Strength Can Be Everything

In our everyday lives we don’t think about strength often. As long as we can finish our tasks for the day and carry the groceries from the car many people feel they are “strong enough”. On February 14th a feat of true strength was put to the test. Ryan Belcher, a 350 pound powerlifter, lifted a car to save a man who was trapped under it due to a car crash.

How can strength through powerlifting improve everyone’s life?

While everyone can not save someone’s life like Ryan did, the stronger you get the easier other tasks become. Training the gym for general strength or a competition doesn’t just benefit the way you look or feel, it also improves how you can function in life.

The reason why barbell training is so effective is because it allows individuals to build muscle mass, increase their work capacity, and strengthen your body as a whole.

While recommendations from trainers and “fitness experts” sometimes focus on exercises that are non-specific to the nature of building strength, powerlifting provides a better framework.

Through focusing on compound exercises, strength can be built efficiently, safely, and can improve everyones quality of life.

In powerlifting the three main compound exercises that are trained.

The squat.

The Bench Press.

And the Deadlift.

Building Your Foundation

With these three primary exercises, strength can be built in a manageable easy to understand way even for a novice weight lifter.

Their a few key concepts that once they are grasped learning what to do in the gym and how to make a strength program can be simplified.

Volume

Volume is the total amount of work you can accomplish in a given exercise in a single training session, or throughout a week or even longer. Volume is how many reps you did with a given exercise, and the amount of weight you moved.

Accumulating more volume from session to session, week to week, is a steady sign that you are improving and getting stronger.

If you squatted 100 lbs. on Monday for 1 set of 5 reps (1×5) and then squatted 100 lbs. for 2×5 on Friday you increased your volume, and thus increased your strength.

There are many beginner programs that you can find to help you get started in the right direction on your strength training journey.

Intensity

Intensity refers to how close you are to maximal effort on a given rep or set.

One way intensity can be measured is by taking a specific percentage of the heaviest weight you can lift (or one rep max, 1RM). If you can bench press 200 pounds as your maximal lift 180 lbs. is 90% of your 1RM.

The ability to withstand higher intensities as you get stronger can be a sign of progress. Also, the stronger you are the less intense other daily activities will be.

If you can deadlift 400 lbs. off the ground, picking up a 50 lb. bag of mulch to do your gardening will become much easier. While training in the gym does not mimic everything we do in our daily lives, it can better prepare us for what we routinely do.

Get Stronger Today

Whether you want to compete in powerlifting or just learn how to lifts weights, building your body through strength training is an important skill that everyone should learn.