keeping the reps fairly low.
I’m going to use the same templates as last week so you can see the change in structure rather than exercises.
We will still want to do our warmup cardio and exercise’s and start with a compound lift. When you are focusing on strength using the barbell will allow you to do more total weight than the dumbbells since both sides are holding it, therefore giving you better core control as well.
Focusing on our compound lifts with lower weights will focus on the fast twitch fibres mentioned before, but to see the strength increase you will want to keep track of the weights you do. Bigger compound lifts are still best for building strength even though they burn a lot more calories they also recruit more motor units - meaning we are strengthening more at once with these big movements. You know the saying “more bang for you buck”? Compound lifts are your best deal when it comes to training.
Of course we still want to make sure we include our core and stretch portions as they are still major factors in seeing progress. Training our core will help work on our posture, something we need when we are doing strength. Buildings with a weak “core” fall over.. our bodies work similarly, if you don’t have a strong core but have a strong upper and lower body, your compound lifts will suffer. There is a full body connection needed when performing these movements, that’s why they work so well!
Here are an example of a “leg day” and a full upper body workout based on this structuring:
A reminder that these are just examples! I’m not recommending these to anyone and there are TONS of different combinations that will be better from person to person… another fun strength program is the “5/3/1” breakdown.
One of the fun things about exercising and why I love being a Personal Trainer is just putting different workouts together for different bodies.. it’s like an art!
Hope that helps :)
Happy exercising,
Robyn