the best way to get strong
What is the best way to get strong?
We can strength train. And while strength training may not erase wrinkles or prevent gray hair, it can help us, it can help us experience a significantly improved quality of life.
Why barbells?
Barbells are the only tool that allows us to load the body and focus on natural human movement patterns instead of individual muscles, joints and muscle groups.
Barbells are extremely doseable.
Barbells allow us to focus our resistance training on movement patterns instead of muscles.
Barbells allow us to train the entire musculoskeletal system. With just four exercises, we can improve strength, mobility and balance and reverse the atrophy of muscle and bone and we can combat the challenges of aging.
Barbell exercises train normal human movements
The exercises we use are simple movements. Most importantly, they are normal human movement patterns that we do every single day:
Sit Down / Stand Up
Reach Overhead
Push / Pull Something
Carry Something
Pick something up off the floor
Why we like training with barbells
- Barbells are scalable: They come in many sizes and can be modified as needed for the trainee.
- Barbells are comprehensive.
- Barbells are specific to our training.
- Barbells are simple and efficient and safe.
- Barbells also help us stay mobile and flexible by allowing us to work through full range of motion.
- Barbells help us with our balance. When we are stronger, our balance improves. We may still trip, but we don’t fall.
- Barbells help us build more muscle and stronger bones.
What are the Four Barbell Lifts we teach?
Squat
Bench
Press
Deadlift
How often do you need to train?
- Barbells help us build more muscle and stronger bones.
- For some trainees, we may only do two lifts each training session due to time restrictions.
- We want to have at least 1- 2 days in between training sessions so we can recover from our workouts and prepare our bodies for the next session.
So, why is strength training important as we age?
- Strength training can help us prevent the sick aging phenotype: Diabetes, low bone density, unhealthy lifestyle, falls, hip fractures, etc.
- Strength training is safe.
- Strength training with barbells helps make daily human movements easier and stronger
- Barbells are “doseable.” We can use broomsticks, light bars, boxes, bumper plates, to help modify these exercises.
- Barbells help us build muscle, build stronger, denser bones, help us move better, help us with balance and fall prevention, help our endurance/stamina, help us live a better quality of life.
- Barbells are simple and they are efficient in helping us get stronger faster.