Can strength training increase strength

Of course you can, but the premise is that you have to train in the right direction. If the training method is wrong, it is normal for your girth to increase after practicing for half a year, and your strength will not move. Two years ago, I took a junior student who just joined the gym. He followed the online tutorial every day and practiced 5x10 muscle hypertrophy sets. His arm circumference increased by 3 centimeters in three months. He couldn't even arm-wrestle against a fat boy in the class who had never touched an iron. The child was so depressed that he almost sold the dumbbells.

To put it bluntly, the "strength" we talk about is essentially made up of two parts: one is the cross-sectional area of the muscle itself, and the other is the ability of the nerves to mobilize the muscle. The former is like how many employees you have, and the latter is how many people you can call to work. Many people's muscles don't increase much when they first practice, but their strength increases a lot first, that is, the nerves are activated. Before, you could only call 30% of the muscles to work, but if you practice correctly, you can call 70% to 80%, but if you don't, it will be too strong. When I was striving for a deadlift PR last year, I deliberately changed my plan to heavy weight groups of 2-3RM twice a week. In just two weeks, my muscle circumference did not increase by half a millimeter. The deadlift jumped directly from 140kg to 155kg. This is the reason.

It is true that many people say, "I have been practicing for a long time and my strength has not increased." This is not because strength training is useless, or because you are practicing in the wrong direction. You have been doing more than ten or twenty times with light weights. What you have increased is muscle endurance. You can do 30 push-ups in a row but you can't lift 50 kilograms. It’s not surprising that I still have difficulty eating and sleeping. Training is to tear down muscles, and resting and eating is the process of building strength. After practicing every day and staying up late to play games, I can’t even eat 1g of protein per kilogram of body weight. My nerves and muscles have not been repaired. It’s strange that I can gain strength.

Many girls are afraid that their strength will increase too much and their muscles will become stronger through training. In fact, they are really worried. Girls' testosterone levels are only about one-twentieth of boys. Unless you deliberately push heavy weights and take a lot of supplements, the amount of strength gained from normal training is enough for you to carry express delivery, twist bottle caps without having to find someone, carry your baby around for an afternoon without arm soreness, and your body will become tighter. Several of my best friends used to be unable to even change bottled water. They used 2kg dumbbells to do shoulder and shoulder exercises at home three times a week. After two months, they carried a 20kg cat bag up to the sixth floor without gasping for breath. I asked them if they had gotten stronger, and all of them happily said that their waists were two centimeters thinner.

Don’t think that strength training requires you to go to the gym and lift heavy irons. Ordinary people use oil drums filled with rice as dumbbells at home. Even if you do bodyweight squats or squats against the wall, choose the right intensity that will allow you to do it for 5 times before failure. If you insist on it for two months, you will definitely feel that your strength has really increased when you climb stairs to carry things. If you just want to get in shape and practice endurance, then you don’t have to worry about whether your strength has increased or not. Different training modes have different effects. Just choose the one that suits you.