Build Muscle Strength Fast

Strength has long been a point of comparison with others and a way of rating our physical prowess in the gym.

Remember: new exercise should always be undertaken with professional help, and you should consult a doctor before starting if you have any pre-existing medical issues.

With the advent of Sports Science and the continued research that is being done we now know more about how to gain muscle strength fast than we have ever done in the past. Ironically there is very little that has changed except the most important discovery, which was the proof that high intensity will get faster results than normal training.

We know that training for strength is the fastest way to build muscle or lose fat as well any other physical permanence like running faster or hitting harder. If strength is your primary objective then you need to start with the basics which are the big four compound movements that have proven themselves to work.

The ‘big four’ are the squats, deadlift, bench-press and shoulder press movements that we need to do at least twice a week. Training with a split routine is a good idea as it allows you to focus on specific body-parts and give the body-parts that you have trained sufficient time to rest and recover.

The bodybuilding community has a catch phrase which says “the barbell is king in any weight-room and the dumbbell is queen.” This means that you should forget about doing any fancy machine work if your objective is strength as you want to only use free weights.

You should NEVER train more than 45 minutes with high intensity and always concentrate on keeping you workouts short so that you can take full advantage of the hormone surges that this high intensity producers. This means only one main lift for every workout which means four lifts when you train the Big Four.

After first doing the main lift you should then do one or even two assistant lift to further strengthen the muscles that do most of the lifting for the main lift. It is a good idea to always rotate different rep ranges when you train for strength however the best for the fastest strength gains will come from doing sets with 5 reps.

Avoiding the dreaded plateau where you cannot lift a heavier weight anymore is something that you want to keep an eye on every time you train. This means making sure that you never go too heavy too early or for too long. Leave your ego at home when you are training and ONLY lift a maximum of 10% more weight in each workout.

You have to do cardio if you want to continue to get strong but ironically science has proven that doing too much cardio like running or cycling for hours at a time producers hormones that can actually break down muscle tissue. This means that you need to do hard bursts of cardio with a quick rest.

There are many variations of this but the best would be to select a steep hill that you can sprint up and then walk slowly down. When starting this type of training you should do less than you think you can do and rather increase by doing one more sprint the next time you do this.