By Eric Cressey
Author
of "Show
& Go: High-Performance Training to Look, Feel, and Move Better"
Like just about all lifters, I got
a lot bigger and stronger in my first 1-2 years of training in
spite of the moronic stuff that I did. In hindsight, I was about
as informed as a chimp with a barbell - but things worked out
nonetheless. That is, at least, until I hit a big fat plateau
where things didn't budge.
Think I'm joking? Sadly, I'm not;
otherwise, I wouldn't have spent about 14 months trying to go
from a 225-pound bench to 230. When you're finished laughing at
my past futility (or about how similar it sounds to your own plight),
we'll continue.
Ready? Good - because self-deprecating
writing was never a strong suit of mine. I have, however, become
quite good at picking heavy stuff off the floor - to the tune
of a personal-best 660-pound deadlift at a body weight of 188.
My other numbers aren't too shabby,
either, but this article isn't about me; it's about why YOU aren't
necessarily getting strong as fast as you'd like. Let's look at
a few mistakes many people make in their quest to get stronger.
Sadly, I made most of these myself along the way, so hopefully
I can save you some frustration.
Mistake #1: Only doing what's fun and not what
you need.
As you could probably tell, deadlifting
is a strength of mine - and I enjoy it. Squatting, on the other
hand, never came naturally to me. I always squatted, but I'd be
lying if I didn't say that it took the back seat to pulling heavy.
Eventually, though, I smartened
up and took care of the issue - by always putting squatting before
deadlifting in all my lower-body training sessions (twice a week).
In addition to me dramatically improving
my squat, a funny thing happened: I actually started to love to
squat. Whoever said that you can't teach an old dog (or deadlifter)
new tricks didn't have the real scoop.
Mistake #2: Not taking deload periods.
One phrase of which I've grown quite
fond is "fatigue masks fitness." As a little frame of
reference, my best vertical jump is 36" - but on most days,
I won't give you anything over 34.5" or so. The reason is
very simple: most of your training career is going to be spent
in some degree of fatigue. How you manage that fatigue is what's
going to dictate your adaptation over the long-term.
On one hand, you want to impose
enough fatigue to create supercompensation - so that you'll adapt
and come back at a higher level of fitness. On the other hand,
you don't want to impose so much fatigue that you dig yourself
a hole you can't get out of without a significant amount of time
off.
Good programs implement strategic
overreaching follows by periods of lower training stress to allow
for adaptation to occur. You can't just go in and hit personal
bests in every single training session.
Mistake #3: Not rotating
movements.
It never ceases to amaze me when
a guy claims that he just can't seem to add to his bench press
(or any lift, for that matter), and when you ask him what he's
done to work on it of late, and he tells you "bench press."
Specificity is important, folks, but if you aren't rotating exercises,
you're missing out on a wildly valuable training stimulus: rotating
exercises.
While there is certainly a place
for extended periods of specificity (Smolov squat cycles, for
instance), you can't push this approach indefinitely. Rotating
my heaviest movements was one of the most important lessons I
learned along my journey. In addition to helping to create adaptation,
you're also expanding your "motor program" and avoiding
overuse injuries via pattern overload.
I'm not saying that you have to
overhaul your entire program each time you walk into the gym,
but there should be some semi-regular fluctuation in exercise
selection. The more experienced you get, the more often you'll
want to rotate your exercises (I do it weekly). We generally rotate
assistance exercises every four weeks, though.
Mistake #4: Inconsistency in
training.
I always tell our clients from all
walks of life that the best strength and conditioning programs
are ones that are sustainable. I'll take a crappy program executed
with consistency over a great program that's only done sporadically.
In my daily practice, this is absolutely huge for professional
athletes who need to maximize progress in the off-season; they
just can't afford to have unplanned breaks in training if they
want to improve from year to year.
If a program isn't conducive to
your goals and lifestyle, then it isn't a good program. That's
why I went out of my way to create 2x/week, 3x/week, and 4x/week
strength training options - plus five supplemental conditioning
options and a host of exercise modifications - when I pulled Show
and Go together; I wanted it to be a very versatile resource.
Likewise, I wanted it to be safe;
a program isn't good if it injures you and prevents you from exercising.
Solid programs include targeted efforts to reduce the likelihood
of injury via means like mobility warm-ups, supplemental stretching
recommendations, specific progressions, fluctuations in training
stress, and alternative exercises ("plan B") in case
you aren't quite ready to execute "Plan A."
For me personally, I attribute a
lot of my progress to the fact that at one point, I actually went
over eight years without missing a planned lift. It's a bit extreme,
I know, but there's a lesson to be learned.
Mistake #5: Wrong rep schemes.
Beginners can make strength gains
on as little as 40% of their one-rep max. Past that initial period,
the number moves to 70% - which is roughly a 12-rep max for most
folks. Later, I'd say that the number creeps up to about 85% -
which would be about a 5-rep max for an intermediate lifter. This
last range is where you'll find most people who head to the internet
for strength training information.
What they don't realize is that
85% isn't going to get the job done for very long, either. My
experience is that in advanced lifters, the fastest way to build
strength is to perform singles at or above 90% of one-rep max
with regularity. As long as exercises are rotated and deloading
periods are included, this is a strategy that can be employed
for an extended period of time. In fact, it was probably the single
(no pun intended) most valuable discovery I made in my quest to
get stronger.
I'm not saying that you should be
attempting one-rep maxes each time you enter the gym, but I do
think they'll "just happen" if you employ this technique.
To take the guesswork out of all
this and try some programming that considers all these crucial
factors (and a whole lot more), check out Eric's new resource,
Show and Go: High Performance
Training to Look, Feel, and Move Better.
CLICK HERE For More Information and To Pick Up
Your Copy of "Show & Go: High-Performance
Training to Look, Feel, and Move Better"
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