The Only Exercise That Will Truly Test Your Strength
February 15, 2010 by Shaun
Filed under The Fitness Bug
I always preach to you how important it is to increase your strength opposed to just lifting to look nice. If you happened to be the biggest guy in the room when I fight breaks out, yet get shoved out of the way by smaller ‘ironically stronger’ guys than you, how stupid will you look? Eh?
That is why you must lift heavy and lift often.
Now I know you have all been doing that. You wouldn’t still be subscribed if you hadn’t been. But every now and again, you should check your strength increasing progress.
Obviously you will feel when you are becoming stronger, but it never does harm to test EXACTLY how strong you have become.
The Dead Lift
The deadlift is already one of the… if the not the best compound exercise out of all. It will work your calves, hamstrings, quads, glutes, back and core. It can also help you improve your ability to lift explosively too.
But did you know that you can use it to gauge your current strength? Well, you can with this technique.
The Deadlift Strength Test
Estimate your 1RM (1-Rep Max). This is the most weight you can lift for one rep. Then compare it to the table below.
- Less than your body weight = Weak bastard. You are not Stayfitbug worthy.
- 1.25 x your body weight = You just about pass.
- 1.5 x body weight = You are a certified fit-bugger and you are not be messed with.
- 2 x body weight = You are an animal. You might even be able to teach me a thing or two.
As I mentioned at the start of the year, there will be many new products, services, workout routines and even exercises that will enter the market. Hell… even I’m in the process of cooking up some goodness as you all know (Take the survey If you haven’t done so already). But key exercises like the deadlift and squat will remain the daddy of all exercises for some time to come.
See you in the comments.
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Link to this page
Yup…The deadlift is coming back big time! And that’s great since it’s probably the king of strength training!
Sure is… it’s good to get people to do this though. When they realize that were actually weak, it gets them to start doing some REAL exercise.
Extremely beneficial. Intense workout are great for you heart. So long as you’re working out correctly. I recommend High Intensity Training for everyone I train. I’ve seen great fat loss while they keep their strength.
The favorite which I’ve mentioned throughout this site is to run up hills… twice a week. Which is no easy task. What type of high intensity training do you do?
I’ve just recently started deadlifting so I’m weak if I use the table as a comparison. I’m still pretty close to my bodyweight. It’s just that I do in supersets with other leg exercises and sometimes other leg exercises, so it’s a bit harder to go max. I’ll have to gauge my one rep max in a few weeks when I’ll be done with my program
Nice… well, at least you have no shortage of info on how to increase strength when you need that extra tweak eh