Apart from big muscles, Strength is one thing that people like to flex. A lot of people believe that if people have bigger muscles, they would be strong too. Well, this is only partially true. Surprised?
If the former statement were true, most bodybuilders would be stronger than strongmen or weightlifting athletes.
What is Strength?
Strength is the ability to generate the maximal amount of force.
Let us look at the factors affecting strength:
● The skillset of the movement : Strength is hugely dependent on the way you perform a particular movement. The form and technique have a huge role to play in deciding if you would be able to generate maximum force. So, if you are looking at building strength over time, focus on the ‘How’ of the movement.
● Muscle mass: More muscle mass means more muscle fibers or a larger cross-section area of the muscle fiber. This is directly proportional to the ability to generate more force. So building muscles is an important block to develop strength like the Hercules.
● Neural firing rate or Rate Coding: Our Nervous system is a communication system that our body uses to interact with our muscles to be able to sense a stimulus and react to it. Rate coding is the rate at which our nervous system discharges action potentials(chemical signals) to recruit motor units (collection of muscle fibers). Let us compare a GPRS connection with a 4G or 5G connection. Which one is faster and why? Well, the latter is faster because it transmits data at a much faster rate than the former. In the same way, if the communication between the Central nervous system and muscle recruitment is fast, the reaction speed improves and it leads to an overall efficient and effective movement.
● Intermuscular coordination: During a compound movement, multiple joints and muscles are being used to execute one big movement which means that there needs to be proper coordination amongst muscles being recruited. For example: If the glutes do not engage properly during the bottom position of a Squat, the Quadriceps alone won’t be able to move the weight without creating a faulty movement pattern.
● Nutrition: A good supply of energy that comes from what you eat is crucial in being able to perform better. Carbohydrate, a macronutrient that converts into glucose to provide instant energy to our body would help a lot in performing better. A good pre-workout meal should be a combination of carbohydrates and protein. Fast digesting carbs should be taken right before or during the workout and the slow-digesting ones should be taken at least an hour before the workout.
● Supplementation: One of the most researched and recommended supplements to use for better strength is Creatine. It could help with better strength output(Dempsey, Mazzone and Meurer, 2002).
Ensuring taking care of the above factors affecting strength, you can develop good strength over time. To do that, it is very important to program and track your workouts for a very specific goal and not change it often as that could lead to the violation of the first factor which is a skillset.
References:
- Dempsey, R. L., Mazzone, M. F. and Meurer, L. N. (2002) ‘Does oral creatine supplementation improve strength? A meta-analysis.’, The Journal of family practice, 51(11), pp. 945–51. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12485548.
- https://examine.com/supplements/creatine/ __
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