Strength Rules the World

Training for improved work capacity without a well-developed strength base is a waste of time!

I would imagine that statement has sent shivers down the spines of the jogging community – but its true. Strength training is the most effective way to increase your work capacity. If your one and only goal is to become more effective at moving yourself/sub maximal/maximal loads better, then strength training will contribute much more to your goal achievement than training for endurance.

It sounds crazy to some of you, but hear me out!

The reason should be obvious to see (I hope). Let’s look at it from a real mans point of view. Loading bricks up flights of stairs is a pretty good example of “work”. To me I would imagine that carrying a 40kg block of bricks up a flight of stairs would be the norm for any labourer. 100 trips may well be a days work. If you can power clean 40kg (which I hope you can), then lifting 40kg of bricks isn’t going to be as tough for you, as it would be for some paleo-eating marathon runner who doesn’t lift weights and can only clean 20kg.

His 4 minute mile is irrelevant because lugging 40kg of bricks up a flight of stairs is only an endurance task to a guy that is strong enough to actually perform the work.

So how would one get better at carrying bricks up flights of stairs (when I say that I actually mean “how would you increase work capacity” but god damn it....I’m trying to make a point)? I would bet my last pennies that the skinny marathon runner would go away and run 5 miles per day. Why? Because when he performed the task his heart rate spiked and the next day he was fooked! However, running 5 miles a day would be a great example of avoiding the issue!

The best and ultimately correct way to adapt your body to carrying multiple loads all over the place would be to spend more time getting your squat, press’s and deadlift max’s up.

The most important thing to understand is that “strength is the most general of all athletic adaptations. All the other physical components such as power, endurance, balance, and co-ordination depend on the production of force within the physical environment” (Jim Wendler). Basically, if your strength improves, all the other components will.

For a guy who isn’t very strong, spending time improving his strength will be much more beneficial to improving his work capacity than spending time on the other derivative components. This point is especially true when you realise that improving your strength does not take that long. I guarantee that any athlete you train will tell you that strength training has the biggest positive impact on their other abilities.

When looking at the “huffing and puffing” aspect, strength training can actually improve VO2 Max values [in untrained populations]. Not a lot I'll grant you that, but it does have a slight improvement. For the novice lifters out there, strength training improves that aspect of fitness as efficiently as the millions of conditioning programs that are floating around out there on the web.

Before you “strength and conditioning specialists” out there start slating me, remember that we are talking about skinny marathon runners that do near to no strength training at all. I agree that past a certain point of strength development, some heavy sled pushing on a regular basis is beneficial.

Another point to look at is the difference between a STRENGTH adaptation and a CONDITIONING adaptation.

A man’s strength improves quickly at first, but will soon plateau and ultimately can be developed for years and years – strength training is “a long term adaptation because it requires the construction of new tissue and the restructuring of tissue already in place” (Cal Dietz). Strength training does not disappear after a layoff. Once a dude gets strong, he’s always stronger than he was before, even if he stops his training. This is because the long term adaptations have raised his baseline strength.

However....conditioning develops rapidly but goes away just as quickly. As I would imagine most of you have realised at some point in your training life. You can run 4 miles a day for four weeks and get into pretty good shape. But rest up a couple of weeks and....woops....your back to square one. “A conditioning adaptation changes the metabolic environment in the cells without the need for the large scale tissue remodelling necessary for a strength adaptation” (Cal Dietz...again). Conditioning is like a lap dance – it comes on quickly, it can be maintained (as long as you pay/work hard), but if you neglect it for just a second it (she) will disappear.

 

Why neglect conditioning if it comes on quickly and is easy to maintain? Because if you're weak as piss you definitely don’t need it as much as you need to be strong. And as we all know...time is money gentlemen.

Doing loads of “CV” work, or busting your gut by doing “Met-Cons” every bloody day will have a disgusting effect on your strength gains, where as getting stronger will improve your work capacity all by its self. Strength training is like a faithful wife....she’s going to be there for a long time, and she will get better if you treat her kindly. You can go away with the lads for 2 weeks...come back...and she’ll be at the door greeting you with a cool alcoholic drink of your choice (no brand promotion on this blog!).

 

The programs that are thrown around the internet to make guys strong and fit are merely allowing them to become good at running away from things.

If you’re not strong....getting stronger IS getting fitter. Geeting stronger IS getting more conditioned. If you’re a novice, don’t weaken your program by doing loads of sweaty work until you need to.

But hey...that’s my opinion.

Stay STRONG!

E