Everyone is looking to gain strength. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of misinformation out there about strength training. So, I’ve compiled 9 scientifically backed tips to help boost your strength gains. All 9 tips are easy to implement into your training as early as tomorrow.
Lifting at The Right Intensity
There needs to be appropriate load on muscles to gain strength. You’ll never see someone deadlift 600lbs by only doing bodyweight training.
The body responds to the stress placed upon it. You need to lift a heavy load to induce muscle damage. In return, the body (super-)compensates and through recovery methods comes back stronger.
In order to get the specific adaptations you are looking for you need to be lifting at high intensity of your one-rep max in a given lift. The actual percentage depends on your training age, but as a general rule of thumb you need to be lifting at 80% of 1RM or higher to get strength gains (Peterson et al., 2005).
If you’re new to lifting that percentage can be lower (like 60%). If you have been training for a long time, it needs to be 85% or more. Learn more about intensity and strength training here.
Doing the Right Amount of Volume
I often find that people get complacent with their training volume – especially if they program for themselves. You will often see a lot of 3×10 or 4×10 …for every, single exercise in every, single workout.
Talk about boring and missing the boat.
As mentioned above, you need to be training at high intensity to elicit strength gains. And intensity dictates volumes.
You should look at volume as the total number of sets for a body part. In that viewpoint, you should be doing 4-8 sets per body part per strength training session. And you should perform 2-3 training days for each body part per week (Peterson et al., 2005).
If you are working at 80+% of your 1RM to increase your strength then you should be below 8 repetitions per set.
I suggest performing some sets at 3 reps, some at 5, and some at 8 sets – depending on the exercises and your phase of training. This is where having a set goal and periodized training plan is important.
Read More
Use the Right Tools
In order to gain strength, you need to use the right tools for the job.
A carpenter doesn’t use a hammer to cut a piece of wood in half. And you shouldn’t use bodyweight movements to maximize strength gains.
In order to train at the right intensity to gain strength, you need to use heavy barbells, kettlebells and dumbbells.
Plain and simple.
Strength gain comes from lifting heavy weights. The most effective way to do that is via barbells. Dumbbells and kettlebells provide alternate tools to stress your body at high enough intensity to elicit a strength response.
Picking the Right Exercises
Multi-joint exercises are your friend when it comes to gaining strength.
Personally, I suggest that all strength programs include
- A squat variation (front, back, box)
- A bench press variation (flat, incline, decline, barbell or dumbbell)
- Deadlifts (barbell or hexbar/trapbar)
- An overhead press (seated, standing, barbell, dumbbell)
- Pull ups (weighted if possible)
The above exercises (and variations of them) should make up the meat and potatoes of your strength training programs.
Incorporating multi-joint lifts every training session will ensure you are working the largest muscles of your body. These areas are what really contribute to overall body strength.
If you’re missing one of these 5 exercises, I strongly suggest you add them into your program for a few months and watch your overall strength skyrocket.
Doing your Exercises in the Right Order
I’ve written a full article about exercise order and strength gains here.
There is no doubt that exercise order has a major impact on strength gains.
In order to see greater strength gains, you want to perform the most important exercises first (Nunes et al., 2020). I argue (based on my bias) that you probably want to see the biggest strength gains in the major compound lifts mentioned above.
Based on that, you should start your training with large compound lifts.
However, if you want to see big strength gains in another lift, then start a couple of your workouts with that lift.
Regardless of what the exercise is, the most important one(s) should go first in your workout. You’ll be fresher since it is your first exercise. And that means you’ll have the energy to perform at the intensity needed to gain strength.
Track Your Workouts and Progress
Any time that I plateau for long periods of time I can always trace it back to not tracking my workouts.
Strength training requires progressive overload. That means you need to incrementally increase the weight you lifted, the number of sets you did or the amount of work you did in a time period.
The body responds to workouts by adapting and coming back stronger. So, if you don’t progressively increase the stress you are applying to your muscles, your body no longer needs to adapt. And that means you hit a plateau.
Tracking your workouts is one of the easiest ways to make sure that you are progressing. Simply write down your weights as you complete the workout.
An extra tip when tracking: I always put a straight line or an arrow up/down beside my last weight lifted for each exercise. It’s a subjective measure of if I think I could lift more weight next week. I use this to look back at the next time I do the same workout to know if I should maintain/increase/decrease the weight. If I didn’t do this I definitely would just be guessing
Eating At Least 1.3 grams of Protein per KG of Body Weight
Protein intake is a touchy subject within the strength and conditioning world. There are proponents of high protein, low protein, animal protein and vegan protein. And all of these “camps” can pick and choose research or anecdotal evidence to support their claims.
In my world, the go-to resources for all things protein are Brad Schoenfeld and Stu Phillips.
You need enough protein from your food to allow muscle protein synthesis to optimally occur. Muscle protein synthesis is related to essential amino acid ingestion (from food or supplements) (Phillips & Van Loon, 2011). And muscle protein synthesis is what leads to “rebuilding” of damaged muscle fibers.
Phillips and Van Loon determined that between 1.3-1.8 grams of protein per kg of bodyweight consumed over the course of 3-4 meals is optimal for maximal muscle protein synthesis (2011). See the chart below to check how much protein you need for your bodyweight.
In addition, it is suggested that eating 20g of protein at a given meal is sufficient for stimulating muscle protein synthesis following training (Moore et al., 2009). This means you do not have to take a nasty protein shake with 100g of protein in it after training sessions.
| Bodyweight (lb/kg) | Lower End of Protein Needs (1.3g/kg) | Upper End of Protein Needs(1.8g/kg) |
| 125lbs/57kg | 74 | 103 |
| 135lbs/61kg | 79 | 110 |
| 145lbs/66kg | 86 | 119 |
| 155lbs/70kg | 91 | 126 |
| 165lbs/75kg | 98 | 135 |
| 175lbs/80kg | 104 | 144 |
| 185lbs/83kg | 108 | 149 |
| 195lbs/87kg | 113 | 156 |
| 205lbs/93kg | 120 | 167 |
| 215lbs/98kg | 127 | 176 |
| 225lbs/102kg | 132 | 183 |
Sleeping and Recovering Well
As much as we work hard in the gym, the true gains are made when we are recovering. What we eat, how much we sleep and what we do for the 22-hours a day we’re not at the gym impact what happens in the gym.
For that reason, your recovery game has to be strong if you want to see real strength gains.
Luckily, a recent review paper by Knowles and colleagues from 2018 addressed sleep and muscle strength.
Compound, multi-joint exercises are most affected by restricted sleep patterns. It has been concluded that the body’s ability to adapt to resistance training is the key to health [and strength gain]. And decreased sleep “could, over time, diminish the positive impact of resistance training on metabolic health” (Knowles et al., 2018).
Therefore, you need to be getting your 8-10 hours of quality sleep in order to see your strength gains.
In addition, recovery techniques such as light aerobic work (active recovery) after strength training can increase speed of recovery after training. This is because it positively impacts the inflammation process by increasing blood flow throughout the body.
Additionally, foam rolling and massage can improve recovery (Dupuy et al., 2018; Laffaye et al., 2019). Compression clothing and cold water immersion can also positively influence recovery from strength training (Dupuy et al., 2018).
To get a full breakdown of recovery techniques, check out my article on recovery following training.
Staying Patient
Gaining strength takes time (unless you’re a novice).
This can be a frustrating experience, especially for lifters coming out of their newbie gains period. The law of diminishing returns is very apparent in strength training. The longer that you have been strength training the longer it takes to increase your strength. And the improvements you see in strength will be smaller (Peterson et al., 2005).
For this reason, you need to be patient with your strength gains. The only way to guarantee results is by having a good plan, consistently adhering to it and slowly increasing the weight that you lift.
After all, the best (Olympic weightlifter) in the world earn their medals with one kilo PR’s.
References
Dupuy, O., Douzi, W., Theurot, D., Bosquet, L., & Dugué, B. (2018). An Evidence-Based Approach for Choosing Post-exercise Recovery Techniques to Reduce Markers of Muscle Damage, Soreness, Fatigue, and Inflammation: A Systematic Review With Meta-Analysis. Frontiers in Physiology, 9, 403. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2018.00403
Knowles, O. E., Drinkwater, E. J., Urwin, C. S., Lamon, S., & Aisbett, B. (2018). Inadequate sleep and muscle strength: Implications for resistance training. Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, 21(9), 959–968. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsams.2018.01.012
Laffaye, G., Da Silva, D. T., & Delafontaine, A. (2019). Self-Myofascial Release Effect With Foam Rolling on Recovery After High-Intensity Interval Training. Frontiers in Physiology, 10, 1287. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2019.01287
Moore, D. R., Robinson, M. J., Fry, J. L., Tang, J. E., Glover, E. I., Wilkinson, S. B., Prior, T., Tarnopolsky, M. A., & Phillips, S. M. (2009). Ingested protein dose response of muscle and albumin protein synthesis after resistance exercise in young men. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 89(1), 161–168. https://doi.org/10.3945/ajcn.2008.26401
Nunes, J. P., Grgic, J., Cunha, P. M., Ribeiro, A. S., Schoenfeld, B. J., de Salles, B. F., & Cyrino, E. S. (2020). What influence does resistance exercise order have on muscular strength gains and muscle hypertrophy? A systematic review and meta-analysis. European Journal of Sport Science, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1080/17461391.2020.1733672
Peterson, M. D., Rhea, M. R., & Alvar, B. A. (2005). Applications of the Dose-Response for Muscular Strength Development: A Review of Meta-Analytic Efficacy and Reliability for Designing Training Prescription. The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 19(4), 950. https://doi.org/10.1519/R-16874.1
Phillips, S. M., & Van Loon, L. J. C. (2011). Dietary protein for athletes: From requirements to optimum adaptation. Journal of Sports Sciences, 29(sup1), S29–S38. https://doi.org/10.1080/02640414.2011.619204