Are you getting stronger, or just making your workouts harder?

Progressive overload

You've probably heard me talk about the importance of progressive overload quite a bit by now. In case you are new to the principles of training, here's a quick summary:

In order for our body to generate adaptations (more strength, bigger muscles etc.), we must increase the training stress over time. In other words, a bigger deadlift requires adding more weight to the bar.

This is absolutely true when large weight increases happen over a long period of time. When i was a teenager, 100kg was challenging for me to deadlift. About seven years later, I deadlifted 200kg. Clearly I got stronger.

However, the relationship between smaller weight increases in a short period of time paints a much blurrier picture of just how much stronger we actually are.

Spc. Tracy McKithern, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

How do we know we're getting stronger?

Strength is our ability to produce force against an external resistance.

Force = mass x acceleration.

The mass is the weight we are lifting. This is where most people focus their attention.

But what about acceleration? That's the rate of change in velocity when we are lifting. In layman's terms, how 'quickly', or powerfully, we move the weight.

Dubious? Imagine this scenario:

Two men deadlift a weight. The first man grinds for his life to complete the lift. It takes him 15 seconds. The second man, rips it off the floor in barely a second. Would anyone really make the argument that both are equally as strong? The reason man two is stronger is because he was capable of accelerating that weight more. It looks EASIER for him.

Measuring the easiness / acceleration

if you had the money and desire, you could hook a linear transducer up to a bar and measure the exact bar velocity.

That said, it's not been my experience that the data from this is wildly more accurate than using a more cheap and crude scale such as RPE and RIR. Once you get experienced, there should be a fairly narrow and reliable range of velocities that correspond to RPE 7, RPE 8 etc.

Most good coaches and experienced lifters will be able to easily see the difference between a shitty/grindy rep and one that's controlled and powerful.

An example

Let's say you bench press and 2 weeks of training looks like this:

Week 1: 80kg x 5 @ RIR 3

Week 2: 85kg x 5 @ RIR 1

So, why do I not believe that the following example represents strength gain?

Because acceleration has gone down in line with adding weight. In other words, I'm pretty confident that our imaginary lifter would have already been capable on week 1 of lifting 85kg x5 at an acceleration/effort of RIR 1.

So how DO you know if you've gotten stronger?

We need a performance that is reliably indicative of more force production than we were previously capable of. All of the below, are more force production than we would have been capable of on week 1.

Same mass, more acceleration

Week 1: 80kg x 5 @ RIR 3

Week 2: 80kg x 5 @ RIR 4

More mass, same acceleration

Week 1: 80kg x 5 @ RIR 3

Week 2: 85kg x 5 @ RIR 3

More mass, more acceleration

Week 1: 80kg x 5 @ RIR 3

Week 2: 85kg x 5 @ RIR 4

At any rate, the idea is that we need to establish the adaptation has happened first, then we add weight in line with our new force production abilities.

How can we adapt faster?

I think this different way of looking at training is poorly received, in large part because it makes us feel less in control of our progress. And in truth, a lot is outside of our control. But there are some things we can do:

1. Be consistent

2. Rate your sets as accurately as you can

3. Get enough food and sleep to recover

4. Adapt the programme based on how you respond

Key Takeaways

The people that I think can most benefit from this message are the lifters who try to lift their way out of a bad day. They tell themselves that if they just do more than last week, then they must be getting better. They try this for another few sessions until eventually they are massively burnt out, and ironically need to drop the weight back far more than if they had just swallowed their pride on that first bad session.

I would strongly encourage to reflect on whether you are getting stronger, or just making your sessions harder.