Building Blocks, Part One

If you could improve your physical self in just one way, what would you do? Would you want to be stronger? Have more endurance? Be able to play with your kids for longer? Be able to get out of bed without feeling stiff and sore?

Stop for a moment and think about what your number one physical goal is. I know I talk a lot about achieving balanced fitness, where you strive to improve multiple areas of your physical and mental well-being at once, but for today let’s put that aside. If you had to choose one goal, what would it be? The answer will tell you your biggest area of weakness, and also what you need to do about it. Once you achieve that goal, you’ll also be more likely to want more, and you’ll be in the perfect position to add other dimensions to your workouts.

This will start a series of posts looking at specific fitness goals and how to achieve them. Once we’ve gone through the list, we’ll double back and see how they can be combined to create a comprehensive fitness program.

Strength – Maybe your most important goal is to improve your strength. You may have noticed that you had trouble moving boxes around the last time you cleaned the basement. Or how sore you were after the last time you shovelled the driveway. If that’s you, improving your strength is probably a good idea. I’m not talking about becoming an Olympic powerlifter. You need to be able to perform the activities of your daily life without faltering or paying the price afterwards. While the level of strength needed will vary from person to person, the need for a solid baseline of physical strength is clear.

Ok, you want to get stronger. What do you do about it?

Strength manifests itself, at its most basic level, as a person’s ability to move something heavy. A box, a shovel of wet snow, that last party guest who won’t take the hint. You improve your ability to do those things by, well, moving stuff that’s heavy. Luckily, the fitness industry has created many tools you can use for this purpose. Dumbbells, barbells, kettlebells…they can all help you get stronger. And don’t forget the one piece of exercise equipment you carry around with you all day: your body. Bodyweight exercises are worthy of their own post, so here we’ll talk about how lifting weights like dumbbells can increase your strength. Let’s look at some dos and don’ts:

DO use a challenging weight. This goes for both men and women. So often you hear women say they don’t want to lift weights because they don’t want to get too muscular. I can tell you here and now that you have absolutely nothing to worry about. You know those women bodybuilders, the ones who basically look like guys in bikinis? Trust me when I say they didn’t get that way accidentally. They have worked for years on their bodies, trying to build as much muscle as possible. Many of them also use anabolic steroids to counter the naturally lower levels of testosterone women possess. So, if your goal is to get stronger, don’t be afraid of weights. Or, if you don’t have any weights, resistance bands. They work too, especially if you don’t have a lot of space or you travel a lot. Instead of choosing a challenging weight, choose a challenging level of resistance.

DON’T do endless repetitions of each exercise. If your goal is to build strength (as opposed to endurance, speed, muscle size or explosive power), find a weight where you struggle to get 6 to 8 repetitions with good form. If you are doing less than that, odds are you’ve picked a weight that’s too heavy and your form is suffering. If you’re doing more than that, you won’t be targeting the muscles properly to get stronger. You’ll build stamina, which isn’t what you’re looking for. Remember too that if you’re doing 30 repetitions of each exercise, your workout will end up taking a lot longer than if you do fewer, harder reps.

DO compound exercises. There are exercises everyone knows. Things like biceps curls have been around forever, and people like them because they’re familiar. And while they will help build stronger biceps, you can make more efficient use of your time by focusing on movements that use more than one muscle at once. Let’s say you want to get stronger legs. You could do leg extensions on a machine at the gym. That will strengthen the front of your thighs. Or you could do squats, which will strengthen the front and back of your thighs, your calves, your glutes, and your entire core. Plus, in the real world, you’re more likely to actually use a squatting motion when you’re picking things up or playing on the ground with rambunctious little ones.

DON’T neglect your nutrition. I’ve said many times before that if you want your body to perform at a high level, you can’t feed it unhealthy food. As you are training to get stronger, your muscles will need fuel. As you lift weights, you actually create microscopic tears in the individual muscle fibres. The body needs the right foods to repair this damage and make the muscle stronger. Right after working out, your body needs both fast-acting carbohydrates and protein. There are a lot of post-workout drinks on the market, but the easiest and cheapest thing I’ve found to do is to mix a protein shake using apple juice instead of water or milk. (If you’re going to try this, you’ll want to stay away from chocolate flavours of protein powder.) Read the labels, and aim for about 10 grams of protein to 30 – 40 grams of carbohydrate. That will probably be half a scoop of powder in a little more than 8 ounces of juice. Beyond post-workout nutrition, just make healthy choices. Go the Nutrition page of the website for help with this.

DO take time to recover between workouts. Yes, you want to get stronger. But your body makes its gains during recovery, not when you’re grunting through that last set of shoulder presses. If you’re new to weightlifting, aim for a full-body workout no more than three times a week. This will give you the chance to recover properly before you start again. It may be that in the first couple of weeks your body can only handle two workouts a week. If that’s the case, listen to what your body is telling you. When you’re ready (meaning not too sore afterwards), add a third day.

DON’T fall victim to the latest exercise gizmo or gadget. Sure the AbMax3000 looks cool, but it doesn’t do anything you can’t already do with a bit of floor space and some dedication. No one ever had an easier time loading a moving truck after spending twenty minutes with a Thigh Master. There’s a reason the “old school” exercises are still around: they work.


If improving your strength is your primary fitness goal, these tips will help. If you are just starting out and need some help finding specific exercises, or have other questions, please send me an e-mail and I’ll get in touch with you.



NEXT: Endurance training.