How to get strength up?

**SaintGJR7** · 12-12-2006, 04:29 AM

Hi fellas - what is the best way for me to get my strength up?

I havent been training that long really - about 8 months in total - about 4-5 months cutting and around 3 months bulking so far.

I am around 6 feet tall and around 180 pounds. I really need to get my strength up because some of my lifts are still quite laughable. I understand that i am only competing with myself and its not a race to who can lift the most but i would like to lift more.

At the moment my routine has always been more higher reps 10, 12, some 15.

What would guys recommend?

Thanks for reading.

***Narkissos*** · 12-12-2006, 08:21 PM

Getting strength up is a matter of being consistent... not of a specific routine/regime.

Consistency.

**chest6** · 12-12-2006, 10:25 PM

The 10-15 rep range never gave me great strength gains. Lower rep range really gave me strength in compound lifts and just consistency with a surplus of calories seemed to improve strength on isolated movements.

**max2extreme** · 12-13-2006, 05:25 AM

There is no one optimal number of repetitions. That being said, through years of lifting and research and studies done, high resistance training leads to development of strength and low resistance training leads to muscular endurance. For optimal training, you need to overload your system, that is, for improvements to take place, you must place a demand on the body system. As your body adapts to this demand, more load must be added. Now, using this knowledge, it leads to heavy weights, low reps. So, generally speaking, without getting too complicated, Ive seen and makes sense that 4-6 reps (no less than 3 and no more than 6) is best for strength, and weight should be so that at your 5-6 rep, you are maxxed out and cant do another...

Hope this helps.

**SaintGJR7** · 12-13-2006, 07:25 AM

Thanks for the input - appreciated as always - i have been thinking about maybe having a go at westside for skinny b*stards - what do you think?

**DutchCowboy** · 12-13-2006, 07:03 PM

Originally Posted by Narkissos

Getting strength up is a matter of being consistent... not of a specific routine/regime.

Consistency.

I agree to a point Nark, but I think that your routine/regime will directly impact your strength. having a lifting partner is probably the best way to increase your strength because it allows you to use heavier loads, among many of the other benefits of having a partner.

***Narkissos*** · 12-14-2006, 07:54 AM

^^ I don't disagree with any of your points..'cept the first.

He's been training 8 months total by his own admission. During the first year of training strength gains are a factor of consistency.. namely because during this period the biomechanics of exercise are being learnt; some allude to the forging of neurmuscular pathways (a theory later disproved as in actuality the phenomenom as alluded to is simply an individual learning to recruit more muscle fibers consciously... through repetitive motion).

So honestly it doesn't matter what he does... once he keeps at it.

Many long term lifters in reflection note that in their initial years their approach was 'gung-ho'.

In reflection they can't understand how they made progress.

The short answer?

Consistency; repetitive motion; and the body's amazing adaptive ability

Nark