Often times people will make getting strong seem complicated, and it can be, but if you can’t break it down into the simplest ideas possible, then you probably don’t understand it very well. I like to think of getting strong as either a “Hardware” or “Software” issue. Improving your Hardware means adding onto what you currently have. Improving your Software means taking the body you already have, and making improvements on it.

Improving your hardware is one of the hardest things to work on, as it can ONLY be done by building muscle. This means you need to get under heavy weight for reps, and put in the work. Any good strength program should include this in it’s training.

Improving the software is often times easier depending on the personality type of the lifter. This can be done one of three ways. You can improving your technique in a lift, making you more efficient. This is why beginners can make such massive gains early on, because if they learn to keep the bar close on a deadlift, they can add 20+lbs on the bar. Did they get stronger? No, likely not, but they did get more efficient, which is much needed to get past the beginner stage.

Another way to improve software is to remove fear of a lift. This is why the “Squat Every Day” program became so wildly popular. Peoples lifts shot up, often times in as little as a week or two. Anyone who’s been training for a decent period of time can’t get stronger that fast, BUT they can improve their confidence and become less scared of a weight. This is perfect for people who have mental barriers with certain weights, or are timid lifters. However typically the people who do it are ACTUALLY people who need to focus elsewhere. Because they are confident in their lift, they think that they are missing a PR because they weren’t confident enough at the new PR. So they just think they need to try harder, when they simply don’t have the muscle or the technique to support the new lift!

Increasing the contractile potential of a muscle is a little harder to work on, but this essentially means improve your mind muscle connection to a specific muscle. Often times, weightlifters and crossfitters avoid this because they did not get introduced to bodybuilding, where there is a heavy emphasis on it, but instead were focused on “data” of increasing your max. I like to implement this in the warm up, so if we can identify where the lifter has a weak MMC, we would perform isometrics with the focus on that muscle group, such as a hamstring curl hold for the hamstrings. This concept can also be applied in combination with hypertrophy work, which will be improving the hardware, by performing tempo exercises with a focus on feeling the muscle being worked.

The problem here is how do we identify what are we need work on? Most strength sports have their emphasis, so whatever you have emphasized the most, you may need to spend the opposite on.

If all you ever work on is your technique, you might be best suited to a 4-6 week hypertrophy block.

If all you do is max out, you DEFINIETLY need to spend some time improving your technique!

This will take some introspection on your part to identify how you approach your training, but it will be wel worth it in the long term, if you’re willing to see that far.