Ever had that feeling that feeling that no matter how hard you try to push your fitness you just can’t seem to get any better?
You turn up to get your heart rate up as high as you can every day and you still feel stuck…
So you start doing two sessions per day, but all you end up with is feeling more tired and run down.
We see this all the time with new clients that come to us… They’ve got awesome aerobic engines but they can’t go any harder or progress further because that’s not their limiting factor.
It’s their inability to produce any greater amount of force than that of what they can handle aerobically.
Why You Need Strength For Conditioning
Every activity and movement initiates through some degree of muscle action (technically this starts at the brain, but we’re not here to go into deep physiology). If you’re running, you are producing force through the legs to propel you over the ground. Swimming, force to pull you through the water. Lifting weights, I figure you get this one.
Now part of repeating these efforts requires consistent blood flow to the working muscles to continue supplying the muscles with oxygen and fuels to support the muscle contractions. This is where most people trying to get fit spend their time when working on their fitness. Thinking they need more conditioning work to get better at conditioning.
But the flaw in that thinking is that we know a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. In this case a lot of the time the problem doesn’t lie their in the cardiovascular system, It lies in the muscles and the nervous system.
So although spending more and more time working on your conditioning may yield some benefit.
If you want to make the fastest progress then building your strength and local muscle endurance has the biggest impact.
Who Would Win?
Think simply if you were racing someone to do 100 reps of a 40kg squat. Let’s say you can squat 50kg and the person your racing can squat 100kg. That’s 80% of your maximum and 40% for them.
You would be pretty confident you weren’t going to win that race.
This carries over to a lot of the higher intensity training models like crossfit, F45 and bootcamps. At some point when your aerobic fitness has developed enough the quickest way to get better results is to get stronger.
Stronger Isn’t Always The Answer… But It May Be For You
Sure there is a limitation that at some point if you are way stronger than you are fit then you will need to dedicate more time to getting fitter rather than just strength.
But for the majority of people training in gyms with the intention of to get fitter (the main exception to this is bigger stronger built males), you probably need to get stronger to keep your training progressing.
So how do you know if you’re someone who should put more focus on building your strength rather than just conditioning?
Here’s some simple markers for you to get started with:
Girls
Strict Pull-Up – Can you do a minimum of 1 rep?
Deadlift – At least 1 rep with bodyweight?
Push-up – 10 Reps with full range of motion from your feet
Squat – Full range goblet squat with at least a 20kg dumbbell
Guys
Strict Pull-Up – Minimum 3 reps
Deadlift – 1.5 x Bodyweight
Dips – Minimum 3 reps
Squat – Bodyweight Back Squat or 40kg Goblet Squat
Now as you get fitter and depending on your goals you may need to keep improving your strength to ensure its not holding you back.
There’s obviously a point in which getting stronger will no longer help you in achieving your goals but that point is more than likely way higher than most people will ever reach.
Take Australia’s own Tia-Clair Toomey who just won the Crossfit Games for the 2nd year in a row, crowning her the fittest woman on earth. Want to know how strong she is?
She Deadlifts just a casual triple bodyweight of 182kg!!!
As you can see strength is definitely not a limiter for Tia.
Strength Is Never A Weakness
Don’t get caught up feeling like the way to get fitter or leaner is to just do more conditioning.
Like anything else in life, the way to get better is to work on your weaknesses.
If strength is your limiter, then get after it and watch yourself continue to progress in your training.