Pure Strength Training

Muscle size versus strength

You want to be strong? However, you don’t want bulking muscles! How could that be possible? Well, it is possible, by training the neuromuscular system. First, consider climbers who have to be lean and strong at the same time. Second, consider all the videos that Anatoly made about how he fooled much larger guys in the gym and lifting the same weight as them with ease.

The general idea of training is that you overload something so you get better at it over time.

• The amount of repetitions you can do to failure
• The heaviest weight you can lift
• The speed you can lift a weight
• The range of motion you can do with a weight
• The time under tension
• The explosiveness of the movement
• etc.

If you don’t overload anything, there is no reason for your body to adapt and get better. This is the principle of progressive overload.

There is a lot about anatomy of the muscle and it consists of different muscle fiber types and a nerve connection to the motorneurons in the brain. We leave the muscle fiber types aside for now (perhaps in another article) but the connection to the motorneurons is important. The nerve that tells a muscle to contract is not a single fiber but there are many fibers that inform the muscle what to do. Any one of the fibers only controls a small fraction of the overall muscle fibers.

Did you ever hear that some tiny person in light of a catastrophic event lifts a large weight to save someone? That might be due to the neuromuscular system which could activate more motorneurons than usual under these extreme circumstances. Mind you, I cannot prove this, but it sounds reasonable to me.

If you want to become stronger with as little bulk as possible, you can train this system to activate more muscle fibers at the same time instead of making the fibers larger. Great idea you say, but I don’t want to submit to such extreme circumstances all the time. I am totally with you on this :)

The protocol

For this training, we need to have an idea of what our one-rep max is for the exercise we want to train. For example, if I bench press 100kg for one rep, then my one-rep max is 100kg. To improve the neurological drive, we will lift at around 80% of our one-rep max. That means 80kg in this example. Probably, you could dish out 3-5 reps with that weight. Now, typically you would do that with multiple sets and appropriate rest intervals. We can optimize this further by doing single sets spread out during the day. You can also do this every day since you don’t typically get sore from this type of training.

1. Choose an exercise you want to improve upon (e.g., pull ups; you need to be able to do at least one for this to work)
2. Throughout the day do sets of as many reps as you can do (e.g., every 2-3 hours)
3. If you can do more than 5 reps wear a backpack with additional weight so you stay between 3-5 reps.
4. Try to do 6 sets a day
5. Do this 3-5 times a week

The result

Before you embark on this training protocol test yourself and note down what you can do. For instance, I can do 2 pull ups. Perform the protocol for three weeks and test yourself again. Be fair to yourself and note down the daily training you did. In case you did 6 sets a day and increased the weight to stay within 3-5 reps, you could be very surprised about the amount of reps you can do without added weight.

Should you do this protocol all the time? Maybe not, but since you don’t get sore, you can do it pretty often.

Limiting factors

• Recovery time of the nervous system
• Tendon and ligament strength
• Joint health

Another limiting factor is the muscle size itself when you become stronger and stronger. Eventually, the muscle size also needs to be adapted for further strength gains.

The beauty is that you can pick an exercise and quickly improve on it in terms of your strength without bulking up. That said, muscle size and strength are both crucial for overall health which we will cover in another article.

• Strength
• Training
• Hypertrophy
• Neuromuscular
• Protocoll