Posted on February 22, 2016 by Jenny Cromack

I’ve recently been talking to a few of our gym members who have been struggling with finding focus to develop their strength. The first thing I always ask them is are they strong? Most look at me like… did you see that 80kg bench or that 150kg deadlift…. well that’s great if you weigh 50kg but if you’re a 90kg individual then that’s not so great! Strength is a relative term and is measured against body weight. So what is strong?

what is strong

What is classified as strong for a 50kg individual is definitely not the same as a 60kg, 70kg or 80kg individual etc. So here are some numbers to work towards for the main lifts, these apply to all genders:

  • Bench Press: 1 x bodyweight
  • Back Squat: 1.5 x bodyweight
  • Dead-lift: 1.8 x bodyweight
  • Clean and Press: 1.1 x bodyweight
  • Chin Ups: Bodyweight + 0.2 x bodyweight

So now you have some numbers to work towards to get “strong”, how do we get there quickly?

  • Drop unnecessary weight – If you are carrying 10-20kg of fat, that’s dead, useless weight that you can do without. Dropping 20kg of this dead-weight is going to give you a significantly heavier strength score.
  • Don’t Train Heavy – Well, do train heavy sometimes, but not always. Using 4 session cycles seems to be the best long term method of strength development. Use the following format.
    • Session 1 (75% 1RM) for 5 sets 5 reps
    • Session 2 (80% 1RM) for 5 sets 4 reps
    • Session 3 (85% 1RM) for 5 sets 3 reps
    • Session 4 ( 60% 1RM for 3 sets 8 reps

Then start again at session 1 using the weight from session 2 (i.e. you would do 5 sets 5 reps at your old 80%)

  • Form is key – It’s no good moving a heavy weight with terrible form, beside the obvious injury risks, it has very little carry over to other scenarios. Squatting with good form, develops trunk strength, improves posture and has been shown to even enhance upper body strength levels. It also assists in maintaining flexibility, the same is true for cleans and overhead pressing.
  • Rest Rest Rest – You need to spend along time between sets to get strong, strength is a combination of central adaptations and peripheral adaptations. The nervous system like the explosive muscle fibres required for max force lifting do not recover quickly from maximal efforts. Give yourself 3-5 mins between sets and try to avoid lifting to fatigue.
  • Increase training frequency – Ideally you need to train the same muscle group every 5 days. For most people who can only access the gym 3 times per week you’re going to need to train whole body. A simple approach can be seen below.
    • Session 1- Squat, push exercise, pull exercise
    • Session 2- Hinge exercise, push exercise, pull exercise
    • Session 3- Squat, pull exercise, push exercise

So now you know what strong looks like and how to get there…good luck! Let me know how you get on.