Different definitions of strength.
People these days use the word strength to define any situation that involves them getting over some sort of obstacle. Marathon runners are “strong” for running 26 miles. Someone who loses a loved one is called “strong” for enduring sadness. When it comes to strength regarding weight training, people do the same. If you did 15 reps on the smith machine they say you’re “stronger” than last time when you did 12 reps. Or they couldn’t do a one legged squat before and now they can, so they’re “strong”. (In a different post we’ll talk about training vs skill practice when it comes to sports or any human movement involved in a program to get better)
What definition do we use when we train for strength?
Strength is the ability to produce force. The electrical signals sent by your brain down your nerves that signal the motor neurons attached to a muscle to contract. More weight moved equals stronger all else being equal. The “all else being equal” means you can lift more weight for the same sets/reps at the same bodyweight you could previously. In weight training lingo the amount of weight lifted in a set is referred to as intensity.
Maximum effort vs submaximal effort
Imagine you dig into the darkness of your soul and muster courage and energy to squat a weight with all you have. You can only do that once. We call that your one rep maximum. Theoretically it represents 100% of your effort, your ability to produce force. Now let’s take a very small fraction of that ability to produce force, let’s say for illustration purposes, 5%. When you ride a bicycle on the road every pedal stroke takes 5% of your total effort to move your body and the bicycle forward. Since it’s only 5% of your effort you can do this multiple times over the course of 5 miles. We say you use submaximal effort on the bicycle to pedal. Put another way, riding a bicycle requires multiple submaximal efforts that is a percentage of your total ability to produce 100% force.
So what’s the point?
By the illustration above you can deduce now that if you want to get better and improve your cycling time, you need to improve your ability to produce the total amount of force. Let’s say you train for strength during the off-season and you increase your ability to produce force by 20%. The amount of submaximal force needed to pedal the bicycle will now be less, let’s say 2%. I didn’t do the math on that one, it’s an example.
Can you understand now that if you get stronger you will be able to use less force to pedal the bicycle? If you now use 5% effort as you did previously, you will pedal faster. Simple right? But still so many people believe in order to increase your time you need to just ride your bicycle more. (I’m not talking about the skill practice involving the posture and pedaling mechanics, just force production).
Conclusion
If you nitpick every single aspect of what I tried to explain here we can go on for days about “what ifs” and “I know somebody who does this” type discussions. The overall idea here is in strength training with free weights, strength is your ability to produce force against the barbell or dumbbell. The amount of weight moved is referred to as the intensity of that set in that workout. Your maximum ability to produce force effects submaximal efforts of any nature. Increasing your ability to produce force decreases the submaximal percentage of total effort.
Since strength is involved with every single human movement against the environment in your everyday life, it is my opinion that strength training should be the foundation of any program, at first. Once you are strong, every task you do on a daily basis is easier because it requires less effort.
