Emily doing a famer's walk with 75kg

Strength is the ability of a muscular unit, or combination of muscular units to apply force. This is the third detail installment from: 10 General Physical Skills

We can look at strength in two ways. One is just raw, absolute strength. Being able to move heavy objects, pick up anything, bend steel and the like. The second is strength relative to one’s own bodyweight, or strength to weight ratio.

As far as absolute strength powerlifters and strong man competetors reign supreme. Being able to deadlift or squat 1,000 lbs requires rediculous raw unbridled strength. As with all things specializing too much in one arena comes with sacrifices. These folks, while strong beyond belief suffer in the areas of endurance and stamina. Speed, power and agility may also be limited. We train you to have a 500 lb deadlift, but still be able to run a 10k in a decent time and have a sub-25 second 200m, as well as being able to easily hoist yourself up on objects.

In the realm of strength to weight ratio gymnasts are unchallenged. These little people (yes, elite competetive gymnasts are little if you were not aware) are able to produce enormous amounts of force, and when their weight is considered there is nothing like it anywhere else in sport.

Lifting heavy regularly will build strength. Doing it within a well structured program will build tremendous strength without too much increase in body mass. Keeping these things balanced leads to elite fitness.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 at 9:15 pm and is filed under Skill work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.