What "Strength Training" REALLY is - in 2 minutes

[newveganguy]

pushups kill the hell outa benchpress

[RawAthlete]

@newveganguy not if your goal is to be able to apply more force with the pectoralis major and other arm extensors involved in the movement.

[IronCladBen]

So then try to get the last set or the last few sets to failure? Or try to totally avoid failure? I'm trying to understand your strategy.

I almost always get to failure before I feel any sort of "burn". For something like pull ups, I did 7 today and never felt a burn but I could not do an 8th, at least not without seriously cheating with a kip up or something like that. So what if you get to failure before you feel a burn? Do you need to recalibrate something?

[RawAthlete]

@IronCladBen If you wanted to say get to a 90lb weighted chinup, the best way to do so, is using sets of say .. 1-5 repetitions, all avoiding muscular fatigue. Start with a weight that feels heavy, say yor body weight since you can only do 7. DO sets of 2, but make sure each repetition is fast and powerful on the way up. If your goal is general fitness, vary it, go to fatigue, go to failure. But in strength training, going to failure with light weights isn't the fastest or most logical strategy.

[IronCladBen]

Hey, what do you mean by "avoid fatigue"? I thought the goal of lifting was to get your muscles to failure? Do you mean you don't want to be fatigued after a specific exercise, or after the whole workout or something else?

[RawAthlete]

@IronCladBen It's exactly what it sounds like. Strength training and lifting, and weight training are all different which is the point. If your goal is to get stronger, you certainly can do so with any form of trianing, but if that's ALL you want, break up your workout into multiple sets with fewer repetitions to prevent too much lactate from forming. As a result, you will be producing more force with each rep and gain the benefits. Hope that helps but I could go on.

[RawAthlete]

@IronCladBen and by fatigue, I'm referring to local muscular fatigue, like the "burn" specifically. You can build strength by feeling the burn, but if you obviously cannot produce much force when you feel that burn in your mucsles. And after the exercise, and the workout, you won't be fatigued in the same way as with regular resistance trainig with higher reps. But you won't be able to do do much more with the same weight, the fatigue is strength wise and in declining ATP stores.