4 Quick Tips For Instant Strength Gains

Here are four quick tips that you can utilize in your next training session to make you instantly stronger. Doing these every single time will lead to substantially better gains in strength and muscle mass.

1. Create Full Body Bracing - Every time you perform a deadlift, bench press, overhead press, or bent-over row you should be squeezing the bar as hard as you can. You should be thinking that you want to both crush the bar and break it in half at the same time. Your lats should fire when you do this and create tension through your whole upper body. This creates an effect known as Sherrington’s Law of Irradiation which states that a contracting muscle will cause neighboring muscles to contract as well. 

2. Jump  - By incorporating a jumping exercise right after your warmup but before your main lifts, you’ll stimulate your central nervous system. This will get you primed to recruit as many motor units in your muscles as you can. The more motor units recruited, the stronger you’ll be. 3 sets of 5 reps in a broad jump or vertical jump should do it. Try to make each jump higher than the last one.

3. Push the Floor Down - While deadlifting, most people think about pulling the bar up. This is the wrong mindset and sometimes set you up for failure on a lift. Instead, imagine that you’re just holding onto the bar and pushing the floor down with your feet. Try it notice how much of a difference it creates.

4. Make a Rep Look Effortless - Muscling through a rep just to complete it is lazy and taking the easy way out. That’s right, I said it. Making a rep look effortless and technically beautiful is much harder and will give you much better results, even if the weight isn’t as heavy. Stay technically sound and strive to make every rep look as effortless as possible.

Things You Should Be Doing, But Aren't #2

1. Stretch Your Hip Flexors - Do you enjoy just sitting around and chilling? It's fun and relaxing right? Or maybe you sit for a living at work? Let me give you a scenario... You're just sitting around one day, minding your own business when all of a sudden you see a kitten stuck in a tree outside. You seize the moment and run and save her. Well, since you've been sitting for the last few hours your hip flexors are really tight. You go to stand up and your tight hip flexors, well, stay tight. They pull your pelvic cage down which pulls your low back into hyperextension. But that's ok right? You don't need your back in a good position while you run to save the kitten. Wrong. Your hyperextended spine hates you and decides to pull on your hamstrings in an attempt to hold things together. Now your hamstrings are in a stretched state and since you've been sitting a while they can hardly remember what its like to actually be used. You realize this when you're 3 steps in and your left hammie has had enough and gets strained. It's ok though, you can still hobble to heroism. Boom, there goes your right hamstring as you overcompensate with effort. Now you're out of the game and no one is there to save the kitten. Lesson learned? Stretch your hip flexors, save the kitten.
2. Handstands - You don't have to wait until we tell you to do them at the gym. Yes that's right, you can do them right in your own home. Handstands, and any ground based movement on your hands, will drastically improve your core strength and scapular stability. After a few weeks of routinely adding these movements in, you'll notice a nice improvement in your stability with snatches, jerks, and other overhead movements. You'll also notice your core staying stronger throughout any movement. 
3. Stay Hungry - Stay hungry for food. Stay hungry for learning. Stay hungry for things that are true, lovely, and admirable. Stay hungry for life.