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Table of Contents CHAPTER ONE: HOW DIFFERENT IS STRENGTH AND HYPERTROPHY TRAINING?
The Propaganda Campaign

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CHAPTER 2: WHY ALL THIS MUSCLE TALK, THEN?

A Bigger Muscle is a Stronger Muscle Bigger Muscles Work Better Argument by Opposition What are we BEST at? Why Arent Bodybuilders Strong?

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11 12 13 14 15

CHAPTER 3: THREE MAJOR FUNDAMENTALS OF STRENGTH

Neural Component of Strength Development The Force Velocity Relationship Average Intensity (and anxiety) A Parting Note

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Chapter One: How Different is Strength and Hypertrophy Training?

Strength training is very different from bodybuilding. Something happened on the way to the forum, so to speak, and strength training has become mish-mashed with hypertrophy training. The intentions were honorable as owed to a backlash against the typical bodybuilding split that served as an introduction to resistance training for almost all trainees. Such training is seen as unhealthy and short-sighted. What's more it is largely inefficient for the average trainee even for mass gain. The message was sent. You need a strength base! You need to use the big compound lifts like deadlifts and squats. Even if your end goal is purely hypertrophy starting with a thorough grounding in strength based training will facilitate those goals much better in the long term. All true and there are many other reasons to start with pure strength training. And when I say pure strength training I mean training for absolute strength. Somewhere along the line the pendulum has swung too far and strength training has become synonymous with hypertrophy training for many trainees. Both disciplines have been diluted and watered down into a middle-ground wash of misinformation. Hypertrophy and strength training are two different goals. Just because two things are related does not mean they are the same. Thats a fairly simply concept to grasp isnt it? So why the confusion? To be honest I think the confusion stems from the perpetrators of this information campaign not really being experts in bodybuilding or strength training. Confused messengers make for confused messages. The other part of the breakdown is the selling of information. Most trainees interested in lifting are really only interested in mass. In order to sell strength training to this population some feel you need to convince them that strength training is the ultimate way to realize their mass goals. Strength coaches, personal trainers, and fitness experts of all kinds have been frantically trying to cash in on the fitness cow. Strength training has become a much more lucrative category within that industry but compared to strength training, bodybuilding is a juggernaut. So if you cant beat themjoin them! There is a popular article by a gentleman named Kurtis J. Wilkins called The Death of Modern Bodybuilding. This article has been posted in scores of bodybuilding, strength training, or general fitness forums on the net and it is a perfect example of this selling of strength training to a bodybuilding population.

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Wilkins asks, in the first paragraph, whether split routines are the death of productive training:

I have come to the following conclusion, after considerable research and study of much of the available material regarding the training methods and results of the socalled old timers, as well as current training methods and results: the split routine has been the death of productive strength training and muscle building. Allow me to explain the reasoning behind this possibly shocking revelation
A split routine is training organized by splitting the various training sessions in{ }to individual body part or muscle group emphasis. These kinds of routines are the favored training method for bodybuilders because they allow a great deal of volume to be thrown at the individual muscles or muscle groups. Here we have an article whose title suggests is about bodybuilding. Since all training is specific to ones goals the best way to bring various training camps around to your viewpoint (provided they are impressionable enough) is to use vague language. Productive training is one such example. What is productive training? Well productive training is training which produces the results you want! However, since the language is vague enough we have an almost imperceptible glide from bodybuilding to strength training. This primes the reader for the sell to come. See it wouldnt do you a bit of good to sell strength training to a bodybuilding audience if that audience believed that strength training and bodybuilding were two different practices. You must implant the suggestion, subtlety, that they are parallel goals. The author of this article does a masterful job of that. It is one thing to assert that split routines are an unproductive protocol for strength training. To suggest they are unproductive for bodybuilding, however, is a stretch requiring one to redefine the parameters a bit. The fact is that most of the details in the article make sense just as many of the arguments concerning strength training for mass make sense on some level. If you are a fan of Ground Up Strength and have read many of the articles and comments on the site you will be familiar with one important fact: You can win an argument and still be wrong! I devoted much of a newsletter to this subject, in fact: http://www.gustrength.com/newsletter:toolsgurus-cults-and-followers

The Propaganda Campaign

Just saying that strength training is the ticket to mass would not convince anyone though. Propoganda was needed to do that. Before I get into what that propaganda was I want to mention the problem with the bodybuilding esthetic. Its subjective, of course. While most 15 year olds coming to bodybuilding, of course, dream of looking like their favorite professional bodybuilder, others have different prototypes of the ideal specimen. Even among the professional bodybuilding population people disagree whether the modern look is cool or not. Do we want the old time v-shape ideal? With the thin waist and thrust out rib cage? Or is the blockier massive and powerful look where its at? Or a middle ground between the two? What bodybuilding judges are looking for is different from what the average Joe is looking for. Or Jane.

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Besides the look of professional bodybuilders there are many other viewpoints. Are you more the Spiderman or the Wolverine type? A favored tact of strength training propagandists is the Old Time Strongman archetypes. Much of the article mentioned above, The Death of Modern Bodybuilding, was based on this tact. In the early 1900s and on into the 1940s strength and bodybuilding were one and the same. The old time strong men and physical culturists had great physiques and bodybuilding had not yet separated from strength training as a separate discipline or sport. But it DID separate and since then we have learned a great deal more about how to induce hypertrophy and how to build strength than the old-timers ever knew. The old timers were great for their time and they built the foundation that we train on even todaybut they were products of their time and culture. It is difficult to deny that the physiques of modern bodybuilders, regardless of your personal preferences, are far beyond the old timers in terms of mass, proportion, and symmetry.* The tired non-argument that split routines and the massive physiques of modern bodybuilders are products of steroids must always come up, then. Steroids are claimed to be the only way a split routine can be effective by allowing the bodybuilder to tolerate the huge amounts of volume and to enhance protein synthesis beyond the normal rate. But of course natural bodybuilders who compete in steroid free contests also use these routines and they have physiques that are just as massive or more massive than the old time strongmen. Moreover, the professionals of the Golden Age of bodybuilding, such as Arnold Schwarzenegger and his contemporaries, used a fraction of the amount of steroids that their modern counterparts do. Few trainees are easy gainers, however, which is the term often used to describe those who respond well to high volume splits. What few will admit though is that few trainees would be able to achieve the esthetic of many of the famous old time strongmen through the routines they recommended! And thorough scrutiny of the photographs of these old timers will show you that not all of them had a bodybuilding physique at all. Big and powerful, yes but not defined. Men who didnt have the chiseled look didnt pose for physique photographs! Careful study, as Wilkins claims to have done, reveals among the old-timers physiques that run the gamut. Strong, massive and powerful. Smaller, chiseled, and athletic, and everything in between. The same variation exists among trainees of all schools of athletics and training. The idea that there was a common way of training in those times is a complete fiction. We know of the training methods of many of the old-timers through their mail order courses which promised to teach their personal methods. And in those days, brute strength wasnt always enough. A strong man was expected to be a complete athlete. Endurance, agility, etc. were highly prized. The old time strongman tact wont sell strength training to the youth market, though, and it is the younger market that is most important. For bodybuilding you stick with the 15 to early twenties age group. The great professional bodybuilder is the archetype that you must conjure up for this young audience. You pick em. They all have their high points. The propaganda, then, attempts to invite comparisons between the great pro bodybuilders and the most obvious choices among strength competitors. Many

people relate strength training only to the super heavyweights. It doesnt matter if its Olympic Weightlifting or Powerlifting, different as they are. People think of the huge guys, at least 230 pounds or more. So if you want to sell strength to bodybuilders then you have to make them first think of the STRONGEST guys. Even if that has nothing to do with the strength world at large. The primary propaganda line, then, went something like this: Most powerlifters look like a bodybuilder underneath the fat. All theyd have to do is cut and theyd be ready for a contest. Something like that. What that means is that your proverbial 300 pound lifter with a huge gut and flabby everything has a bodybuilder physique underneath owed to all the strength training. Complete and utter nonsense and such a person, even if they could cut down successfully, would likely look silly entering a bodybuilding competition. Not necessarily because they lacked mass, but because they lacked the esthetic. Hence the other part of the propaganda, that bodybuilding is all about mass. NO. Mass is easy compared to what you have to do to compete in the bodybuilding world. Symmetry. Proportion. Posing! Not to mention the ability to cut down to extremely low body fat levels and drying out. Mass is only part of the equation. Sure we have seen powerlifters and other strength personalities undergo startling transformations but let us not be nave. Its not a training guru that is important to these transformations its a supplement guru. No, you cannot bring your deadlift and squat up to some arbitrary number and then be ready to step into your Speedos and show up all those curlers and leg pressers. Yet this is exactly what many would have you believe. As you go down in the strength weight classes to the people who must be concerned with relative strength you will get many more that DO look closer to the bodybuilding ideal. These people must keep the body fat down, after all. But they are not as big as their heavyweight counterparts and hence lack the absolute strength. They are as strong, pound for pound, as you could wish to be. But its pure numbers that sell, not relative strength. The powerlifting population is the primary group conjured up by the would-be strength/mass experts. Not many of them are interested or knowledgeable in the fast lifts even though many Olympic weightlifters have mass to spare. If we REALLY look at a powerlifting population though we see that powerlifters come in all shapes and sizes and many of them are not apparently massive or even that muscular looking.

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Still, perceptions about strength training are colored by the extreme few possessing the most absolute strength. Let me hammer this home: those athletes possessing the most absolute strength as represented by the upper heavyweight lifters are the EXTREME FEW. THE LARGE MARJORITY of strength athletes is concerned with relative strength. The upper weight classes of Weightlifting and Powerlifting are most responsible for people's perception of the sports and this perception is based simply on numbers. But the advantage of being in the heaviest class is that there is no upper limit. Consider the following weight classes: 132 133 148 165 182 199 220 243 lbs. lbs. lbs. lbs. lbs. lbs. lbs. lbs. Below 147 lbs. 164 lbs. 181 lbs. 198 lbs. 219 lbs. 242 lbs. Over

Start with the last. 243 pounds and over. Had you never heard of relative strength before reading this now you have an illustration. Every weight class before the last must be concerned with relative strength. Look at how many weight classes those are. Thats your strength population. Is this becoming clear? The strongest guys in this scale are of course the guys that are 243 pounds or over. They represent the minority. Period. It should be noted that not all strength trainees compete or are even involved in any sport. So the average trainee does not necessarily need to be concerned with relative strength notwithstanding the fact that weight management has every thing to do with efficiency and efficiency has everything to do with strength gain. Regardless of what I say when the average person thinks of strength they think of it in terms of that minority. In statistical research is known as a "selection bias". Basically, the "selection" is not a true representation of the entire population. What many of the scientific types don't even get is that we actually THINK this way. It is a trick of human psychology that the most dramatic examples are easily called to mind and therefore are mistakenly assumed to be common. Consider Zydrunas Savickas on the next page. A great powerlifter and strongman. NOT a typical example. Also not a bodybuilder waiting to happen. Sorry. Hes big. Hes strong. Hes not a bodybuilder.

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Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Zsavickas.JPG

But what about those very strong upper weight powerlifters who sport fairly low body fat levels and have physiques that really do look like a bodybuilder? Yes there are guys who fit the propaganda and could do very well in a bodybuilding competition if only they cut down just a bit more. Probably not win. But do well and not look like a fool doing it. Again, they are not representative. However, they did get those physiques doing strength training, right? For that we must get into parameters. There is a consistent delusion that every strength athlete trains the same. People think that there is a style of training that is powerlifting training and likewise a style that is Olympic weightlifting training. There is not. These are competitions and people train for them successfully in many different ways. There also exists a delusion that powerlifters really dont care about mass and never pump their guns. This is also untrue. Many powerlifters still care about how they look and it is not uncommon to see a powerlifter training with bodybuilding parameters. Even the old time strongman routines usually had bicep curls in them! The bicep obsession has always been around. In fact many practices that are done solely for the purpose of strength cross the same lines as bodybuilding. If a powerlifter engages in endless triceps extension because he thinks that will increase his bench press how is that different from a bodybuilder? It is not, of course. Likewise, a powerlifter who does lots of heavy barbell shrugs because he thinks that big traps equal a big deadlift has inadvertently crossed bodybuilding parameters. But lets not fall into dramatic thinking. Again we must consider our selection. Lets say the biggest and strongest strength athletes possess the most functional mass. If we use them as proof that strength training makes you look like a bodybuilder we would be sorely mistaken since our selection is a very small group of elite athletes. Now, why are they elite? It may well be that their ability to put on loads of functional mass has a great deal to do with their success in lifting. Even then youll find lots of successful lifters who dont share their esthetic. We can make very few conclusions. Much the same thinking is applied to other sports where strength is paramount. In gymnastics, for instance, where relative strength is all but defined. Are you familiar with Chad Waterbury and his silly obsession with gymnastics ring workouts? And Cirque de Soleil. This is selection bias at work. Bryan Chung wrote about this elite athlete selection bias and specifically applied it to gymnastics. You see, those guys you see on TV competing at the Olympics with their very muscular cut bodies are not representative of the gymnastics population at large. If you actually considered a large population you would find a lot of variance in muscularity.

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The same question exists for gymnastics as for powerlifting. Are we more likely to see very muscular gymnasts at the Olympics because this ability to achieve so much functional mass from gymnastic training makes them more successful? Probably. And probably if you swing around on the rings you will not look like one of them. I go more into this in the following post while lampooning the typical fitness blog: http://www.gustrength.com/eric-troy:misconceptions-abound So the propaganda machine was based on a selection bias. Hopefully I have thoroughly dismantled it. But what is strength training if it is not the same as hypertrophy training? Two words: force Production.

* When comparing modern bodybuilding with old time strongmen I am referring modern bodybuilding as a whole. Many would argue that todays bodybuilders lack the esthetic of those of the earlier days of the sport and that shear mass has won out over all other considerations. If that were true it would be yet another example of how esthetic preferences change over time. Yet this books purpose is not to compare the bodybuilders of the 1990s and 2000s to those of the 1970s or some other decade. A free strength training eBook brought to you by http://www.gustrength.com

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Chapter 2: Why all this muscle talk, then? Strength training is about force production. The muscles produce force. Therefore strength training is about the muscles. This viewpoint relies on a few standard ideas. A Bigger Muscle is a Stronger Muscle
Those who want to convince you that mass and strength are parallel goals will trumpet this simplistic nonsense until they are hoarse. A bigger muscle is stronger, a bigger muscle is stronger. My reaction: Who cares? The goal of strength training is to get stronger. When I say strength training I mean training to increase absolute strength. Which means to increase force production. Since my goals are to get stronger then my goals have nothing to do with big muscles. Training is centered on goals and results. Your goal is to get strong. Therefore your goal cannot be big muscles. Your goal must be to get strong. If big muscles come along with that it is a side effect. Those who would have you dwell on muscle size to sell strength training to you would have you believe that setting your sights on a side effect is the same as setting your sights on the primary goal. So let me say it again. The purpose of strength training is to increase absolute force production. A bigger muscle, of course, is not always a stronger muscle. Because not all mass is functional. All resistance training results in a mix of functional and nonfunctional mass and it is possible to add appreciable size to a muscle without a corresponding increase in tension producing potential. But that is not the problem. We can go ahead and assume that a bigger muscle is a stronger muscle. However, if we consider the ratio of training volume/size increase to increases in absolute force production we realize that, again, training for mass in order to get stronger will never result in reaching our strength potential. There is a very simple way of explaining why. If we wish to increase absolute force we must be able to generate consistently high forces in our strength training. In practical training terms this means we must use high percentages of our 1RM. Not fairly high percentages. Not kinda high or sorta high. Very high. Yet even those with PhDs will make statements like this: To improve performance in a sporting event or an occupational task, strength training (e.g., weight training) is employed in the hope of increasing muscle mass and consequently strength. No wonder strength trainees get confused. Even the scientists dont know what training for strength is. If you train to increase muscle mass you are doing bodybuilding training, not strength training. A stronger muscle is a bigger muscle all things being equal but we train for strength, folks, not mass! One more time. We train to increase absolute force production.

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Bigger Muscles Work Better

It almost seems as if there is a misinformation campaign in place to keep trainees from developing peak strength. Apparently bigger muscles are not only stronger muscles but they simply work better than smaller muscles through a trick of alternate physics. A great example comes from the book Practical Programming by Mark Rippetoe: Bigger muscles also mean more efficient leverage around important joints. Knees, elbows, hips and shoulders work better when the muscles that operate them are larger big quads work better than small quads. The idea that the size of a muscle changes its natural leverage is what is known as magical thinking. Bigger muscles have more capacity for natural force production but in order to change their leverage we would have to detach them and then reattach them to some other point further or closer to their corresponding bony articulation. And indeed, from an efficiency standpoint, needless mass does not improve performance. Improved leverage around the joints by bigger muscles is probably related to an idea called tissue leverage which is a bodybuilding idea that attempts to explain why getting fat and swole during the off-season will allow a bodybuilder to lift more weight thus being bigger when he trims down again. Apparently it doesnt matter whether the bigness is due to fat deposition, water retention, or actual functional tissue. The term may have been coined by Frederick Hatfield in his scientific bodybuilding book or one of his many long and winding articles. Tissue leverage is an example of obfuscation or jargon that attempts to confuse and befuddle us with fancy sounding terminology. It has never been defined only repeated over and over again and eventually finding its way into powerlifting to explain why heavyweights enjoy mechanical advantages. Without actually explaining anything of course. See much more on these subjects on following pages at Ground Up Strength: http://www.gustrength.com/eric-troy:bad-articles http://www.gustrength.com/critical-thinking:lipservice

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Argument by Opposition
Argument by opposition is the practice of creating oppositional categories against those things we dont like so that we dont actually have to talk about what we do like. Hatfield habitually uses terms like tissue leverage that have little meaning. He is not alone. Jargon and rhetoric are the two primary tools of the strength training and bodybuilding literatureat least that literature which claims to be scientific. Rhetoric in particular goes a long way in the strength training industry. To put this in perspective Hatfield made the following statements: Lifting weights is NOT training. Life is NOT aerobic.

I use these typical examples to let you in on a trick of rhetoric. Defining things by what they are NOT. Saying what things are not rather than what they are would be a 100 level course if you were going for a degree in bullshitting. They are vacuous statements that simply attempt to provoke us into listening. The majority of our life is spent in aerobic respiration. We would die otherwise! Obviously some other idea is being expressed here that has no literal relationship to energy systems. And if lifting weights is not training then what in the world is training? Talking about what strength training is not makes it plastic. We then get to make it suit our particular needs as long as it suits the broad parameters we choose to delineate what it is not. If we dont really have the chops to talk about strength training we can cloud it with jargon and rhetoric to confuse the ignorant. This kind of talking softens up the audience making them like sponges for meaningless technobabble like tissue leverage. Lets take a look at what Hatfield actually said about tissue leverage: Tissue Leverage: Interstitial and intracellular leverage stemming from fat deposits, sarcoplasmic content, satellite cell proliferation and the accumulation of intracellular fluid all provide a sort of "bloat" factor to your body. Believe it or not, the big boys in sport -- the super-heavyweights -- can benefit in limit strength output from being "bloated." For the rest of you, it's not a tenable source of improved fitness. Perhaps believe it or not should be a clue that we are about to be thrown overboard without a lifesaver. Now if its not for the rest of you then why bring it up? To sound smart, thats why. Im being serious here because the whole statement is lip service through and through. Completely meaningless gobbledygook. It explains nothing. To arm yourself against jargon never let big words impress you! Lets look at the words interstitial and intracellular.

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Interstitial basically means something relating to the spaces between other things. Intracellular means within the cell. We can assume then that Hatfield is using the term interstitial to refer to spaces between the cells. Interstitial is just an adjective. Those spaces could be filled with anything. Tissue, fluid, empty space. Now ask yourself what the heck interstitial and intracellular leverage could possibly mean. Remember we are talking about levers here. Keep it simple. Think about a see-saw, or using a crow-bar to pry something loose. These are first class levers and they are not predominant in the musculoskeletal system but if you think of a triceps extension or a calf raise you have examples of first class levers in the body. Now try to imagine improving the leverage of your see-saw or crow-bar by some mysterious deposition of interstitial and intracellular things. Well this interstitial and intracellular leverage apparently stems from (more jargon) fat deposits, intracellular fluid, satellite cell proliferation and sarcoplasmic cell content. Isnt it interesting that all these things occur within cells? What has happened to those mysterious interstitial things? We were told something stemmed from them as well. The recent craze over general physical preparedness (GPP), especially among the big boys of powerlifting is a perfect contradiction to the absurd idea that being bloated made powerlifters stronger. It was handed down for years and only now are people seeing the light. The strength training industry is largely dominated by hacks. We as trainees are at a disadvantage if we take things at face value. Eventually everything seems to come down to justifying needless volume for strength training. Interestingly the volume crowd tends to justify a lot without actually ever explaining much. To understand this we have to understand what kind of tasks the human musculoskeletal system is best suited for.

What are we BEST at?

The idea that lots of factors OTHER than lifting heavy things are more important for developing maximal strength is so damaging because of the innate disadvantage we face. Simply speaking, we are good at maximal force production. People go on about mechanical advantage but in general we are at a mechanical disadvantage when it comes to lifting heavy loads. Even those with the best leverages are still largely faced with this disadvantage! Its not what were made for to put it bluntly. Many Olympic lifting proponents see the fast lifts as superior to the heavy slow lifts. To them, Olympic weightlifting is the epitome of strength and its expression by the human body. And they have some justification in thinking so.

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Here we are not concerned with subjective definitions of what strength is but how the ultimate capacity of the human musculoskeletal system is best expressed. Compare the act of picking up a heavy stone to throwing a spear. What are we best suited for? If you said throwing a spear you are correct. Absolute force production is not our talent compared to speed and range of motion. The lever systems of the body have a disadvantage in that the muscles, in general, must exert much more force than the resistive forces applied to the system. But when it comes to speed and ROM the arrangement that limits absolute force production makes us shine. Throwing a 95 mile an hour fast ball is the human equivalent of the cheetah and his sprint. I am aware that trainers speak of improving our leverages quite often. However, they do not mean that we can actually improve the setup of the natural leverages in our body. Improving our leverages is shorthand for perfecting body positioning and form in order to make most efficient use of the levers we have. Even the most efficient lifter is still faced with strength limits and cannot change his leverages in a real physical sense. The very idea is absurd! There is one primary way to overcome this innate disadvantage. We cannot change our leverages. We can only change our force production. And the BEST way to increase absolute force production is to LIFT HEAVY THINGS! Its not that technical sounding and yet its founded in technical fact. But we dont strength train because we see technical beauty in it, do we? At the end of the day we just think lifting the heavy stone is more satisfying (and fun!) than throwing a javelin or a baseball. We can choose to express ourselves with the Olympic lifts or with a deadlift. One is not better than the other. It is our method of self-expression. Do not let others tell you how to express yourself! Value judgments have no place.

Why Arent Bodybuilders Strong?

Well bodybuilders are strong. Relatively speaking. But they have what is called a large strength deficit. Those training for absolute strength are looking to make their strength deficit smaller, in fact, although they may not know it! In Science and Practice of Strength Training by Vladimir Zatiorsky an anecdote is given to explain the definition of muscular strength: A subject is asked to flex an elbow joint with maximal effort to generate the highest possible force and velocity against different objects. The objects included a dime, a baseball, a 7-kg shot, and dumbbells of different weights, including one that was too heavy to lift. The maximal force applied to these objects was measured and the forces were found to be unequal. So which of these forces represents muscular strength? Remember they were all maximal forces.

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The answer is that the highest force produced was the force that represented muscular strength. The maximum force that can be exerted against any object of any weight, as given by Zatiorsky is labeled FM. This is the maximum force that can be generated in a given condition. For instance if you bench press a 10 pound weight with all the force you can muster, that force would be labeled FM. This is not the maximum force you are capable of mustering in ANY condition, only in the given condition, which is a 10 pound bench press. On the other hand the highest possible force attainable in the most beneficial condition is FMM to designate maximum maximorum. The most beneficial condition really is the laboratory condition where maximum voluntary force is measured by a dynamometer or some such device. Lifting heavy things, then, does not represent the most beneficial condition. What we want to do, however, is come as close to exerting FMM as possible. The difference between the force exerted in any given condition, FM, and FMM is termed the explosive strength deficit. If you are a shot putter then decreasing your explosive strength deficit would be a goal. Remember, you will NEVER be able to exert true maximum force against a shotput or a 10 pound barbell. When you train for explosive strength you attempt to close the gap between the force you actually muster against light objects and your theoretical maximum ability as represented by FMM, so called maximum maximorum. To maximize force against light objects we must improve rate of force production (RFD). The term explosive strength then refers to the initial output of force against an object, both its output and the speed of its peak. Once a light object has accelerated due to the initial force input we are no longer able to bring much force to bear against it due to the force velocity relationship. If you want to lift maximum loads however, you ultimately dont care about explosive strength only maximum force production. We may train explosive strength as a means to an end, with limited results, but we dont care about it as such. If the given condition for a bodybuilder is one in which maximum force can never be developed then we can see why the bodybuilder is not as strong as his strength training counterpart even though he might be bigger. The objects lifted are too light. Maximum force can never be exerted when resistances are too low because of the force velocity relationship. See chapter four for further discussion. There are many factors related to maximum strength production but the most important for trainees wishing to understand the difference between bodybuilding and strength training are neural components, the force velocity relationship, and average intensity.

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Chapter 3: Three Major Fundamentals of Strength

There are more than three fundamentals of strength development of course but the three I will discuss in this chapter are components I have found the average beginner to strength training is missing: neural components, the force velocity relationship, and average or median intensity.

Neural Component of Strength Development

Most experts agree that neural components of muscular strength are important factors in maximum force production. However, what those uninitiated into maximum strength training miss is just HOW important they can be. Often we hear the trained being compared to the untrained. The muscle size of a trained person can be expected to be larger than an untrained person. Likewise the neural control of muscular action is better in a trained person than in an untrained person. This is as far as most take it. We can easily see that trained is a pretty generic description of a trainee! Trained in what way? Neural control goes a lot further than just being the difference between someone who has done resistance training and someone who has not. A person who has primarily trained for mass, using light weights, isolation movements, and high volume will not have developed anywhere near the neural control of a strength trained person even if we can say his mass is functional, which we cannot. Yet this person can be considered trained. Although at the beginning the primary adaptation to strength training is neural, and then later hypertrophy, there is not a wall which separates these components where one turns off and the other turns on. CNS adaptations continue to be a factor throughout the training career. If we push very quickly against a light resistance doing so-called ballistic resistance training the neural improvement would be primarily in the area of rate of force development (RFD). Rate of force development is not as important as total force development for maximum strength. To increase total force development, again, maximal training is required. The typical trainee who has been engaging in what he thought was strength training, even for years, by doing middle of the road strength training programs aimed at progressive loading is leaving so much strength potential in the tank that it is usually an epiphany when they come to me and finally start learning to use near-maximal training the correct way. These quick strength adaptations are the body learning to use the muscles more effectively against maximal resistance even for these trained persons.

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The Force Velocity Relationship

The force velocity relationship of muscular contraction dictates that as velocity of muscle shortening increases total force decreases. Take a light weight and attempt to exert maximal force against it. What happens? You move the weight very quickly. The muscles are shortening very quickly. The quicker this happens the less total force the muscles can apply. When many muscle force experiments are plotted on a graph the force velocity curve emerges. The following image is an idealized version of this curve for illustration purposes only.

The best way to imagine how this image applies is to view it left to right. The red line is total force and the axis at the bottom is the velocity of shortening. Think of the far right of the bottom axis as maximum velocity. As you can see the red line bottoms out. Virtually no force at the maximum velocity of shortening. Notice that as we move from right to left and velocity of shortening slows the red line goes up steadily. So as velocity of shortening slows down, force production goes up. As we approach further to the left and velocity reaches zero we see an abrupt rise in force production. Think of zero velocity as an isometric action, then. The muscle can produce its maximum force. But no actual work is being performed. The green line represents power. Power is the sweet spot between velocity and force and is seen where the red and green lines intersect. This is the area the Olympic lifter is concerned with and any athlete that needs to express strength as power. This is commonly referred to as explosive strength. We, however, are concerned with the area to the left of this intersection where velocity is decreasing but is not nil. This is the area where maximum force can be developed.

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Explosive strength may well be on our menu from time to time but it is not our goal and for advanced lifters increases in explosive strength will have little to no bearing on absolute force production against near-maximal loads. The force velocity relationship has a physiological basis. Or at least it has a theoretical physiological basis. Muscles contract by forming cross-bridges between actin and myosin filaments in the myofibrils. These cross-bridges take a finite amount of time to occur. As the velocity of shortening increases the filaments slide past one another faster and faster causing less cross bridges to be able to form. Follow the link below to see an animation of the actin-myosin cross-bridge. Watch closely to see the steps involved. If you imagine the animation speeding up but the steps involved in each cross-bridge not speeding up you will see how the force velocity relationship might occur. http://www.sci.sdsu.edu/movies/actin_myosin_gif.html

Average Intensity (and anxiety)

People who are afraid of maximal weights fail to realize just how little of the workload during even a very heavy week uses intensities of 90% or greater. A busy week of singles and doubles, separated for instance between deadlifts and overhead press, would still have only perhaps 5 or 6 percent of the total work being near maximal. And the majority of the remaining work would be movements that are not that similar to the primary movements being prioritized and could be considered cross-training or even conditioning depending on the trainees needs. Much has been made of the Russian texts and particularly things written by Zatiorsky because they have been the most popularized in the west. Observations of the training loads of Elite Russian athletes from some by-gone era have little to do with the average recreational strength trainee or even many professional powerlifters. According to Zatiorsky: maximum training weight is the heaviest weight (one repetition maximum - 1 RM) which can be lifted by an athlete without substantial emotional stress. In practice, experienced athletes determine TFM by registering heart rate. There is nothing about emotional stress that automatically determines the weight you can lift! Such ideas have been thoroughly explored by sports psychologists and it is no longer thought that all anxiety before performance is bad. Your heart rate before a lift might be a physiological reflection of your state of arousal. One lifters emotional stress is another lifters perfect state of arousal. And indeed all emotional stress is not bad. Some stress can be needed to perform at our best. If you expect to be a robot before every heavy lift you may as well turn in your barbell.

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A better measure of when not to lift than a simple rise in heart rate, which could well reflect positive anticipation, is hesitation. If you have watched many lifters preparing for a big lift you will notice that many times the lifter seems to have trouble setting up the lift. Hesitation is a better sign of apprehension as it better reflects ones level of negative anticipation. Our heart rate goes up when we ride a roller coaster. But we are having fun. Its when we are apprehensive about getting on the roller coaster in the first place that we can call ourselves anxious. Consider a lifter moving back and forth under the bar when setting up for a squat as if he is having trouble getting the bar in the right position. You may also notice jerky movements and a seeming lack of coordination. This kind of thing during training is a good indication of a weight being beyond the lifters means, or even needs, for training. The experienced lifter pretty much knows what he is capable of. This does not mean we dont fail but we know what is within us and even if we do fail we dont fail dangerously (very often). During competitions such hesitation is expected as lifters are often in unknown territory. Even so, a lifter who is in the zone does not waste time when approaching the bar. No, controlling anxiety is another facet of training not a training consideration itself. There are too many factors that go into our psychological state to say that it is an indication of our true ability. Most lifters who experience a great deal of anxiety before a heavy lift will probably find that they have a high level of anxiety in general. For more information on psychological aspects of lifting see: http://www.gustrength.com/eric-troy:flow-zone-series It may well be that the idea that we should be in some state of emotional cooling and never have any doubt during training is complete bunk! The psychological needs of good training versus good competitive performance are not the same. If youre into some heavy reading on the subject consider this: http://www.gustrength.com/critical-thinking:effects-of-self-doubt-on-performance I chose to emphasize the emotional aspect of heavy weight lifting because part of the propaganda tying bodybuilding to strength training has also attempted to poison trainees against lifting heavy loads. The idea that heavy weights are more likely to injure us is yet another fiction. I cant guarantee you will never get injured but at least I can assure you you need not fear the weights. I would love to bust the injury myth right here and now as well but I have to draw limits on these free books. Perhaps the next book or article!

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A Parting Note
As a strength trainer who has coached people to very heavy lifts I must contend with the inevitable disappointment when what once seemed so easy becomes a struggle. When trainees become advanced and reach their absolute ceiling of force production progress becomes slower and slower and the trainee must struggle for the slightest improvement. A one pound advancement can become a cause for celebration. There are many ways around this disappointment and its not the purpose of this book to discuss them. But when those same advanced trainees ask for simple advice on hypertrophy my job becomes much easier. Thats all you want? I say. This response may be counterintuitive to less seasoned readers so I will explain why I respond that way. The reason I feel that giving out mass gaining advice is easier than giving out advanced strength training advice is, well, because it is! You see, continual changes in absolute force production are MUCH tougher to come by then hypertrophy gains. Of course there is a mass ceiling too but these are strength trainees who have not primarily trained for mass and yet have reached close to the limits of their maximum strength. The interventions needed to get bigger delts or grow the quads are simple and straight forward. So what does that tell you about the assertions that strength training and hypertrophy are one and the same? If youve been reading patiently then it should tell you a great deal! I hope that this eBook has been some help to you in cutting through the watered-down mess youve encountered that has undoubtedly curtailed your strength training results. For more information and insight please visit: http://www.gustrength.com and post in the forum: http://www.gustrength.com/forum:start. It is my sincere hope that these eBooks help you, the reader. If they do and you would like to see them continue then please help Ground Up Strength survive by participating with us! I have started series of blog posts called Training to Fail on my blog at Ground Up Strength. These posts are meant to be companions to this eBook since they explore some ideas, concepts, and practices that lead strength trainee to fail in reaching their goals. And since these things are enmeshed with the strength/mass propaganda I thought they should be presented together. Each post does of course stand-alone but each post follows form the next in, I hope, a logical format. There are also two earlier posts that are related and I encourage you to read those as well since some of the ideas are discussed further: http://www.gustrength.com/erictroy:training-to-fail-series

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