Definition of Strength

Last week we talked about a couple of principles, individuality (the principle that each person is affected by the same dose/type of exercise in a different way due to individual differences) and specificity (the principle that in order to achieve a specific physiological adaptation you need to do exercise that is specific to that adaptation). 

This week we are going to build upon that conversation and dive into the adaptation of Strength. 

So what is strength? In CrossFit we define Strength as the productive application of force. Said another way, it is not only how much force your muscles can produce but also a function of the way they direct that force (form). 

No discussion of Strength is complete without talking about the principle of Progressive Overload which says you must gradually increase the demands placed on the body over time in order to elicit a greater adaptation. This does not always mean going heavy as you’ll see below as we must first pass through learning the skill (motor control) building up capacity with great form (muscular endurance) and then and only then can we be closer to reaching our true maximum voluntary contractions (absolute strength). 

When it comes to learning strength, the first step is motor control. Motor control is understanding your starting point, destination, and how to get there. Motor control is the first step in any physical skill and there are often a lot of mistakes that happen as we learn and refine our movement until what was once a difficult task becomes routine. We can progressively overload motor control by increasing reps, adding load, or making the movement more complex (eg; airsquat—>goblet squat—–> backsquat—> front squat—->overhead squat.

Once we know the skill, the next step is building up muscular endurance/stamina. This is moving a submaximal load many times and perfecting form on each rep. This can look like starting with 3-4 Sets of 10 Airsquats and extending that out to sets of 20,30 reps over time. 

Muscular endurance and stamina help improve our ability to recover from maximal voluntary contractions (true absolute strength work). 

Once we have a solid base of muscular endurance its time to add load. As a starting place doing 3-4 sets of 8-10 repetitions a week for 4-6 weeks is a great place to start and increasing the load each week when possible or increasing the reps up to 12-15 each set. Once we can no longer make gains towards the end of the 4-6 weeks we can experiment with a reduction in volume and begin working lower reps for more sets (5 sets of 5, 4, 3 or 6-8 Sets of 2, or 1 as an example). Once we work this lower end of the rep range for a few weeks, we can go back to our sets of 8-10 and this time we should be able to start off with a heavier load than we did previously. 

So when should you change up your exercises? Oftentimes the best time to change is when you have trained for a year or two doing the same exercises and have seen lots of gain and then stagnation. Those with a higher training age (length of time training) need more exercise variation. Also of course, you should change often enough to be excited about training, engaged but more often that not many people choose variance at the expense of results and at the end of the day, if we aren’t training to be better then what are we training for? 

See you in the gym,
— Coach Michael