Where Did Strength Go?

I’m by no means a high-level strength athlete but have trained with barbells for 10+ years, leading to my most recent experiment in the gym.  

As many of you know, I’m a major advocate for the KBox4 unit, a contraption out of Sweden that resides in my own home.  Since getting a Kbox4, I’ve spent 3+ months training without barbells, trap bars or chalk.   What a weird world I’ve lived in… 

Yesterday, Sam and I decided to retest my trap bar deadlift to see if I’ve “lost a step” since moving to flywheel training.  The results were interesting.   

My lifetime PR on the trap bar is around 500 pounds at a bodyweight of 210 pounds* but I generally train 3-5 reps in the 315-405 pound range depending on whether I’ve been coaching for 8+ hours or not.     

*I’m currently around 190 pounds due to a month back in 2014 of going vegan…

Yesterday, I pulled 405 pounds with an RPE of “who cares” after warming up for about five minutes.    Needless to say, I was a little surprised.   

The law of specificity plays in strength training.  Success in one exercise does not guarantee success in another.  If you need an example, take someone who trains the press with dumbbells only and throw them under a barbell. It’s just different.   

After training exclusively with the KBox4 unit, my deadlift at least stayed consistent and in my humble opinion, probably improved.  Due to having hopes for a long and happy life, I decided against pushing it yesterday despite feeling great on the deadlift.  If I had to guess, I would have been tapping out in the 450+ range, which would put me at or above my most recent training with the trap bar, 6 months ago… 

KBox advertising aside, I think a part of my so-called “success” with the trap bar yesterday was related to my previous training with it.  Back in February and March I was training with it pretty consistently.   While I’d love to give all the credit to the Swedish geniuses who put my KBox4 together, it would be undeserved.  Some of the skin that I’ve left on the trap bar in months and years past played into yesterday’s training.  

Strength sticks around far longer than we give it credit for.  If we are trying to improve strength, training frequency can certainly help expedite the process.  For those who feel they are “strong enough” and are more focused on transferring strength into power expression, a strength training stimulus does not need to be applied nearly as frequently as we think.   

Now to be clear, if we are claiming “strong enough” to be some pedestrian levels of strength, our power and speed capabilities will be capped by our strength limitations.  For the athletes that I’ve come across who claim to be “strong enough”, I generally find myself pretty put off by their lack of strength.  It’s the foundation of power, speed and in some cases, endurance.   Let’s raise our expectations shall we?  

At the end of the day, most of us could probably stand to gain a little bit of strength here and there.   While it’s cool to kick the idea of “strong enough” around, most of those reading about it aren’t winning any powerlifting competitions.   

When that day comes where we accept our second place of trophies of “strong enough”, it’ll be important to remember that our hard-earned efforts won’t be lost in the timeframe of weeks or even months.   That strength will stick around!  Just remember that there is an initial investment of time and effort that goes into it.