Strength Training Philosophy

We discussed running efficiency last post and I will add posts to this soon, now lets also talk about strength training as well.

The picture listed above (from nasa.com of all places) is truly what is wrong with the current mentality in strength training. What I mean by this is that we have lost the idea of what strength is. To be strong has nothing to do with how much you can bench press or how much weight you can put on the curl bar, or my personal favorite, how much can you put on the squat rack.

Now before every member of the World’s Strongest Man Competition comes looking for me, yes obviously those things can represent strength. But lets be honest how many of you out there really have dreams of becoming the worlds strongest man? If you are not named Hanz or Franz, keep dreaming. Even Olympic Weight Lifters are considered the strongest people in the world. But again how many of you are planning on going to London in 2012 to represent your Country in weight lifting?

Many of the thousands of clients I have trained usually ask me within the first few sessions, when are we going to start weight training? Early on in my training career I would usually cave and start mixing in some just to keep them happy or, to keep them paying. I very much dislike the traditional training world for that reason. Commission sales is never about the client nearly as much as it is about keeping food on your table. Over time I was able to start to establish some standards to help them understand when it is appropriate to be able to start training with resistance in the body.

Brian Cassidy helped me to understand several key components of how to interpret the human bodies ability to withstand outside resistances such as weight training.  Mr. Cassidy learned this from a man named Pete Egoscue. He has a book that he published quite awhile ago, I think it was 1993. It was titled “The Egoscue Method of Health Through Motion“. He also has a few more that he has published since but this one is my favorite.

You feel like you are there talking with him as you are reading it. He gives a much more detailed description of the philosophy pages that are listed on this Blog. Really he is the one who started this style of training. Or at least to my knowledge he is.

Here are some things you need to consider in regards to strength training. What does strength mean to your life. Like I said earlier to train like a strong athlete is to be a part of a sport. Weight training is its own sport that requires a significant amount of time. You must practice the moves over and over again to make sure you can do them correctly without injuring yourself. You must follow schedules and specific programs that will enable you to continue to improve at the lifts you are doing.

What is it that you do in life that you need strength for? Are you a weekend warrior athlete? Do you like to spend you free time gardening? Do you have young kids at home that you want to get outside to the park and play with? Depending on the goals you have for your activity levels, you would be wise to choose the right type of strength training.

Now I also understand that there is another component to strength training and that is vanity. People want to look good and we have learned that strength training can change the way our muscular system appears. We can add muscle mass, we can tone and define our muscles or just make them long and lean looking.

In this section of posts we will discuss the various styles of strength training and what type is going to prove the most beneficial for you to do.

We will cover how your posture, injury history, previous training, and even your job and lifestyle will impact what you should choose for your strength training to make you successful and more importantly to gain strength that will benefit your life style.