Strength is the mother of all qualities,” Tudor Bompa, the father of periodisation, once said. I have said this before in this space, and I will say it again as a strength and conditioning specialist with over 20 years’ experience in this domain, despite the wide array of physical skills that are necessary to excel in sports and in life, there is one that will carry over to the highest in all other physical disciplines — maximal strength. Professor Leonid Matveev, one of the foremost Russian scientists, stated that strength is the foundation for all other physical qualities. “Be what you choose to be, but be strong first,” he said. People seem to have forgotten that fact.
Recent studies in longevity and prevention of chronic diseases have revealed that strong muscles are linked to improved blood sugar regulation, cardiovascular health, reduced risk of falls, better cognitive function, and lower risk of cognitive decline and dementia.
Force-velocity curve
The “aerobicisation” of recreational and competitive sports conditioning is a poor carry-over from the previous decade and most recreational athletes in our country suffer from poor muscle mass, which is a precursor to diabetes and other related chronic health complications. In the area of sports, although we value and practise the training of endurance, power, speed, agility, balance, coordination, accuracy, flexibility, and stamina, we consider strength to be the mother of them all.
WHAT IS STRENGTH?
Strength is defined as the ability or capacity to resist, overcome, or compensate against any kind of stress or resistance. It is the ability of a muscle or a muscle group to generate muscular force under a given specific velocity.
ORIGINS OF STRENGTH SCIENCE
The earliest reference to formal strength training occurs in Chinese texts dating as far back as 3,600 BC when emperors made their subjects exercise daily (Webster, 1976). During the Zhou dynasty, potential soldiers had to pass weightlifting tests before being allowed to join the armed forces.
There is abundant evidence that weight training was used in ancient Egypt and India, while the Greeks left numerous sculptures and illustrations of their athletes training with stone weights.
The sixth century was known as the Age of Strength, where competitions involved lifting huge stones. In his famous treatise, Preservation of Health, the ancient physician Galen refers frequently to exercising with weights (halteres). He even classified exercises into “quick” (exercises without weight) and “violent” (performed with weights). The Roman poet Martial had this insightful opinion: “Why do strong men labour with stupid dumbbells? A far better task for men is digging.”
Modern research studies into the use of weights/resistance training indicate that these ancient Roman men were not so “stupid” after all!
The single-arm Landmine press is a great way to develop unilateral overhead pressing strength. 'Kettlebell clean' engages muscles throughout the body, including legs, back, core, and shoulders, improves coordination, and develops explosive power
DEVIATION FROM STRENGTH
The overriding gospel for strength and conditioning coaches, physical therapists, and physical medicine practitioners should be: When in doubt, get stronger. In their quest to seek out perfect biomechanical pathways, strength coaches and therapists are stepping away from strength development.
Furthermore, there is always the distraction of the “shiny new thing”, creating doubts in their minds as to what the “correct” protocols would be for the enhancement of performance or the prevention of injury. Fashions come and fashions go. Right now, corrective exercises and metabolic conditioning are very trendy.
A while back, it was “functional training”, and soon it will be something else. However, any corrective exercise coach worth his salt will tell you that the ability to generate isolated muscle strength is integral to “correcting” an aberrant pattern.
Finally, the neuromuscular system has to learn how to integrate this strength into the human movement system. This is at the core of corrective exercise. Muscle is the most metabolically demanding tissue in the whole body, and metabolic conditioning is anything but complete without muscular strength first.
Says Calcutta-based functional medicine practitioner Parikshit Bhattacharya: “Being a metabolic health physician for the past two decades, I have realised one simple fact of life. Metabolic health and muscle quality and strength go hand in hand. Resting metabolic rate (burning more calories all day and consuming excess blood glucose even when at rest), the ability to get away from that infrequent deviation from healthy food habits, and maybe, most importantly, feeling younger as we age biologically… all one needs is to focus on muscle strength. Needless to say, all of the above is linked to better health span and not just lifespan.”
It is a big error to seek more and more conditioning. The sad thing about conditioning is that it is a quality that disappears quite quickly. A hugely reassuring quality of strength is that it stays. Any strength warrior will know that if you haven’t been able to lift for years due to illness or injury and are finally able to return to lifting weights again, your strength numbers return rapidly.
Relative strength chart
Strength does not evaporate; it sticks on. Conditioning, sadly, is a fickle friend and can desert you quickly enough. I am not even beginning to suggest that muscular endurance or conditioning does not have value. But strength is the big daddy of all qualities — it should never be out of style.
Agreeably, high repetitions with light weights may build strength endurance. And common sense recommends developing muscular endurance before progressing to strength. But once the transfer has been made, there is no value in squeezing out rep after rep in the quest to increase muscular endurance. Instead, concentrate on building some strength to endure.
Another coaching mistake is disregarding general strength exercises like deadlifts and cleans and doing nothing but loaded variations of “sports-specific” exercises. I am fond of reiterating to all my trainees — there is no such thing as sports-specific! I encourage my athletes to just improve strength in primary pattern movements and then practise their skill or sport. Whenever you sprint, jump, or throw, you are always overcoming inertia. What makes you overcome inertia? Getting stronger. Go ahead and do your own thing — trek mountains, swim rivers, run marathons, or play pickleball. But first: Get strong.
UNDERSTANDING SOME STRENGTH CONCEPTS
Strength reserve is the difference created between maximal strength and the strength needed to perform certain physical tasks. In sports, the application is fairly straightforward. Let’s take the example of a tennis player who deadlifts 100kg and push-presses about 60kg. There is a maximum amount of strength that the tennis athlete has to generate in the course of a tennis match. The lesser this strength demand in the match is compared to his training demand, the more easily the athlete will be able to absorb the demands of the match and the less energy he will spend on match day. As the old adage goes, “The more you sweat at training, the less you bleed in combat.” In life too, a higher strength capacity will make daily tasks and functions less of a burden.
Relative strength is the amount of strength to body size, or how strong someone is compared to their size. This reflects a person’s ability to move their body through space, a vital trait in all athletes. All else being equal, smaller individuals have higher relative strength.
Shifting the force-velocity curve
Strength is the ability of a muscle or a muscle group to generate muscular force under a given specific velocity. With consistent strength training, the graph shifts to the right. Hence, athletes will be able to move larger loads at higher velocities. Max strength initially improves all the points on the graph.
The aim in most athletic programmes is to shift the force-velocity curve upwards and to the right. This will indicate improved rate of force development, meaning ability to generate more force in less time. The training methods employed to achieve this target usually are a combination of the following over different periods:
Heavy strength training: The goal is to maximise force production at low velocities. The weights are typically around 80-90 per cent of one Rep Max.
Speed and power training: Lifts are focussed at producing high velocity with loads of around 30-50 per cent of one Rep Max. This also includes sprints and plyometrics.
Combined training: Integrating both heavy and speed/power training in undulating session plans.
Ranadeep Moitra is a strength and conditioning specialist and corrective exercise coach