Your Strongest Year Ever

How are you going to make 2015 your strongest year ever?

Well, 2014 is over and 2015 is just beginning.

When it comes to health and fitness, most people have similar goals:

• Lose weight
• Gain lean muscle
• Eat better
• Improve their quality of life
• Get stronger

There are several ways to do this, but I want talk about the last one on the list, getting stronger.

There are many ways to increase strength, but today I want to share with you a proven method for gaining strength.

It’s called Auto-regulation.

Auto-regulation simply means adjusting the day’s training to fit your body’s current needs. 

So what does this mean for you?

You’ve had days when you feel fresh and strong, when your engine is firing on all cylinders. These are the days you’ve had where the weights fly up and they seem lighter. You LOVE those days, right?

On the opposite side of the spectrum, you have your off days. Maybe YOU slept terrible, your kids are sick, you ate like crap, or you’ve been stressed out at work. Right when you start your training session, your body feels trashed, the weights seem heavy and every lift feels strenuous.

This, my friends, is life.

Understanding your body and how it responds to stress is a valuable skill.

I have seen countless clients “listen to their body” who end up hitting PR’s when they least expect it. Unplanned PR’s happen on those days when you may not feel like training, but then you show up and feel strong and on-your-game.

Keep in mind, I’ve also seen people ignore what their body is telling them. That’s usually when they end up tweaking something or getting injured.

At Skill of Strength, we want to put you in a position where you can achieve all of your goals. This is why we try to educate you as much as possible.

Here are a few things to consider when we prescribe a set/rep scheme in your program or in a class setting.

Your general goal is to lift as much weight as possible while using excellent technique.

It’s important to understand how hard we want you to work at Skill of Strength so we are going to start implementing a PRE scale. PRE is “perceived rate of exertion”.

• A PRE of 10 would be how you felt after the heaviest you’ve ever lifted.
• A PRE of 1 would be how you feel after an easy warm-up set.

When strength is your goal, you’ll always want to work between a PRE of 5-10. If your PRE is 3 and your goal is strength, you are pretty much wasting your time. The only time you’d shoot for a PRE of 3 is when you are learning a brand new skill or lift.

Lets use the deadlift for example:

In January, our deadlift set/rep scheme in our MOVE. group training program will be 3×6 with a PRE of around 6-7.

If your goal is to deadlift 400lbs, your working weight will be anywhere from 240lbs to 280lbs. Can you go higher if you are feeling great? Yes! But, be smart, and don’t miss any reps. If you feel like crap, do not try for a heavier weight. Instead, Stick to that 6/10 on your PRE, get solid reps in for the day and don’t force the envelope. Remember, you will always have another session to hit your numbers. Listen to your body. Don’t get hurt.

This style of training gives you flexibility to work harder on the days you feel great. When you’re having an “off” day, you can still train and you should still aim for quality reps, just lower the weight.

I have been weightlifting for almost 20 years and trust me when I tell you not to push your limits when you feel awful. That’s how accidents and injuries occur. You will always have another day to hit that PR. Strength training is a journey and it should never end.

The most important thing when it comes to training is to remain consistent. If you train 3-5 times a week, work hard during your sessions (keep your PRE between 5-10), train smart and eat healthy, you will reach your goals. If you show up once a week, barely sleep and eat like crap, I think you know what will happen.

We are lucky to have such a great community at Skill of Strength and nothing makes us happier than seeing our clients get the results they have worked so hard for.

If you need help or have questions, please ask. We are here to help you succeed.