Strength Training

In the world of fitness, nothing is more pervasive than a core training myth. The obsession with six-pack abs, the fear of back pain, and the desire for greater sport performance all drive us to hunt for the perfect core training exercise, programme, or overarching strategy.

The pursuit of core training greatness can cause us to eagerly adopt whatever core training myths we see online. Some of these are well-intentioned, but simply go too far in their application. Others misinterpret the findings of scientific studies. Some of these myths are perpetuated just to follow trends on social media. No matter their origin, the end result is the same: unsatisfactory results for you, and limiting beliefs about your capabilities.

Your first pressup is an important fitness milestone. It’s one of the keys to mastering your bodyweight and building upper body strength. It’s one of the most common goals my clients have, and I’ve helped a number of people build their pressup strength. You can learn more about their successes with my testimonials.

Many of my clients want to train for strength and weight loss simultaneously. Strength training has grown in popularity for its wide range of benefits, but for many people these benefits sit alongside the desire to become leaner.

I don’t talk about weight loss much as I think it is an over-emphasised aspect of getting fitter and healthier, but I think it’s worth discussing how to lose weight and get stronger at the same time as these are such common goals for the new clients I meet.

It can be challenging to get stronger and lose weight at the same time, although this depends on your approach to weight loss. These goals are not as closely aligned as strength training and muscle building, which I have discussed previously. Strength and weight loss do not have much in common in terms of the processes that occur in the body, and this means the steps we have to take in training are not complimentary.

Common mistakes when building strength and losing weight include:

Many of my clients want to build strength and muscle at the same time. Strength training has grown in popularity for its wide range of benefits, but for many people this still doesn’t trump the appeal of changing their physique as well. It helps that building additional muscle tissue is also beneficial for everyone.

It helps that getting stronger and building muscle can be complimentary processes. This means that the two goals do not clash with each other as much as, say, getting stronger and losing weight.

That being said, gaining strength and muscle are not exactly the same process, as I have detailed with some analogies in the past. This means there is some potential for these training goals to clash if a programme isn’t balanced properly. Some common faults are:

One of my favourite parts of training beginners is getting them strong enough that their grip strength becomes a limiting factor in compound lifts. This may seem like an odd boast, but let me explain.

As your skill, confidence and strength grows over the first couple of months of training, you will reach a point where the target muscle of an exercise can tolerate more work than your grip can. This is a great early milestone in training, but it can quickly become an obstacle.

When grip strength fails, people usually notice the following symptoms:

• Unable to keep the hands closed around the bar/dumbbell;
• Burning forearms;
• Regularly needing to adjust the hands on the implement;
• Unable to concentrate on the exercise for fear of dropping the bar/dumbbell.

Strength and conditioning has been a passion of mine for a long time. Since studying for my degree in strength and conditioning in 2011, I’ve helped people improve performance in skiing, kayaking, football, basketball, track sports, martial arts, and more.

Unfortunately, I’ve noticed that there’s a lack of good strength and conditioning guidance for anyone who isn’t already a professional athlete. There are plenty of cool strength and conditioning exercises on social media, but these are often lacking nuance. A lack of nuance can easily lead to training mistakes. One of the mistakes I see most often in strength and conditioning is in the way we apply the concept of training specificity.

While it makes sense for training to be specific to your chosen sport, many people pursue training specificity in ineffective or even detrimental ways.

Here are some of the common mistakes relating to training specificity, and how you can correct them.

The deadlift is a fantastic strength exercise in its own right, but after a certain amount of progress, you will need to supplement it with other lifts to keep getting stronger. This is where deadlift accessory exercises become an essential part of your strength training programme.