Strength is King

          When building a foundation for normal movement and performance, strength is king! Without strength we cannot perform basic daily activities. If you can’t lift your body, limbs, and move against gravity, you cannot train any other elements.  Therefore, strength is the foundation off of which you build all other athletic attributes. This law applies across the whole spectrum, from the very least conditioned to the elite athletes. The stronger you are, the more potential you have to carry over into all other aspects of performance. A great saying that I hear a lot is, “a pyramid can only be as tall as its base.” This means that the performance pyramid, whose foundation (or base) is strength, can only be so great depending on how large its base is. 

          Think about it in terms of strength compared to your body weight, aka relative strength. How strong you are in relation to how much you weigh plays a huge role, whether you are a runner, wrestler, lifter, or any other kind of athlete. All of these sports have one thing in common: strength is the foundation for every athletic ability that they require. The stronger you are the faster you can run, the higher you can jump, and the faster you can move your body. Take a look at the force-velocity curves below. Having more strength means you can lift more, in terms of the x-axis. When the force-velocity line is shifted to the right, the weight relatively becomes easier to move, and you can move it faster.

Figure: Jonny’s force velocity curves before and after his awesome, super duper training program.

So what does this mean in terms of performance?

              If we take a look at Jonny, he can move a 180-pound squat .75 meters per second (m/s). Then he gets a new kick-ass training program and starts to get stronger. His force-velocity curve gets shifted to the right. Relatively, 180 pounds is much easier for him to move now. Instead of being able to move 180 pounds .75 m/s, he can now move that same weight faster at 1.0 m/s. Go Jonny!

              Now think about this in terms of body weight plotted on the curve: if your body weight is relatively easier for your muscles to move, because you are stronger, you can now move yourself faster. This translates into you running faster, jumping higher, and being able to absorb and transfer more force throughout all aspects of athletic performance. 

              Obviously there are more things that go into performance, for example coordination and movement, which help athletes go above and beyond, but you need to start at the bottom and work your way up. You need general physical preparedness (GPP), before you can get into sport-specific preparedness (SPP). So how strong is strong enough? This is a grey area and is very individual. Everyone will draw the line somewhere and start focusing more on other SPP activities, but you cannot get away from the basics and foundation of what you have built. You can have great theory and uniqueness to your programming, but if you ignore the foundation and focus on the higher levels too soon, everything comes crashing to the ground.

Ryan Goodell, CSCS

Basic Westside/Conjugate Template for Powerlifting

       When putting together a workout for the day I generally go off a basic template that I have taken from the Westside/Conjugate method of training. A general training session would look like:

     1) Main lift

           2) Supplemental lift

           3) Accessory 1 

           4) Accessory 2 

           5) Etc.

After an ample warm up you start with the main lift, which consists of either a bench, a squat, or a deadlift variation. These variations can include different bar types, bands, chains, and a variety of other gadgets to challenge these motions in different ways. For this I generally stick with lower reps and higher intensity to focus on maximal strength.  

Following the main lift comes the supplemental lift. This lift should be very similar to and have almost a direct carryover from the main lift. This lift can be used to add more volume, practice technique, or shorten the range of motion using boards in order to get more weight on the bar. The main point is, the supplemental lift should have a large carryover from the main lift. The uses of the supplemental lift are not limited to the ones I listed above; those are just a few that I have found to be helpful.

The remainder of the session should consist of accessory exercises. These can be used for technique, hypertrophy of lacking muscles, working on your beach body (if you’re into that sort of thing), and so many other possibilities. Simply put, accessory exercises should be used to help build muscle, grow your foundation, and keep you healthy. For example, I like to hit up individual muscles, following the main and supplemental lifts, with some hypertrophy or high rep work. Then I may do some core work combined with some prehab exercise to keep me healthy and hit some weak points that I know are problem areas that need some specialized attention. On lower body days I like to include some work capacity, which consists of heavy carries, and on upper days scapular muscle work for time.

The possibilities are almost endless with ways to manipulate this template, depending on your facility, what works for you, and what kinds of toys and gadgets you can bring into your training. This versatility is one of the reasons I like training with this program. No matter where I am, especially if I’m on a physical therapy clinical or traveling and don’t have access to my familiar gym, I can scale and adjust it accordingly. I’ve also seen this program work extremely well for athletes in combination with their sport-specific training. The lifts may vary depending on your preferences and resources, but the principles stay the same. Feel free to leave comments below with what main and accessory lifts work well for you.