This week we started our new strength block. A 8-week period where we want to increase our 1RM in the Squats, Deadlift, Pull-Up and Press movements. To gain strength, we want to influence our muscular and neurological systems in the body. Through our muscular systems we want to increase our muscle mass. There’s a big correlation between how much muscle mass you have and strength.

This means that the more muscle you have, the greater is your potential to create force. Through our neurological system, one of the factors we want to influence is to send neurological signals from the brain to muscles quickly and activate the most powerful muscle fibers.

 

Another neurological factor is called coordination. You will get strong at what you’re doing. Strength is specific. So it’s important that you have continuity during these 8 weeks and do the exercises 2-3 times a week. Then you will get better at them because your body will coordinate the right muscle to activate at the right time, along with the signals, to lift the weights up.

So, what can we do to maximize our strength potential?

Effort
To increase our muscle mass and strength, we want to follow some principles. One key point we often talk about in our whiteboard talk is our repetitions in reserve (RIR) after each set. We want to have a few RIR, because then you have effective repetitions.

If you have few RIR, you have full muscle fiber activation and it shows you that you made a lot of effort in the set. For some athletes and members, we use a decoder to objectively measure the velocity of the lift. The velocity in itself can tell us something about how much weight you have on the bar. Because a higher load gives lower velocity. But it’s the effort and intent we are looking for. For example, you are lifting 3 sets of 5 repetitions in Back Squat @ 80 % of 1 RM. Then we dont want you to go below 0,65 m/s.

To avoid that, you need to create maximum power up from the bottom of the Back Squat. Now, since not everybody has the opportunity to measure this objectivly, you can “compete” with a partner. Challenge yourself at who can lift the weight the fastest. This will work the same way, the only difference is that you don’t have a number to register

.-Next week we will look at Calories and the supplement Creatine.