Why You Should Lift Heavy Things (Part II)
Additionally, for those only interested in aesthetics and thinking, "Tony, I only want to be jacked; I could care less about strength," consider the following:
Say your current 1RM in the bench press is 225 pounds. If you're only interested in aesthetics, you'll typically train in the 70% to 80% 1RM range, which would mean you'd be using anywhere from 160 to 180 pounds for 8-12 reps.
For the next three months, you decide to get generally stronger (incorporating lifts above 90%) and happen to increase your 1RM to 275. What used to be 80% of your 1RM (180 pounds), is now 65%. When you inevitably decide to return back to a hypertrophy based program, 70%-80% of your 1RM is now 190-220 pounds! It stands to reason you'll pack on a significant amount of muscle.
Moreover, in boys and younger men with two or more years of training experience, it's been shown that utilizing heavy resistance training (85% to 95% of 1RM) seems to be one of the key factors that influences acute serum Testosterone concentrations following exercise. I don't recall hearing many reasons why increasing your Testosterone levels would be a bad thing, unless of course you're a woman who happens to have an unwanted penis.
In a nutshell, lifting maximal weight (90%+) has a number of effects:
1) Maximum number of MU's are recruited
2) Fastest MU's are activated
3) The discharge frequency (rate coding) is increased
4) Activity is synchronous
5) Improved coordination between synergistic muscles
6) Potential for future hypertrophy gains
7) Increased serum Testosterone levels
What About Athletic Performance?
You've probably noticed me using the words "power" and "force" quite a bit, and with good reason. Both play crucial roles in developing strength and athletic performance. Power simply refers to the ability to apply a lot of force in a minimum amount of time (Power = Force x Velocity). In order to improve power, you need to increase force and/or velocity.
Interesting to note, from a velocity standpoint, it's been shown that power output increases as the weight lifted decreases from 100% of 1RM to 90% of 1RM. In fact, for the back squat and deadlift, power output for a load at 90% 1RM may be twice as high as the 1RM load due to the large decrease in the time required to complete the exercise with the lighter load (1).
This obviously shows how velocity plays an important role and why using the dynamic effort method is a great way to improve strength. Optimal speed and power can only be maintained for approximately six seconds. Anything more and lactic acid accumulates and the additional hydrogen ions interfere with the contraction of the fast twitch muscle fibers.
In his book, The Vertical Jump Development Bible, Kelly Baggett talks about how the vertical jump is one of the best predictors of athletic performance. Essentially, how much force you can generate in a short amount of time (0.2 seconds for the vertical jump) is going to separate a superb athlete from an average athlete.
Because I'm more of a visual learner, I'm going to share an example from Kelly's book:
Bodyweight
Maximum force or strength without time constraint (squat)
Max force put out in the vertical jump (0.2 sec)
Athlete A
175 lbs
400 lbs
200 lbs
Athlete B
175 lbs
300 lbs
225 lbs
As you can see, athlete A can squat more than athlete B, but athlete B is going to have a better vertical jump because he can generate more force, rapidly. However, Kelly makes a point in stating that, "Although being able to apply force rapidly is a very useful characteristic, you still need to have enough potential force to tap into for anything to happen. Basically, a strong athlete will beat a weak athlete any day of the week."
Maximum strength is the foundation for everything (power, strength endurance, force development, etc.). You can't have strength endurance (being able to lift a sub-maximal weight repeatedly) or generate maximum force without first having strength.
Here's another example from Kelly's book to help illustrate this point:
Bodyweight
Max Force (strength) in the Squat
Max force in vertical jump
Weak athlete
200 lbs
100 lbs
95 lbs
Ideal athlete
175 lbs
400 lbs
325 lbs
The weak athlete is able to utilize 95% of his potential force and has a good rate of force development; however, he's only able to squat 100 pounds. He has very little to "tap into" and is only able to generate 95 pounds of force off the ground. Needless to say, he's going to be that guy who's lowering his adjustable rim in his driveway to eight feet so he can dunk a basketball.
The "ideal" athlete is only utilizing 75% of his potential force (20% less than the weak athlete), but is generating 325 pounds of force off the ground because he's strong. Again, strength is the foundation for everything. More specifically, relative strength trumps absolute strength from an athletic standpoint.
How to Apply the Rule of 90%
For my own peace of mind, I provided the following list of exercises that would be acceptable to use, questionable to use, and well, just plain dumb to use. This certainly isn't an all encompassing list, but I think you get the general idea:
Acceptable Exercises
Questionable Exercises (probably not the best choice, but "doable")
You deserve to be drop-kicked for even thinking about performing these with 90%
Squat Variations (back, front, Anderson, box)
Good Mornings (cambered bar, chain suspended, etc.)
Biceps Curls
Deadlift Variations (conventional, sumo, against chains)
Dips
Leg Curls
Bench Variations (standard, floor, board, chains)
Romanian Deadlifts
Calf Raises
Overhead Pressing
Weighted Sit-Ups
It's no surprise the best movements to use are the basic "money" exercises (squat, bench, deadlift). Also, be cognizant that "more is not better." Like many trainers and strength coaches, I like to set up programming where volume/intensity is fluctuated each week to coincide with CNS fatigue and/or to stave off overtraining. Lifts above 90% are very CNS intensive and are not something where you're going to need (or want) to do a lot of volume with each and every week.
That being said, you should limit your training sessions at 90%+ to seven to nine PER MONTH. Beginner and intermediate lifters could probably get away with more sessions per week above 90%, but as one gets more "advanced" twice per week is plenty. The following is sample three day split. Please note that I purposely left out specific sets/reps for all the accessory movements because everything would all depend on the weaknesses or imbalances of each individual.
Training Session #1
Week #1
Week #2
Week #3
Week #4
A. Squat Variation/Deadlift Variation
Weeks #1, #2: Squat, Weeks #3,#4: Deadlift
5 Lifts 90%+
4 Lifts 90%+
7 Lifts 90%+
3 Lifts 90%+ or Reps
B1. Vertical Push
B2. Lower Body Unilateral
C1. Horizontal Row
C2. Tricep Movement
D. Rotator Cuff/Core Work
Training Session #2
A. Horizontal Press (DB)
B1. Horizontal Row
B2. Lower Body Unilateral
C1. Vertical Pull
C2. Lower Body Iso-Metric Hold
D. Rotator Cuff/Core Work
Training Session #3
Week #1
Week #2
Week #3
Week #4
A. Bench Variation
5 Lifts 90%+
4 Lifts 90%+
7 Lifts 90%+
3 Lifts 90%+ or Reps
B1. Horizontal Push
B2. Horizontal Row
C1. Lower Body Unilateral
C2. Bicep
D. Rotator Cuff/Core Work
Conclusion
There are many reasons to incorporate lifts above 90% into your training. I think many lifters are experiencing their own Choose Your Own Adventure when it comes to their training, and they're getting less than stellar results.
You can either choose to keep doing what you're doing and not make any progress, or you can choose to embark on a new adventure and take your body to places it's never been before. The choice is yours.
About the Author
Tony Gentilcore is a certified strength and conditioning specialist (CSCS) and personal trainer (CPT) through the NSCA. He currently resides in the Boston area and can be contacted at
tgentilcore18@yahoo.com.
References
1. Baechle, T., Earle, R., and Wathen, D. Resistance Training.. In: Essentials of Strength and Conditioning (2nd Ed.) Baechle, T.R., Earle, R.W.., ed. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 2000.
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