Strength

Is it a big difference in training for Strength or Muscle Growth?
For most of us, the two go hand in hand for a long time. But once you have left the beginner years behind you, the two specializations will differ significantly. Feel free to look at the difference between a professional bodybuilder and a powerlifter; their workouts differ significantly.

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When we talk strength, we mean maximum explosive force for a short period, how much you can lift in a single or a few lifts. Your central nervous system should activate the body maximally and explosively; bang! For this, the body must get used to extreme stress in the nervous system, mentally, in the muscles, and all ligaments and joints.

You will become explosively strong, and the only thing that matters is how much is on the bar. Exercise for muscle growth is all about muscle mass. What lies on the bar is secondary. The most important thing is to become muscular.

To become muscular, you also have to lift more and more weight; they are similar to each other. What sets them apart is that muscle growth is at best between 6-12 reps per set, on some exercises even higher. To build strength and get your body used to extreme loads, you have to lift very near your max, and the number of reps then ends up between 1-6, which is not optimal for muscle growth. So you should be strong in both cases, but it is about which reps interval you focus on. 1-6 for strength and 6 to at least 12 for muscle growth. So you can become strong as an ox without being incredibly muscular, while you can become muscular without lifting extreme weights. The two often go hand in hand, but they can also differ.

Things to Keep in Mind When Training for Increased Strength:
When you train with extreme weights, your technique becomes very important. Lifting incorrectly with heavy weights can result in serious injury. You can make a little mistake if you manage to lift 12 reps, but you will be injured if you lift wrong with the maximum weight. So technology is the most important thing to keep in mind, be careful.

When you train for strength, you should also constantly try to put on more weight, i.e., progression session after session. It is the increase in load that is in focus with this training.
Be sure to be rested before each set. It may be ok to be finished for muscle growth and run another set with lower weight, but this does not increase strength.

Rest properly between sessions. Your ligaments and joints will be pressed during strength programs, so there may be a point in two days of rest before the same muscle is trained again.
Do not forget to train differently and shock the body from time to time. You should not always wear out and only run programs with 3-6 reps. If you have trained with few reps for an extended period, your body will respond well to another program for a while. It’s pretty ok to run many strength programs in general but alternate them from time to time and other things.

Improve Your Chins 2

Grow stronger to improve your chins. This training program is for you who have completed the Chins program Beginners or can handle more than five strict and unbroken chins in a row. In step 2 we focus more on building muscle and increasing repetitions and the importance of becoming a pro at chins.

Full Body For Beginners Part 2

This is the continuation program after Full Body Training for Beginners. We are now moving out of the machine park and running with free weights. The goal with this is to get stabilizing muscles and get a better, more natural movement pattern. We add more of the so-called compound exercises. They are slightly heavier exercises that use several of the body’s muscles at the same time. They build proper strength, muscle, and coordination.

Starting Strength Classical

For Powerlifters! Muscle mass and Strength in the same Program. Grow slowly and steadily stronger with just a few exercises week by week. You should constantly increase the weight of the barbell every session. We are talking about small weight gains, but you will feel it a lot after a couple of weeks.

Optimal Volume: Push Pull Leg

This training program divides the body into three movements. The Push which involves chest, triceps and shoulders. The Pull which is back and biceps and The Legs. You will perform these movements in three different workouts during 8 weeks

Full body Program With Compound Exercises

Great program for muscles growth! This Training program uses only the big and heavy compound exercises for maximum results.
All of your muscles will be trained twice even though you only exercise 3 times per week.

Madcow 5×5

This is the perfect program if you got stuck in your early progress. When you start lifting weights you easily add more load to the barbell every singel workout. After a while all the newbie gains are gone and you need to start training a bit differently. Thats when Madcow 5×5 come into the picture! Madcow 5×5 is a strength gaining program. You will see gains in muscles mass but the main focus in strength. You will train three times per week and the workouts will differ from each other. Every week you should try to increase the load on the barbell. Beginner programs such as Starting Strength ad more weight every workout and more advanced programs such as Wendler 5/3/1 ad load on a monthly basis. Madcow is in the area between these two. You are still gaining fast as an intermediate lifter but not as fast as a beginner and not as slow as an advanced.The program was designed by the alias Madcow on an internet forum who changed the classical 5×5 made by Bill Starr. Madcow removed all the complicated olympic lift and made a program for regular lifters. In the beginning the program was designed for both muscles mass and strength but time has shown that it is best used for strength. The program uses the big heavy compound exercises Squats, Bench Press, Military Presses and Barbell Rows. In the workouts you also use ascending sets. You start pretty soft and then you ad more weight for every single set, you therefor do the hardest set in the end of every exercise.The load is based on your 5RM, that is the maximum weight you can lift 5 times with good form.

Texas Method

The Texas Method training program is great when you have past the initial newbie gains and it is a natural step after Stronglift 5×5 or Starting Strength. It is tougher and more demanding than Stronglift 5×5 and Starting Strength but it is usually perfect when you get stuck and enter a plateau in your gains. Texas Method consists of 6 compound exercises, 3 workouts per week, different loads in every workout and you try to break your personal records every week in the last workout. Compared to Stronglift 5×5 and Starting Strength you do not increase the load every workout, instead you do it every third workout which is once a week. The first workout is based on volume, the second is a bit lighter and in the third it is record time with heavy lifts. Try to increase the load with 2,5 kilos for upper body and 5 kilos for lower body every week if you can manage all the reps in the program.

P.H.A.T

P.H.A.T stands for Power Hypertrophy Adapitve Training. Like the name indicates the program is both for power/strength and muscles growth/hypertrophy. Most training programs targets either strength or muscles growth. When you train for strength you need to lift heavy weights very close to you maximum 1RM (what you can lift one time), you will only be able to do this a few times. On the other hand, when training for muscle growth you focus on volume. Many reps and lower weights than strength. The sweet spot for muscles growth is lifting 8-12 reps with a load of 75 to 80% to your 1RM. With P.H.A.T program you train for both strength and muscle growth. The designer of the P.H.A.T program Dr. Layne Norton believes that strength and muscles growth goes hand in hand. The stronger you are the heavier you can lift, the heavier you will lift the greater the volume in your muscle growth training. The same goes for muscles and strength. The more muscle mass you have the greater the strength you can produce. They are correlated and go hand in hand. You should train them together, this is what P.H.A.T is all about.

4 Weeks of Hell

This is a tough Training Program that will really challenge you. It was designed by world class wrestlers and combines heavy lifts, super sets and cardio to really chock your body and make it grow. Welcome to 28 days of hell with this boot camp

Mighty Seven

You will use 7 heavy compound movements as the basis for the program and do them in every singel workout. To this we also add extra exercises based on a Push, Pull and Leg split.

Stronglift 5×5

Stronglift 5 × 5 is in its basic form a simple program to remember. By running heavy exercises that train several parts of the body simultaneously you build muscles with only three exercises per training session. You also train only three times a week so the program is suitable for people with limited amount of training time every week.