Before going directly into specific strength training exercises we should all make sure that we are on the same page when it comes to the definition of what strength training is and how to increase your strength. In a nutshell strength training is all about working your body's large muscle groups.

When we are working the body's large muscle groups in natural movements like squats, deadlifts, bench press etc. that result not only in an improved physique, but also a noticeable increase of strength and improved athletic ability.

Unfortunately most weight training programs that someone does at the gym although might develop some muscle will not actually increase the general strength of the person. This might sound strange as most people think a big muscle is a strong muscle.

But the bottom line is that your overall strength ability will not increase if you are doing isolated movements like wrist curls and calf raises. It might put on a bit of muscle but it will not increase your inner core strength. The only way to do that is to do large compound movements.

In order to do this you need to simplify and that means increase the weight and decrease the reps of your compound movements like squats, bench-press and deadlift as well as pull-ups and shoulder press. There are many different ways of increasing your weight that you use.

From pyramid training, forced reps, negatives and a whole lot more will radically improve the weight that you can lift using these large compound movements. A compound movement is basically a movement that involves ort works more than one body-part at the same time.

It is advised by many strength training exercises that the 5 X 5 system is a very good way of getting strong. It must be kept in mind that when starting out doing 5 X 5 you first need to make sure that you are doing a good warm-up and that will ensure that you do not land up getting injured.

It is good to start off by working out what your one rep maximum is as this will be a good yard stick that you can measure your success and increase in strength by. But when trying to increase your weight do not worry about only getting to 5 reps as doing a set of only 3 reps is certainly not a waste of time.

After each set there is no need to speed up the intensity by not resting which will only make you fail sooner. So have a long rest between sets like 3 to 4 minutes is not going to be a problem in getting your strength up as fast as you can.

Listed below is an example of a beginners program for increasing strength as fast as possible. You should keep in mind that eating and resting correctly is a vitally important aspect of achieving any success in strength training.

Day 1 (Monday)
Warm up for 3-5 minutes by either jumping rope, doing jumping jacks, using a rower machine or riding a stationary bike Squats - 2 warm-up sets of 5 reps (1 with just the barbell, 1 with some weight added). 5 sets of 5 reps (Find a weight that makes five reps difficult)
Shoulder Press - 2 warm-up sets of 5 reps (1 with just the barbell, 1 with some weight added). 5 sets of 5 reps (Find a weight that makes 5 reps difficult)
Notes: Rest 2 minute between each set

Day 2 (Wednesday)
Warm up for 3-5 minutes by jumping rope, using a rower machine or riding a stationary bike.
Deadlift - 2 warm-up sets of 5 reps (barbell with some weight added). 5 sets of 5 reps (Use a weight that's difficult to do 5 sets)
Chin ups/pull ups - Do 5 sets of 5 reps. If you can't do a chin up, check out the bottom of the chin-up page for advice on assisted chin-ups. If you can do more than 5 chin-ups, add weight to your chin-ups so that you can only do 5.
Note: Rest 2 minutes between each set

Day 3 (Friday)
Warm up for 3-5 minutes by jumping rope, using a rower machine or riding a stationary bike
Squats - 2 warm-up sets of 5 reps (1 with just the barbell, 1 with some weight added) - 5 sets of 5 reps (Find a weight that makes five reps difficult)
Bench Press - 2 warm-up sets of 5 reps (1 with just the barbell, 1 with some weight added) - 5 sets of 5 reps (Find a weight that makes five reps difficult)
Note: Rest 2 minutes between each set

That's your workout for the first week. For week 2, we're going to be doing the same exercises, except we'll be performing the Day 2 workout twice and the Day 1 workout once.

For more information checkout Super Strength Training Secrets.

Copyright 2002-2020 StrengthLore.com. All Rights Reserved