There’s a huge difference between “using weights” and what I would consider “True Strength Training.”
To be clear, I’m not saying “True” is some different style of Strength Training. I’m just making a claim that what we do at Steel is Strength Training in it’s truest or purest form.
This might sound like semantics, but I’ll bet by the end of this post you’ll see I’m not being petty. I’m making a point.
Before we dive in, I’m in no way claiming other methods of training (Crossfit, Bootcamp, HIIT, etc.) won’t work. They work great! But I’m a big believer that MOST people, especially every day men and women, will benefit far more from 2-3x per week of true Strength Training, coupled with a walking/cardio plan and a good nutrition plan.
Let’s dive in:
Strength Training is composed of 5 key components. Getting away from any one of these means getting away from true Strength Training.
They are…
- Make the Primary Goal Getting Stronger
- Focus on Training vs. Exercise
- Train All Major Muscle Groups at Least Once Per Week
- Use Good Form, a Full Range of Motion, and Take Each Set Close to Failure
- Take Plenty of Rest Between Sets
Strength Training Makes the Primary Goal Getting Stronger
If you’re going to work at something, you should have a target you’re aiming for. So you know which direction you’re going!
When it comes to Strength Training, the obvious answer to what you should focus on in the gym is GETTING STRONGER.
But despite being so obvious, you’d be shocked at how many people show up to workout, attempting to Strength Train, without prioritizing getting stronger.
A fancier way of saying this is focusing on Progressive Overload.
Progressive Overload is being able to lift more weight and/or reps over time. A.K.A. getting stronger!
Now it’s important to note that while the goal is to get stronger, that doesn’t mean you’re going to increase what you can lift every single day. Just like any other goal in life, you may not SEE progress daily. But you still need to make that your North Star!
Focus primarily on getting stronger and good things will happen!
Focus on Training vs. Exercise
Since the goal is to get stronger, we focus on Training vs. Exercise.
Again, it sounds like semantics until I break it down for you.
All Training is Exercise, but not all Exercise is Training.
Exercise is GREAT for you. It’s anything that’s going to move your body, work the muscles, and get the heart rate up. Basically any activity you think of that involves those things is exercise.
And if all you want to do is exercise, go for it!
Exercise is all about today. Getting a good workout today. Many gauge how effective their workouts are based on how much fun they had, or if they’re sweaty, sore, and tired. And crazy people measure good workouts based on if they’re nauseous or not.
Training is different.
In terms of results, Training is better.
Which is why we focus on Training vs. Exercise at Steel Strength Training.
Training is all about making long-term progress. It’s all about having today’s workout build on your last workout. And setting yourself up for another great workout with today’s great workout.
Each workout is like laying a brick for a house or a building.
Every brick matters, but the point of the brick is not the brick itself. The point of the brick is how it fits in with every other brick so you can make the awesome building.
At Steel Strength Training we design workouts with the intention of having you progressively get stronger over time. We design workouts to maximize your long-term progress, NOT maximize your soreness, fatigue, etc.
Sure, you’ll be sweaty, sore, and tired sometimes. But that’s never the focus. The focus is getting you stronger! And THAT is the difference between training and exercise.
Train All Major Muscle Groups At Least Once Per Week
Strength Training involves using a program designed for your long-term success, as we talked about in the last point.
A good program will pretty much always (with the occasional rare exception) have you working every muscle group at least once per week. Sometimes your program will have you training a muscle group 2-3+ times per week, but you want to make sure you’re training each muscle a minimum of 1x/week.
There’s a whole discussion to be had about what the ideal frequency of training each muscle group per week is (which we won’t get into in this post) BUT just about everyone agrees there is a once per week minimum to make consistent progress!
Use Good Form, a Full Range of Motion, and Take Each Set Close to Failure
The first 3 points addressed what to focus on with your program and with each workout. This point dives into the details surrounding how you should do every set!
That’s right. With Strength Training- every single detail matters! From how you set up your workouts, what you focus on with each workout, and how to do each set.
First, we have to use good form. Before we worry about adding weight and/or reps, we make sure our clients have great form. Great form ensures we stay safe and get the most out of each exercise.
Second, as we are getting our form dialed in, we will also work on taking that movement through its full range of motion! A full range of motion almost always leads to a better stimulus and better results than a partial range of motion.
Third, once a client is using good form and full range of motion, we’ll start taking every set very close to failure. (1-2 reps shy of failure.)
Note***- Failure is defined as the place where, while maintaining good form, you can no longer move the weight no matter how hard you try. This is failure!
You don’t need to train TO failure to get good results. But you do need to be really dang close.
However, hitting failure occasionally is beneficial as it lets you know if you’ve actually been within 1-2 reps of failure.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen clients THINKING they’re close to failure but boy oh boy are they not!
For example, someone might be bench pressing 65 pounds for 3 sets of 8. So on their 3rd set I tell them to do as many as they can. Then they do 20 reps on their last set.
Yeah…those 8 reps were doing next to nothing for them.
The only way you can know if you’re close to failure is if you’ve hit failure before and you know what it feels like (or you have an Expert Personal Trainer coaching you!)
There’s discussion to be had about what’s the optimal volume (or amount of hard sets per bodypart you do each week) for best results.
Without getting into that, what I can tell you is that those discussions are worthless if you don’t first address what I’ve laid out here.
1 high quality set (which ALL of your sets should be high quality sets) using good form, a full range of motion, and taken close to failure is enough to get you results.
And even doing just 2-3 high quality sets per muscle in a workout will give you a really great stimulus.
I seriously can’t emphasize this enough.
This point right here keeps more gym goers stuck than anything else. They just aren’t training hard enough.
So please, if you don’t take anything else away from this post, take this point away!
You HAVE to train close to failure! And when you do, you’ll be blown away by the results you see.
Take Plenty of Rest Between Sets
Let’s remember that the focus of a Strength Training workout is to get stronger.
Besides the fact it’s obvious intuitively, studies have shown time and time again that longer rest periods lead to great performance.
So remember that the goal is not to do a bunch of half-effort sets, but rather to do a handful of super high quality sets that are really going to drive progress.
With that in mind, we want to take plenty of rest between each working set.
For larger movements like Squats, Deadlifts, Bench Press, and Press you might want to take 2-3 minutes between sets.
For other large compound movements you might want to take 1.5-2 minutes
For smaller movements like arms, shoulder, and ab work you might want to take 1-1.5 minutes
Don’t rest unnecessarily long, but also remember this is not a cardio workout. The goal isn’t to be sweaty, sore, and tired. The goal is to get stronger and we do that with high quality sets. So make sure most of your fatigue has gone away before starting your next set.
You’ll get far more out of your workouts when you take appropriate rest between sets!
If you’re ready to add Strength Training to your Health and Fitness plan, let’ see if we’re a good fit to work together! CLICK HERE and fill out the Consultation form! I’ll reach out within 24 hours to schedule a zero pressure phone consultation to see if we’re a good fit to work together!
And for more info on the 7 Components of an Effective Strength Training workout, read my BLOG HERE.
Check out our latest YouTube videos with all our best training, nutrition, and healthy living tips HERE!
