Gaining Strength – The Basics

To gain strength you must consistently follow a weight training routine. This may sound obvious, but so many people just don’t stick with it if they haven’t made huge progress after a month or 2. Others believe the right supplements will explode their strength and size in record time. Some supplements like creatine and protein powders can certainly help, but you still need intense weight training workouts to get bigger and stronger.

Even without supplements or steroids, you can increase your strength exponentially over time if you consistently follow a weight training program. To gain strength you must strive to increase the amount of weight or amount of reps with the same weight you’re working out with on each exercise. Over time these small increases in weight and reps will add up. You should keep a workout log and write down the exact reps and weight you do on every exercise and try to do just a little more at the next workout. For example, if you did a 10 rep bench press with 150 lbs. during your last chest workout, you should try to either get 10 reps with 155 lbs. or 11 reps with 150 lbs. the next workout. Don’t despair if you don’t get the weight or rep increase at every single workout, if you keep trying you’ll eventually get it. Some gyms also have small magnet weights that weigh 1.25 lbs. so you can try to increase the weight you’re using by 2.5 lbs. instead of 5 lbs. If you can’t get an increase in weights or reps during your workouts you may be overtraining. Make sure the bodypart your working out isn’t still sore from your last workout, as it will be counter-productive to gaining strength.

Avoid Overtraining

What is overtraining? lets start off with a quick definition of overtraining. Overtraining occurs when you push your body too hard and pass the point that your body is able to recover from. To make gains you must overload the muscles and then allow adequate time for recovery and growth by resting. Overtraining occurs when either the overload is too high, or the rest period aka recovery time is too low, or it could be as simple as poor nutrition.

Nutrition

It really isn’t much of a big secret, but the quickest route to gaining strength is to gaining weight. If you’re not gaining weight, you’re not eating enough. You need to determine how many calories you’re taking in. Weigh yourself on day 1 first thing in the morning on an empty stomach. Keep track of all the calories you eat for 14 days. On day 15 weigh yourself again, if your weight has not changed by plus or minus 2 pounds this will work. Add up the calories for each day and divide by 14. The nleepriestumber you come out with is how many calories you need to eat each day to maintain your current body-weight. Now to start gaining weight you need to add 300-500 calories to this number. Go 7 days then weigh yourself again. Slowly up the calories until you see an increase in weight. Only try to gain 1-2 pounds a week. More than this on a consistent basis will lead to more increases in fat than muscle. Check your progress every 4 weeks with skin-fold calipers and a cloth tape measure. If you’re desperately thin, a 10-pound increase consisting of 5 pounds of fat & 5 pounds of muscle is okay. A 2:1 ratio of muscle to fat would be ideal. Don’t be afraid of increases in fat. As long as it’s not settling solely around your waist you’re okay.

The 7 basic components of nutrition:

• Calories: Besides what was mentioned earlier, you should be eating at least 6 times a day every 2-3 hours. (A rough example would be 7:00am, 10:00am, 1pm, 4pm, 7pm, and 10pm.)
• Protein: 1 Gram per pound of body-weight. popular choices are chicken, turkey, eggs, cottage cheese, yogurt, peanut butter, milk, whey protein, lean cuts of red meat, and fish
• Carbs: 2.5 to 3 Grams per pound of body-weight. popular choices are whole grain brown rice, sweet potatoes, veggies, beans, whole grain breads and cereals, and yams.
• Fats: 20-30% Of total caloric intake. good fats can be found in meat, fish, canola and olive oil, nuts, seeds, legumes, and sesame and soybean oil.
• Water: 1 Gallon a day.
• Fiber: 20-35 Grams daily.
• Vitamins & Minerals: This is easily covered with a daily multivitamin.

Weight Training

Get in, workout, get out, and then get plenty of rest and nutrients before next training session. Take at least 1 day off between workouts, 2 would be better. This would have you training every 3rd day. I strongly recommend taking a look at Rippetoes 5×5 routine. You can find it on my site Here.