10 min read
WHAT DOES IT mean to be strong? I continually ask myself that question, especially as I cast about for new ways to think about my body and what I want and need out of it. Lately, I’ve been busy with the demands of this job and the new responsibilities that come with purchasing a home and planning a wedding. There are weeks and even months when I’m having fun for hours in the gym nearly every day—but increasingly, I’ve found that my schedule has narrowed my fitness focus. During those times, I’ve typically brought workouts back to my understanding of the basics. But I can’t help but think there’s more I’m missing.
Thankfully, there’s more than one way to gauge strength—and if you want to have a truly comprehensive routine, you’re going to want to give each of them your attention. That’s the idea behind MH’s new Maximum Strengthspan program. For decades, most conversations between gym guys have defined “strength” in a pretty one-dimensional fashion: How much weight can you lift?
But when MH sat down to really study the blend of strength you need to look your best, perform like you’ve always wanted—and do both for years and decades to come—we realized you need more than a big deadlift and bench press. What you need is a span of different strengths. We narrowed this down to five concepts: Absolute Strength, Explosive Strength, Functional Strength, Aesthetic Strength, and Aerobic Strength.
Especially since I turned 30, I’ve prioritized only lifting heavy weights and building my body up for endurance challenges like marathon running (and okay, looking strong, too). I haven’t been giving as much attention to the full spectrum. I’ve realized I would need to branch out and diversify my training to be truly well-rounded—and set myself up for success as I age and move on to different phases of my life. But how?
Another question: Can you train all of these aspects in just one workout? I checked in with MH fitness director Ebenezer Samuel, C.S.C.S. to find out.
Absolute Strength Barbell Deadlift, 3 sets of 3 to 5 reps
WE STARTED THINGS off with the most common form of strength, absolute strength. What is absolute strength? Basically, it’s exactly what you think it is: Your ability to lift heavy-ass weights. And yes, this matters for more than bragging rights. Working through compound movements with challenging heavy loads is still your most proven path to building muscle. (It also hones maximal force output, which is key to helping you develop strength across the full span, too.)
One of the finest examples of absolute strength: The barbell deadlift. I can move more weight than any other exercise I typically include in my workouts, since I’m able to depend on my big lower body muscles (glutes and hamstrings in particular). Absolute strength is best trained at low reps. But to get to your heaviest loads, you’ll want to start with light weight. For me, that meant starting at 225 pounds for five reps after a warmup. After a warmup, I added a pair of plates to begin ramping up at 225 pounds for five reps. Even though this wasn’t that much for me, my focus was making sure to move with perfect form.
After the ramp up, we got to the work sets. Now was the time to push. We added another plate for 315 pounds, I gripped the bar, and I pulled from the floor. By the fifth rep, I could feel the strain in my legs as I stood up into hip extension and my forearms started to burn while I gripped the bar. But I still needed to ratchet up the effort. Samuel asked how I’d rate the effort on the RPE scale, and told me that it wasn’t tough enough when I responded at a six of 10. “If we’re doing three sets and we’re counting the final two sets as when we’re really pushing, I would want that at an eight or a nine.” So how can you make things harder? Progression. “That does mean that things are going to get progressively harder,” Samuel told me. To keep that challenge, he recommends tracking effort over the duration of a program, and when things feel stale, add advanced techniques like rest-pause reps or dropsets.
The last working set was at 365 for three reps. I rolled the bar back to my shins, packed my shoulders, and lifted the weight up. I felt solid with my form, repeating the same motion I had for every other rep of the workout—but by rep three, I could feel my grip failing. I was able to finish off the set without dropping the bar, but if I would’ve had to do more reps, I definitely would have grabbed some straps to shore up my grip. That’s OK too. When you train absolute strength, says Samuel, don’t be afraid to use straps. Your goal is to get the most from your muscles, and depending on your anatomy, straps can be useful.
Explosive Strength Broad Jump, 2 sets of 3 reps
ONE KEY ASPECT that a lot of weight room-focused exercisers skip is explosive strength. Rather than expressing the force to lift a heavy load, I was now focused on producing it as fast and powerfully as possible. We set out to do this with a movement that put me in an almost identical starting position to the deadlift: the broad jump. But instead of lifting straight up, the idea was to jump out as far as I could, exploding off the floor. “They are essentially the exact same position: It’s called your hinge,” Samuel said. “The only thing is, Brett now is going to express that force very fast.”
I kept this in mind as I set up for the jump, pushing my butt back to drop my hips low and shifting my arms behind my torso. Then, go time. I exploded off the floor, driving my arms forward to help propel my body through space. I landed balanced on both feet, knees bent. Then, I walked back to the starting position to prep for the next rep. This was important. The point here wasn’t to exhaust myself with a quick succession of leaps; the point was to produce as much power as possible with each rep. Even that was a challenge, though. My second jump didn’t have the same oomph “As each of these jumps go, it’s going to be a lot harder to repeat that same energy and expression of force,” said Samuel.
One stealth challenge of broad jumps: Jumping is a skill. If you haven’t jumped in years, don’t expect big leaps. Your body (and mind) need to relearn jumping mechanics, which takes time. “There is a learning curve on this,” Samuel said. “As you progress and you start to develop a bit more tactical technique, you’re going to be a more effective broad jumper.”
Despite the fact that it’s a skill, don’t try to do too many reps. We did fewer than 5 reps in each set, so I could focus on feeling explosive. “The biggest thing when we’re training explosive force is we want to keep it low rep, keep it more about impact and intent,” Samuel said.
Functional StrengthTurkish Getup
“Functional fitness” has become a buzzword—and Samuel doesn’t think you need to spend much time training for it. Why? Because you’ll be able to transfer a lot of the skills and movements you do in standard exercises to real life anyway..
But every so often, it’s worth testing your functional strength. Enter: The Turkish getup, which is a bit misunderstood in some fitness circles. It’s not the type of maneuver that you should be using with the intent to build muscle; instead, the getup is much more useful as a means to gauge healthy movement, thanks to its technical difficulty.
This, of course, is partly why I rarely do full getups, anyway. I like something called the 3-Step getup as an upper ab challenge, but I very rarely move from the floor all the way up to standing (and then back). Eb stepped me through each step, from lying on my back with the weight extended overhead, through the hip bridge and windmill, to lunge, and then standing. Through every moment, I kept my gaze locked on the bell overhead. After the first try, I was able to walk through the whole process on my own without cues.
What started as an awkward, herky-jerky process smoothed out into a flow. I only did one side of my body, though—and the whole point of functional strength is testing and honing the proficiency of all these movements. That would be my next focus. Then, once I could walk through every step perfectly, progressing to heavier weights to ramp up the challenge and find new deficiencies to iron out.
Mirror Muscle StrengthIncline Curl to Skull Crusher Overhead Extension Superset – 3 sets of 12 reps
Training to make your body look a certain way isn’t just for vanity. There are other sneaky benefits when you dial in on your “mirror muscles” (i.e. biceps and triceps and others that thrive from isolation exercises). If you’re only doing compound movements or “functional” exercises, you won’t be getting those smaller muscle groups the same level of bloodflow. And this can be especially important as you get older and you want to limit the natural loss of muscle as you age.
To give these muscles some love, we set up and incline bench for a simple bis and tris superset. I started with an incline curl, then doubled up with an overhead triceps extension. I was working with light weights—which meant that I needed to really focus on the contraction and getting a good squeeze at the top of each rep.
This is the aspect of strength that will really help to reinforce healthy movements for longevity. “The great thing about isolation work, which is very important when you get in your 40s and 50s, is you can’t always lift heavy—that’s going to take a toll on your body and wear you out,” Eb said. “But when we are training a little bit lighter and doing some of these isolation movements, you’re not going to put as much pressure on your central nervous system, and that means you’re going to be able to repeat these motions more often.” You might only be able to train absolute strength once or twice in a week—but you can hit these isolation movements to build muscle without burning out multiple times. I know that I can get at least one heavy effort per workout now, but I know that I need to be smart and listen to my body in the aftermath as I recover, especially as I get older.
Even though I’m not wiped out like I was from the deadlift, I can definitely feel the burn in my arms from all the reps I’ve curled and pressed. My bis are feeling nice and tight—I’ve got a pump. That’s not a bad thing, according to Eb. “You’re not necessarily chasing a pump, but if you feel it, that’s a good sign you’re hitting exactly what you’re trying to hit.”
Aerobic StrengthTabata-Style Burpees
Finally, the hard part. Lots of guys who focus on one aspect of strength totally disregard their heart health. To be truly strong, you need a solid aerobic base. That means pushing the pace, breathing heavy, and redlining your heart rate.
To do that, Eb punished me. Not really—but that’s how it feels anytime someone tells me it’s time to do burpees. The exercise feels like it was designed in a lab for maximum pain. But what it really is a solid tool for intensity, if it’s performed properly. Brush up on your form here.
But the point here wasn’t to just pile on sloppy reps. Rather than training my aerobic strength with long, slow steady state work, our shortcut was intensity. If you don’t want to spend hours on your cardio, you can use tools like Tabata training to get it done fast. Tabata isn’t just a catchy term. It’s a strict protocol, which requires four minutes of 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off of nonstop work.
Once I got moving, it was all-out effort. Even though the work periods were only 20 seconds long, I was still panting by the time it came to take a break. I barely had time to recover; it felt like as soon as the interval was over it was time to get back to work.
We kept going for four rounds, and would have gone for four more if we weren’t just demoing the protocol. This was hard—and it shows that you can build a strong aerobic base without spending hours on cardio. This type of heart-pumping, lunge burning training is good for a better balanced routine, too. “In the long run, ideally you want a mix of this very high intensity cardio and these longer spans of Zone 2, Zone 3, maybe getting in a run,” Samuel said.
I had pushed myself in multiple spans through this session, from pulling bigtime weight to lung-burning burpees, and I proved to myself that not only could I fit everything into one routine, but that balance will be the key to a solid workout. The most important thing will be to keep all of these principles present in my training, so that I’m not just working to be the strongest, or fastest, or most muscular I can be. By hitting every aspect of the Strengthspan, I can be the healthiest, best version of myself.
Check out all of our the videos in our Maximum Strengthspan program, available exclusively for MH MVP subscribers, here.
Brett Williams, NASM-CPT, PES, a senior editor at Men’s Health, is a certified trainer and former pro football player and tech reporter. You can find his work elsewhere at Mashable, Thrillist, and other outlets.