FC Strength

I've been chasing a new 1RM in my deadlift for some time now. I've created program after program, tweaked popular programs, and tried just about every way humanly possible to peak for an all-out effort just to have a new number to play with. Then I took a step back and asked myself a question: How important is my 1RM?

The answer I came up with kinda stopped me in my tracks ... it's not. I'm not a competitive powerlifter nor do I seriously have plans to compete any time in the near future. So having knowledge of what I can lift for one gut-busting rep really doesn't make much of a difference to my training. Unless it's on a platform during competition it doesn't do me any good other than supporting my ego and having something to brag to my friends about. Lame. Not to mention unneccesary.

I'm pretty sure I will never come across a time in my everday life where I will need to exert a 100% effort in the deadlift (unless some one needs their car moved out of a tight spot like Franco Colombu did in "Pumping Iron"). Plus, the constant chasing has put my CNS on overdrive and left me burnt out. So if I'm not going to be hunting for singles what rep range should I train instead? In my experienced opinion you should ...

Lift Heavy in the 3-5 Rep Range

This will allow you to move a significant amount of weight, will help to build up some high load strength endurance, and will stop you from getting injured under heavy weights with less-than optimal form. We all know things get a little sketchy when you're pushing with all you got. And heavy singles have their place but 3-5 is the bread and butter for the every day strength enthusiast and athletes not competing in strength sports.

Everyone should have a list of go-to exercises to choose from when trying to develop a strength and conditioning program. When I say list, what I really mean is a small pool of the biggest bang for your buck exercises you can just plug and play into your program.

As I love to keep things simple, here are the 4 main categories of movements:

1. Lower Body Movements
2. Upper Body Movements
3. Core (I hate this word as it entails much more than just your midsection, but for argument's sake just think of this as anything that will enhance the connection between your upper and lower body)
4. Explosive Movements

These basic categories will be broken down further into subcategories and the following will be a short series including the biggest bang for your buck exercises from each.

Lower Body Movements

There are few exercises that truly epitomize the meaning of strength. Outside of deadlifts, squats are THE exercise to put slabs of muscle on your entire body and make you as strong as an angry rhino in heat.

I'm currently 7 weeks in on a 16 week experiment using a full body style 5/3/1 program. The program calls for squatting 3 days per week with one of those days being heavy (around 75-95% 1RM) and the other two days being light and fast (40-60% 1RM). After I finish this next week I will be transitioning into raising the percentages on my light days but I'll get into that at a later date.

Consistently having a loaded bar on your back teaches you a few things about yourself and about whether or not what you're doing needs to be corrected. Here are 7 things I've learned from squatting 3 days a week:

1.  Breathing is a science.

First of all, if you're not breathing correctly when you squat YOU WILL HURT YOURSELF. There is a bit of a science to doing it correctly. Don't just hold your breath. When you take a deep breath and keep it in your chest you don't get full use of your diaphragm. Your upper back becomes loose because your traps shrug up and you may lose the shelf created for the bar to lay on by pulling your shoulder blades together. Losing the shelf means the bar will become unsteady on your back and no one wants a wobbly bar on a squat descent.