Q&A for: 20-Jun-06
1628. Q:
In answering a previous question (1604) you said the following ‘One can train specifically for strength and power as opposed to training for muscle mass.’ My question is ,exactly how can you train for strength and power without gaining muscle mass?
A:
You will usually gain some muscle mass of course, even in strength-specific training, but it will be less than in bodybuilding-type training. The main point of strength-specific training however is that you can attain significantly greater strength without gaining much (or even any) new weight or muscle. Many, if not most, atheletes try to increase their strength and power without increasing their weight because increased weight may slow them down and/or place them in a different weight category for competition.
Strength-specific training is more involved than straightforward bodybuilding training. It works because your strength is determined not only by your muscle size but also by how well your nervous system is utlizing that muscle! We all have the muscle potential to be far stronger than we are now -- but our nervous systems simply do not 'know' how to make best use of all the muscles we have. Instead of firing all muscle fibers in perfert unison (which would create maximum power) our nervous system fires them in a much less organized way. The main point of strength-specific training is to teach your nervous system to optimize the use of the muscle you have. Here are some characteristics of strength-specific training:
- Ideally, the whole year should be broken down into training periods which periodize focusing on volume training with peak strength development and peak power development. Even bodybuilders can benefit from periodization -- I gave simple bodybuilding-oriented periodization example in Q&A #1594.
- During the volume phase of training you focus on training your nervous system for the exercise by performing the exercise at high volume (may sets) and low-intensity (low weight used, few reps in the set). You might do 20+ sets of squats per week, but each set would only consist of maybe 6 reps and you'd use very light weight so none of the sets come anywhere close to failure. You'd focus on good form and explosive (but under control) movement. Doing the exercise over and over at light weights will not overtrain you, but will get your nervous system 'used' to the movement. Even if you're only training for traditional powerlifting exercises (squat, bench, deadlift) you would do well to incorporate olympic power lifts (cleans and snatches) especially if you have a trainer who can supervise you on form.
- During peak strength phases (which are quite short) you'd lower the volume of the exercises and over a few weeks use several sets per week to build up to your maximum one-rep efforts in the lifts you're training for.
- During peak power phases (also very short) you'd do the same as strength training, except for the olympic lifts.
- In general, you would be focusing on the core lifts (squat, deadlift, bench, snatch, clean) and do some lighter 'assist' lifts and core-training work. Isolation exercises like wrist curls or shoulder side raises usually have little or no place in strength-specific training.
While this all can get quite complex, the training program I linked before (this) is a great starter strength-specific program that you can repeat again and again throughout the year increasing your weights slightly each time.
1629. Q:
hi mike, i heard that calories is the main cause of becoming fat , so healthy carbs and fats does not make you fat. now i understand why food that comes in a box is bad, because are high in calories and will make you fat. is that right?
A:
That's definitely part of the reason. Processed prepackaged foods tend to be higher in calories than natural foods... 4 ounces of apple jam have far far more calories than 4 ounces of apples, for example.
However, even if you eat the exact same number of calories of processed foods compared to natural foods, you'll likely still end up with much more fat gained with processed foods! The reason for is that most processed foods has undergone transformations that make it far too easy for our bodies to digest quickly and turn into glucose and/or fatty acids. Some of the major reason for that is the removal of natural fiber and water content of foods in the processing.
When we eat, say, a cookie, our system quickly converts it to glucose and this glucose rushes into our bloodstream. Normally blood would deliver it to muscles and organs that could use some new energy. But unless we've been starving for a long time or have been engaging in heavy physical work, we simply don't need that much glucose at the moment! So the extra glucose goes into fat storage.
Compare that to eating, say, a salad with brown rice that has roughly the same number of calories. Because of rich fiber and moisture content of such a meal, the digestion time would be much slower and glucose would be gradually released to the bloodstream and delivered in small doses to the muscles and organs as they need it -- no extra glucose is left to become fat!
This example is, of course, an over-simplification of the millions of complex processes going on in your body. But in principle it is correct. Unfortunately, the vast majority of processed/pre-prepackaged foods are a lot closer to the cookie than to the salad/brown rice which is why you should minimize eating them if you're trying to lose fat.
1630. Q:
Person from 1627: I was working yesterday for one of the first times and I began to sweat really badly. Is there a reason why I sweat so much? It is very embarrasing to have to interact with people while I am sweating like a pig. Is the reason jyst because I am out of shape or what? By the way, I am going to start HIT exercise. I will do it with running and along with that I will lift weights.
A:
Great job starting to exercise! Sounds like you have a very complete program going! Sweating, even very heavily, is perfectly normal and absolutely nothing to be uncomfortable about -- you're supposed to be sweating when working out! The level of sweating will probably reduce as your conditioning improves, but it'll never go away completely. Just take a quick shower after you finish and don't forget to drink plenty of water throughout your workout to keep yourself hydrated. Again, great job!
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