Whether you want to have the muscular physique of a bodybuilder, whether you want to jump high because you play basketball, run fast because you train short-distance running - strength is crucial factor that can significantly affect your actual performance.
Types of strength
The basic division of strength can include absolute strength and relative strength. When performing maximal repetitions during exercises such as bench press, deadlift, squat, and many others, where no other variables are taken into account, we examine absolute strength. Another type of strength is relative strength, which tells us how strong we are in proportion to our body weight, we can check it for example by the number pullups that we can do.
How to build strength in the context of shaping the body?
When building muscle mass it is worth taking care to develop absolute strength to the maximum; in order to increase muscle mass it is necessary to progress with the lift weight, the stronger we are in our basic exercises, the easier it will be to gain muscle mass. Of course the key aspect of building strength is choosing the right training plan, supplementation and nutrition.
Nutrition should be based on wholesome products, and we should intake 300 - 500kcal more than caloric demand, so we have sufficient energy when training is at a high level.
Increasing strength capacity by about 10-15% compared to previous results, we can count on gaining a few kilograms of good quality muscle mass at a later stage of the training cycle.
How to train for strength?
The basic principle is high intensity, low volume of exercises, and progressive frequency. What does it consist in? We train using high loads, taking a full rest between sets, using only a few exercises per workout, in which we become more and more specialized. The frequency of training at the beginning should be to train one muscle part once a week. However, with time the frequency should increase to 2-3 workouts per muscle part.
How will the strength period translate into body building?
Strength building period is characterized by high intensity, we train hard on a small range of repetitions. When after the strength building period, after accomplishing training goals (for example increasing strength in specific exercises) we return to bodybuilding training (training based on lower intensity but higher volume and frequency), we can count on much better body response to training stimuli. The stronger we are, the more we can get out of techniques intensifying effort such as combined series or drop-sets. This will undoubtedly translate into a good anabolic response of the body. This is when you should pay special attention to the right diet and supplementation in order to make the most of this period.
