NEVER STOP GETTING STRONGER

For those of you who have embarked on a strength training journey, there comes a point where you are going to ask yourself the question 'How strong do I need to be?''

In many cases, the answer will be one which confirms your excuse for not having to (or wanting to) get any stronger than what you currently are. After all, you just need enough 'to see you through', right?

I think it is a wiser idea to re-phrase the question and ask yourself 'How do I get stronger in my next workout?'' instead.

See the difference?

The first question is based on guesses, assumptions, estimates, probabilities, and a whole lot of unknowingness. Who really knows how strong you should be? Do you ? And how will you know that when you are 'strong enough', that you actually are strong enough? Besides that: strong enough for what?

In contrast, the second question is based on solutions that lie within your control. I think we can all agree that our next workout is the most important one. Because this is the workout where we have the chance to make a positive change to our current strength levels by adding more weight to the bar than what we lifted last time.

Now consider the effect of summation of all increases in weight on the bar over your next year of training. Going up 1kg on the squat every time you train? That is 2kg per week if you squat twice a week. Multiply this by 52 weeks and you will have accumulated a staggering 104kg on the bar in your squat by then. Sounds utopian, doesn't it?

It might do. But the main point is not that you would be 104g stronger by then (even though this would be great).

The main point is that you hadn't even considered such an increase the day you hit your last workout. Because it was of little or no relevance in that moment, and it would have meant that you could have predicted your workout numbers an entire year ahead.

The world has seen a number of fortune tellers over the past years. Some of them could even predict that there would be an outbreak of a virus at some point in the future. This was nothing short of an act of ingenuity, and blessed were those who had been warned about this by those people.

I believe that even if we tried really really hard, none of us could demonstrate the same level of brilliance by predicting how strong we are going to be on the same day today next year.

But we can quite confidently predict how strong we are going to get in the next workout. By making the right preparations for it in the build-up: eating and sleeping enough - and going for it when a new PB is on the horizon.

So, why don't you aim to get a little stronger every time you train, and see where it takes you?

You might be pleasantly surprised.

#strengthtraining #getstrong #barbells #hamptonwick #teddington