Have you been working out and just not seeing the strength gains you thought you would? You think, “There has to be a reason! Maybe it’s because I’m a bit older, or I’m not going heavy enough on the machines, or I need to do more cardio, or…” etc, etc. You’ve looked it up online but with so many articles on so many websites it’s overwhelming – DO HIGH REPS! DO LOW REPS! DO ONE REP MAX! REST DAYS! NO REST DAYS! Wouldn’t it be nice to know that all those sites were just overly complicated, and the reality is that all you need to do is follow some very simple instructions? I’ve determined the right way to do it over the last 16 years I’ve been consistently lifting weights, and yeah – I’m about to make your day.
It All Starts With a Workout Plan Designed for Strength Gains
I’m sure you’ve heard it before: high reps for toning, low reps for strength gains. I’ve actually found that focusing on low reps is a suitable method for both, but higher reps using machines and cables can help in a different way. Regardless, the first area you should focus on is the variety of exercises your workout plan will focus on. The exercises you do will shift with the amount of time you have available for the gym, but for the most part you need to consider the following:
- Heavy weights lead to serious gains
- Machine-focused workouts will show progress at the start, but focusing primarily on these will have diminishing returns and don’t activate the stabilizer muscles that free weights do
- The proper way to gain strength is heavy lifting with free weights in the optimal rep range
“Okay,” you say. “I’ll focus on heavier weights and lower reps. What exercises should I do?”
Building a Workout Plan Designed For Growth
The best way to build strength gains is with compound exercises. This means working with free weights, where you have to use your stabilizer muscles to keep the weight from going off track and falling on you! There are many exercises that use free weights for every muscle group – the main point is that you should be using dumbbells and a barbell with plate weights for the majority of your lifts. Let’s go through some examples in case you’re newer to the idea.
Chest
- Barbell Bench Press
- Wide Grip Barbell Bench Press
- Close Grip Barbell Bench Press
- Dumbbell Bench Press
- Dumbbell Flys
Back
- Bent-Over Barbell Row
- Dumbbell Row
- Weighted Pull Ups (using olympic plates with chained belt, or dumbbell between feet)
- Upright Row
- Barbell Shrugs
- Barbell Deadlift
- Dumbbell Deadlift
Shoulders
- Barbell Shoulder Press
- Barbell Push Press
- Dumbbell Shoulder Press
- Dumbbell Arnold Press
- Dumbbell Lateral Shoulder Raises
- Dumbbell Rear Shoulder Raises
Arms
- Barbell Close-Grip Bench Press
- Dumbbell Overhead Tricep Extension (one or both arms)
- Dumbbell Skull Crushers
- Barbell Skull Crushers
- Weighted Dips (using olympic plates with chained belt, or dumbbell between feet)
- Barbell Curl
- Dumbbell Curl
- Dumbbell Hammer Curl
- Palms-In Weighted Pull Ups (using olympic plates with chained belt, or dumbbell between feet)
Legs
- Barbell/Dumbbell Squat
- Barbell/Dumbbell Lunges (forward or reverse)
- Barbell/Dumbbell Romanian Deadlift
- Dumbbell Hamstring Curls
There’s a lot to choose from, right? This is all with just dumbbells and a barbell with plates, and is in no way a complete list of exercises. The point is that these are the types of exercises that will give you the serious size and strength you’re looking for, and they aren’t even remotely fancy like a lot of the examples you see all over the internet. Calisthenics, machines, and cables do have their place, though! If you’re on the tail end of your workout and still have time and some energy, they are excellent for pushing your body to absolute failure.
It isn’t enough to just do these exercises in whatever way you want – you need to plan for and track them properly.
Proper Set Structure
Maximizing your workouts requires you to focus on the optimal sets, reps, and weight for each exercise. To maximize muscle fatigue without overtraining, I recommend focusing on 3 sets for each exercise. Each set should be at a weight where you have muscle failure between 4-6 reps.
Constant progression here requires that you consistently increase the weight by a small amount (5-10 lbs, depending on the exercise). You should increase the weight once you are able to get to 6 reps for each set of an exercise, which should push you down to 4 or 5 reps before hitting muscle failure.
Proper Diet
The other half (or 85%, really) of the equation comes down to having a proper, balanced diet designed to help you see strength gains without putting on extra fat along the way. It’s important to note that you can’t build significant muscle without a surplus of calories and an appropriate macronutrient distribution. For more detailed information on macros and how to customize them for different goals, check out my article on why macros are so important.
Here’s my basic recommendation for macros and calories per day:
- 50% Carbohydrates, 25% Protein, 25% Fats
- Use our Target Daily Calorie Calculator in order to correctly calculate the calories you should be consuming daily to meet your fitness goals
- You can be flexible with both macros and calories, but make sure to give at least 2 weeks to see changes after making any adjustments
- Make sure to regularly re-calculate your daily calories as you gain weight. As an example, at 156lbs I should be taking in 2,872 calories per day. Once I get to 160lbs that will increase to 2,903 calories per day. It may not sound like a big change, but even 5-10 calories can make the difference between gaining and maintaining.
The easiest way to make sure you’ve got your diet locked down is to prep your food in advance! Buy some food prep containers, cook up a bunch of chicken, ground turkey, fish, veggies, etc. and load up at least 4-5 days of food in the fridge. You’ll find that sticking to a diet is surprisingly easy when the burden of choice is removed – simply pull out your food, heat it up, and eat. Love it!
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Okay, we’ve got the details down for exercise and diet. What’s left?
Proper Workout Mentality
The gym can be a place of focus or a place of distraction. I got my social life fix at the gym for years after getting out of the Air Force, and I made very little progress because I was always distracted when I should have been focused.
When you’re in the gym, you’re there to do work and push your body to its limits. Catch up with friends before or after the workout and focus on yourself when it’s time to get to it. If you go in with a laissez faire attitude, talking to buddies instead of getting in the zone and focusing on the workout, you’ll either see your gains significantly slowed down or halted entirely.
Remember that you’re doing this for yourself. Get in there, lift heavy shit, and pat yourself on the back because you put in the time and effort to invest in a better you tomorrow.
We’re nearly finished, but there’s one more thing that I really want to emphasize before wrapping up:
You Can’t Progress If You Can’t Work Out
Focus on proper form, technique, and warm up. Every day, every body group, every time. Nothing will halt your progress faster than being pulled out of the gym for a week or more because you tried to keep up with your buddies, doing 1-rep maxes and shooting for PRs that made you sacrifice form to show off. I wrote a separate article on how to properly warm up that ties into the set structure here, and I highly recommend giving it a look. I went from pinching a nerve at least once a month, tearing ligaments, and injuring my back, to zero injuries in over a year by following the simple instructions in that article.
Do These Strength Gain Techniques Work? Yep, Here’s The Proof.
I started closely measuring my lifting progress with the StrongLifts app (iOS/Android, highly recommended) and it’s been awesome to build my own program and see the consistent progress. Let’s take a look at the progress on a couple of the major exercises:
- Barbell Curls: Failure at 3 sets of 5 reps at 95lbs in March 2022. As of today, 6/25/22, I’m seeing failure at 3 sets of 5 reps at 115lbs.
- Barbell Shrugs: Failure at 3 sets of 10 reps of 185lbs in March 2022. Today I’m able to max out my current weights at 3 sets of 10 reps at 300lbs.
- Barbell Bench Press: Failure at 3 sets of 4 reps at 185lbs in January 2022. Today I’m failing with 3 sets of 5 reps at 235lbs.
- Barbell Squats: Failure at 4 reps of 155lbs in March 2022. Today I’m able to get 5 reps at 215lbs
While the progress isn’t happening overnight, I consistently get to experience the incredible dopamine rush that comes with making progress – every 2-3 workouts!
Conclusion
All right, we made it through another one! Let’s recap with some key takeaways.
- Plan ahead with a targeted workout plan
- Plan your meals. Give weekly meal prep a shot!
- Follow the correct set and rep structure
- 3 sets of 4-6 reps to failure
- Once all 3 sets are at 6 reps to failure, increase weight by 5-10 lbs and repeat
- Stay consistent! The biggest setback to your progress is not making it into the gym. Stay safe, stay consistent, and push past the Boring Middle to crush those fitness goals!
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