TL;DR: Perhaps the simplest way to get strong is to the StrongLifts routine of deadlift, squat, bench press, overhead press, and row. Do each lift at least once per week, increasing weight each week, aiming for 3-5 reps and 3-5 sets on each lift. Emphasize never skipping a week, and mastering form.

“Don’t wish for a lighter load; wish for a stronger back”

Introduction

You load the bar on your shoulders. It’s heavy. You’re nervous. You’ve never squatted this weight before. You glance at your spotter in the mirror and start the descent. At the bottom your whole body is tight and dialed in like a well oiled machine. You push up, up, up, the bar slowly makes it past the point of no return. “YEAAAH!!”, you yell at the top triumphantly. You just hit a new PR, and you feel like a god among mortals. The power, the strength!

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The benefits of strength training go beyond just being able to KO some guy that looks at you the wrong way in a bar or to lift dancers like Swayze. It makes you feel better, live longer, and look better and it works well in conjunction with cardio and weight lifting for overall health. To look muscular or toned, you’ll want to increase your strength.

Strength doesn’t need to be complicated. You can simply use 5 lifts: the squat, deadlift, bench press, overhead press, and row. If you do each lift just once per week at 3-5 reps and 3-5 sets each, consistently increasing weight each week using good form, you will develop an excellent aesthetic and overall strength in every muscle.

Why Gain Strength?

The Benefits of Strength

Younger

More muscle mass is associated with slower aging. Older adults with more muscle mass live longer, and the more muscle you have the better you can control your blood sugar. Muscle mass may be an even more important indicator of health than even total body weight. Overweight people who lift are more similar to healthy people who lift than overweight people who don’t lift [1]. So you could say lifting is a stronger positive force on your health than being overweight is a negative force, if that makes sense. If that doesn’t convince you to start lifting, Harvard also implies that resistance training is just as good as cardio for your heart, while taking less time [2]. 

Strength specifically is associated with living longer. Grip strength has been shown to be inversely correlated with death from any cause and death from cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, all cancer, and subtypes of cancer, including colorectal, lung, and breast cancer. This is likely because grip strength is a proxy for overall strength and the stronger we are the younger we effectively are biologically [3].

It’s well known that Testosterone drops as men age past 30, and as women age their estrogen drops as well, both leading to an older effective biological age. Strength training regulates sex hormones like these in both genders and stimulates the release of human growth hormone, which helps us build muscle and burn fat improving our body composition. [4]

Stronger

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Of course strength training makes your muscles stronger, but it also makes your whole skeleton stronger as well as your joints and tendons. Strength training, like other exercises, places stress on your bones and they adapt to this stress, especially with heavy weights. With millions of bone fractures every year, many of them resulting in permanent loss of mobility, strength training is a great way to maintain bone mass and strength and prevent osteoporosis especially as we age.

Smarter

Strength training even makes you smarter. Rats running on weighted wheels vs unweighted wheels show higher levels of Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor thought to stimulate neurogenesis – creation of new neurons. Elderly women who strength train perform better on cognitive tests than those who just do “toning” in the gym. This seems to make sense as strength training requires a large amount of signalling from the nervous system, and requires us to strengthen our energy generating pathways which benefit our brains as well as bodies. [5]

Bigger

Beyond health, strength training is incredible for making your muscles bigger, though not to the same degree as bodybuilding – see more in our article on muscle building and gym science. However, many body builders incorporate strength training into their routine because as you increase strength you can then use that strength at higher reps to increase overall volume, meaning more hypertrophy. It’s very common to train strength for several weeks, then to switch to hypertrophy, and back again in cycles. At the end of the day, you can’t get big without getting strong.

For women, strength training is a great way to look toned; it very rarely makes women look bulky due to their lower testosterone levels.

This article will go through the basic muscle groups, 5 great barbell lifts for strength, and how to structure your reps, sets, and routine for long term strength gains as well as symmetry. 

How To Gain Strength

Consistency & Form

If there are two things you get from this article, let it be consistency and form.

Consistency is king. If there’s one strategy for getting strong it’s to show up to the gym every week and never stop. You’re essentially guaranteed to get strong if you keep it up long term and increase weight steadily each week. Nothing else in this article is going to be useful until lifting is a habit, a commitment long term, not just the first month of the year – see more in our article on habits. For this reason, enjoying your routine is paramount, don’t kill yourself and hate your workouts. Keep it simple, do the lifts you like, and when you’re ready move on to other areas. View lifting as a lifelong skill and take your time getting into it. Things that start fast end fast.

Form is close to as important as consistency. If you don’t have your form down pat according to the tips below, you can easily hurt yourself, develop bad habits that are hard to break, and you’ll find you hit plateaus often – see more in our article on injury prevention. Every time you lift, until you really know what you’re doing, you should revise the tips below and occasionally video yourself so you know you’re doing it right. Flexibility is a must for true strength. Stretching after lifting can help a lot for getting the range of mobility needed to get into proper form. When you’re first starting, it is best to just use the barbell with no weight to get your form down. Staying present by paying attention to your muscles and how your body feels during each rep will improve your form and mind-muscle connection. Read our article on being present here for more.

Tip: combine semen retention with strength training for an extra boost to your workouts. Read more on semen retention here.

The 5 Great Lifts To Gain Strength – StrongLifts

This section of the article is based off of The StrongLifts program, which is a popular starting program to gain strength. The premise is that to get strong and muscular all you really need are the biggest lifts: squat, deadlift, bench, overhead, and row. These lifts will be the best bang for your buck because they use heavy weight and hit so many muscles at once. All of these use a barbell like the one below, which you can find in any decent gym.

Note: any of the 5 exercises can be adapted for dumbbells, but it may be impractical for heavy lifts like squat and deadlift.

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When you’re doing these lifts, remember, the focus isn’t to lift the most weight you can, or to move the bar from A to B, it’s to push your muscles as hard as you can. You’re trying to feel the lift hit the target muscles and work them, it should feel uncomfortable in a good way. This is what makes you strong.

1. The Squat

The squat is the king of the lower body, strengthening your quads and glutes primarily, as well as hamstrings, but they also strengthen your core, which holds the weight up and balanced. It trains your calves too to some extent. Bottom line is, if you want a strong lower body, you squat. 

Fun fact: increasing your lower body strength increases your upper body strength because of the rapid increase in growth hormone and testosterone it brings [6]. Some say by as much as 10-15%. Don’t skip leg day.

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Main Muscles worked

• Quads
• Hamstrings
• Glutes

Main Support Muscles

• Core (abs and erector spinae)
• Calves

Form

There are different types of squats, but we’ll just consider the classic high bar squat here. 

1. Tightly grip the bar with hands about shoulder width apart
2. Position the bar resting on your upper back and hold it tight to your back with your chest out and shoulders down
3. Unrack the weight and take a step back from the rack
4. Position your feet shoulder width apart, pointed 30 degrees out on either side
5. Take a deep breath into your belly and hold it
6. Squat down and let your knees come out and forward, trying to bring your hips down between your legs (many people will need to work on flexibility here). Keep your weight balanced in the middle of your feet. Don’t overarch or under arch your back, keep neutral posture. Allow your knees to move outward while keeping your chest as upright as possible
7. Bring your hips down until you break parallel with your thighs (below a 90 degree knee angle – no it’s not bad for your knees)
8. Push the bar straight back up the way you came driving with your legs and glutes
9. Breathe out and repeat

Key Points

• Put the bar high on your back. You’re aiming for the middle image below. Balance the weight in the middle of your feet, not heels or toes. Don’t lean. You should feel the stretch in your legs and inner thighs at the bottom. Keep your torso as vertical as you can and practice flexibility in your legs to allow this.
• Keep good back posture, chest out, no curving spine
• Break parallel and video yourself

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2. The Deadlift

The deadlift works essentially your entire body, more so than the other four lifts, and is the heaviest as well. It is probably the greatest single exercise for a strong back including your lats, rhomboids, erector spinae, and trapezius. It primarily works your glutes, hamstrings, erector spinae, and lats, but requires your quads, calves, core, forearms, and trapezius as well.

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Main Muscles worked

• Glutes
• Erector Spinae
• Hamstrings
• Lats
• Trapezius

Main Support Muscles

• Core
• Rhomboids
• Quads
• Forearms
• Rear delts

Form

1. Position the middle of your feet under the bar, hip width apart, a little closer than with the squat. Point your toes out 15 degrees
2. Bend over and grip the bar tight, hands shoulder width apart. Your arms should be straight
3. Bend your knees forward until your shins just barely touch the bar, keep your hips higher than your knees
4. Fully bring your shoulders back and down, chest out. Your back and neck should be straight, not arched either way
5. Look at a point in front of you about waist height, and keep your eyes fixed there throughout the lift. This will keep your spine straight
6. Take a deep breath into your belly and hold. Slowly lift the bar from the ground and feel the tension build in your body
7. Lift straight up by pushing down with your legs off of the ground keeping your core tight so your spine is straight. The bar should be balanced over your mid foot. Let your arms deadhand straight, do not lift with your arms at all. The bar should be just grazing the front of your legs throughout the lift. If your knees get in the way of the bar, you should be straightening your legs a bit sooner relative to your back.
8. When you reach a full stand, lower the bar back down with the same form. The bar should just be touching your thighs and shins on the way down
9. Breathe out and repeat

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Key Points

• Look at a point in front of you about hip height and fix your eyes there throughout the entire lift
• Drive with your legs and back at the same time
• Keep the weight balanced in the middle of your feet, not on your toes

3. The Bench Press

The bench press is the best lift to bulk up and strengthen your pecs. It also strengthens your front shoulders and triceps nicely as well. 

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Main Muscles worked

• Pecs

Main Support Muscles

• Triceps
• Front delts

Form

1. Lie flat on the bench, feet flat on the ground
2. Grip the bar tight, about shoulder width apart and keep your wrists straight so the weight goes directly into your forearms, not into bending your wrist backwards
3. Push your shoulders down and back tight against the bench, chest out
4. Unrack the weight, and move it so your arms are vertical
5. Take a deep breath and hold
6. Bring the weight down until it touches your mid chest, let your elbows come out comfortably at an angle, not straight out sideways at 90 degrees
7. Push the weight straight back up, breathe out, and rack the weight

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Key Points

• Keep the bar balanced over your upper back
• Have a controlled descent to your middle chest
• Wrists straight

4. The Overhead

The overhead is an excellent shoulder builder, making them broader and rounder. It also works your core quite hard as you need to balance the weight as you move it overhead. It works your triceps and traps at the top of the movement. It, along with the bench press, is great for upper body strength.

Muscles worked

• Delts, especially front delts and side delts

Main Support Muscles

• Abs, Obliques – more so than the other lifts
• Triceps
• Traps

Form

1. Either start with the weight on the ground, and clean it up to your upper chest, or start with the bar at squat height on the rack and unrack to your upper chest
2. Grip the bar about shoulder width apart, tuck your elbows in. You should be able to hold the weight here comfortably
3. Keep your wrists straight, don’t let them roll backwards. Keep your back neutral the entire time, do not arch backwards – tense your entire core to keep neutral posture throughout the lift. Don’t lift with your legs at all.
4. Take a deep breath in and hold
5. Push straight upwards on the bar, just barely moving your head out of the way as it comes up, and move your head back under the bar right after it moves above your head. You will have to tilt your body back a little for this but do not arch your back, only bend at the hips. 
6. Extend your shoulders up at the top of the movement to reach as high as you can
7. Lower the weight back down with the same form
8. Breathe out

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Key Points

• Balance the weight over your midfoot, not on your toes or heels
• Hold a tight core to keep your back neutral
• Bend only at the hips a little as the bar clears your head, then put your head directly under the bar after for maximum strength

5. The Row

The row is an excellent total back lift. Along with the deadlift, it is all you really need for a big, strong, triangular-looking back. It also works the rear delts, which is nice to balance out the front delts from bench press and overhead. It even works the hamstrings, glutes, and forearms as they help you hold the bar.

Main Muscles worked

• Lats
• Rear delts
• Traps
• Rhomboids

Main Support Muscles

• Biceps
• Glutes
• Hamstrings
• Forearms

Form

1. Bend over and grip the bar at about shoulder width. Your feet should be about hip width apart with the middle of your feet under the bar
2. Keep your shoulders back and down, chest out
3. Make your back parallel with the ground, push your butt out, bend your knees
4. Take a breath and hold. Hold your legs steady, your back and arms should do all the movement
5. Pull the bar until it touches your chest, leading with your elbows, which should come straight up, angled out a bit from your sides
6. Lower the weight back down to the ground

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Key Points

• Balance the weight over your midfoot, not on toes or heels
• Keep a neutral back, butt out, tighten your core
• Bring the weight up leading with your elbows

You may find that it takes months to feel comfortable with the form of each lift, but it will be well worth the time to get it right. Remember flexibility will limit your form so push your flexibility each time you lift.

How To Structure Your Reps, Sets, and Routine

The higher the weight, and the lower the reps, the more you train strength. You could do 1 rep maxes as your routine, but that is hard on your body and not as conducive for beginners and developing good form. 5 reps is a good starting point for beginners and those who want a balance of hypertrophy. 3 reps is a good point for maximum strength with less hypertrophy. Choose between 3 – 5 reps depending on your goals.

The more sets you do, the more muscle and strength you will gain. Do a minimum of 3 sets of each exercise on a given day, and go to up to 5 sets, or more if you can handle the volume and want maximum strength gains. For most people, 4 sets will be more than enough for great gains if each set itself is challenging – see more about muscle building in our gym science article. 

For your routine, do each exercise at least once per week and that will be plenty for most lifters. If you want to push for more strength and hypertrophy, add in an extra squat session, bench, overhead, or row. Deadlift typically takes longer to recover from, but could be done a second time in one week if you feel you are recovering well. Listen to your body, and check your symmetry in the below section to determine what focus makes sense for you.

Here is a simple training routine example, with progressive overload of 10 pounds per week on deadlift, 10 on squat, and 5 on the other three lifts:

If you want to copy this template to put your own starting weight and increases per week, go to the spreadsheet here

Note: WARMUP before your lifts, don’t just jump into the weights above. Start with the bar for a set of at least 5 reps, then add on some weight do another 5 reps, then some more and another 5 reps, then start on your full weight for the day.

Anyone can follow a simple routine like this and get strong. You may need to adjust the starting weights, and the increments as you feel works for you. The bar alone is 45 lbs, and is a good starting point for beginners for form. It is a smart idea to track the weights and reps you do to keep you on track and note your progress over time.

After this 10 week routine, it is good to take a few weeks off and lift a bit lighter with higher reps of 8-12 to strengthen cartilage, and give your central nervous system a break – aka a deload. Cycling lower reps and higher reps in several week chunks is a great way to continue building strength long term, with more weeks being strength focused. For example, 10 weeks on 3 rep, 4 weeks on 8 reps and then 10 weeks on 3 rep again. 

Muscle Groups and Symmetry

Usually with strength training, like bodybuilding, you want to build your muscles proportionally. This helps you look symmetrical, helps you maintain a healthy neutral posture, and makes you more resilient to injury.

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Study the image above to get an idea of each major muscle group.

The 5 lifts above strengthen your entire body head to toe, which makes things quite simple. They also result in the biggest hormonal boosts, which help your body build muscle and give you benefits like those discussed in the beginning of this article. Just doing smaller lifts like dumbbell curls on smaller muscles like your biceps won’t have nearly the same effect. The big central muscles like the quads, hamstrings, glutes, abs, erector spinae, lats, delts, and pecs are focused on most in these compound lifts. Even so, you may develop faster in one lift than another, and this can cause asymmetry.

If you get too strong on one particular lift you can become imbalanced. It’s helpful to check the website www.symmetricstrength.com and input the weights you’re lifting for each lift to get a sense of how balanced you are.

Here is an example of the kind of result you’ll get if you enter your weights for each lift on the website:

You can hover over each muscle group to get an idea of your strength for each. 

These results show that back squat and overhead press need some work, so these should be priorities and might deserve an extra day each week, or some extra sets.

How To Recover To Build Strength

You only build strength outside of the gym. In the gym, you break down your muscles, outside of the gym you repair them. This is why some say weight lifting in general is a way of life, to really get the body you want you need to eat well, and sleep well – see our articles on nutrition and sleep. The more calories you eat, the stronger you’ll get, but you may get fat with that approach. Eat enough protein, say 0.75 g/lb of lean body mass, and enough fats or carbs or a combination for you to maintain your desired weight – see more on our article on body composition here. 

Further Resources

1. Strong Lifts
2. OutLift
3. Symmetric Strength

Author’s Motivation

I think strength is awesome. I like the raw ability to lift heavy weight, and the feeling of doing so. I also think that a lot of people waste their time with dinky little exercises that aren’t really helping them, and that the key to looking and feeling your best in conjunction with some amount of cardio is to do compound lifts with heavy weights. Strength and hypertrophy are both great, and work well together sequentially.

Summary

Strength is great for you and makes you look great. To get strong, you can just focus on the biggest compound lifts like deadlift, squat, bench press, overhead press, and row and progressively increase weight each week for a while, then take some time to build more hypertrophy before returning to strength. Focus on hitting the gym consistently by tracking your lifts, and focus on your form obsessively if you really want the best results.

References

[1]https://www.livestrong.com/article/13724107-benefits-lower-body-strength/

[2]https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/give-your-heart-health-a-lift#:~:text=New%20research%20suggests%20that%20weight,its%20many%20heart%2Dhealthy%20benefits

[3]https://www.bmj.com/content/361/bmj.k1651#:~:text=This%20study%20has%20shown%20that,lung%2C%20and%20breast%20cancer%2C%20with

[4]https://experiencelife.com/article/how-strength-training-balances-your-hormones/

[5]https://www.marksdailyapple.com/monday-musings-the-dumb-jocks-myth/

[6]https://www.gq.com/story/want-bigger-arms-then-keep-doing-squats

[7]https://stronglifts.com/squat/

[8]https://stronglifts.com/deadlift/

[9]https://stronglifts.com/bench-press/

[10]https://stronglifts.com/overhead-press/ 

[11]https://outlift.com/overhead-press-for-size/

[12]https://outlift.com/barbell-row/

[13]https://stronglifts.com/barbell-row/ 

[14]www.symmetricstrength.com

Pictures

[a]http://www.t-nation.com/img/photos/2012/12-760-01/squat.jpg

[b]https://www.vincegironda.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/who-is-vincegironda.jpg

[c]http://www.thebarbellphysio.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/4.jpg

[d]https://i.pinimg.com/originals/72/e2/bc/72e2bcc2282becfe2b020cf75503d554.jpg

[e]https://www.underdogstrength.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/deadlift-muscles-440×440.jpg 

[f]http://www.weightliftingapp.com/images/blog/lifts-bench.jpg

[g]https://dlior9lx1k7r2.cloudfront.net/coverphoto/7a3ba884-7b95-4574-97a8-373556549784.jpg 

[h]http://www.70sbig.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/squats.jpg