Building Super Real World Strength

Even though things have been so different this year for all of us, one of the cool things that I was still able to do was present at several national virtual conferences. Being able to teach and share is something that really inspires me at this point in my career. After 25 years of coaching,  I am more focused on the next generation of fitness, performance coaches, as well as therapists in making a big impact on people. The “theme” this year was what real-world strength was really about and how we miss it all the time in our training!

Two great national conferences I was honored to be a part of!

Most of our workouts are pretty messed up, I can say that because MY workouts were pretty messed up for a while. What do I mean? Ask what most people think being strong means and they will say something like, “well, your ability to lift something.” While that isn’t horrible, it isn’t complete. You may have more formally educated individuals say something like, “your ability to develop force.” That sounds similar and is also true, but is also incomplete. So, what does it meant to be “strong” and how does that impact how we think about real-world strength?

I share this slide from one of my lectures because the late great, Dr. Mel Siff pointed out a VERY key factor of real-world strength that most people miss. The ability to create force under specific conditions! What does that mean though and how should it change how we think of real-world strength training?

The misleading narrative that a lot of outdated coaches will use is that if you get strong at the “basics” then that takes care of everything else. That would be awesome and I actually use to say the same thing. However, I use to say it because in some small (or large part depending on how you look at it) I was trying to mask the fact that I wasn’t very good at taking my strength training to more challenging environments or positions. I was REALLY good at moving up and down, but not so good when you asked me to take that strength into more unpredictable and less stable environments.

I always have a good chuckle when people think I’m not about training hard or heavy. I am, but versus the days I use to do competitive strongman training, I look to do it smarter!

Great, I stunk at taking my training to more real-world strength when things are moving in multiple directions at once or having to produce and resist force at once, but I’m one case study, right? Well, Dr. David Tiberio gives a great explanation of why this probably is not just a Josh phenomenon.

That is another big key, the fact that our nervous system has to know HOW to coordinate strength in these different positions and directions. ONLY training up and down doesn’t teach our body largely how to take that type of training to more real-world strength. If the science is out there, then why do we ignore it? Largely because people don’t know how to use this information because they are stuck with just “squat, deadlift, bench press, etc.” Let’s look at some practical examples as we still base everything on the 7 movement patterns of squat, hip hinge, lunge, push, pull, and rotation.

Squat

How in the world do you make a squat more real-world strength? Isn’t just squatting on its own enough? Squatting bilaterally as we typically see does build a nice foundation, but doesn’t really tackle our real-world strength because we don’t often operate in such stable stance with loads in such stable positions. Changing the load position like our Shoulder squat is a way to now challenge the body to move up and down while also resisting force going from side to side. Doing so while also using our Sprinter Stance brings even MORE real-world strength elements to the movement as DVRT UK Master, Greg Perlaki shows. In the series below, but how we can challenge the squat in so many smarter ways outside of just beating up our low backs!

Hip Hinge

The hip hinge gives us even more options because we have elements of power and locomotion we can build. Sometimes the options seem overwhelming but having a system like DVRT gives us the exact direction of what to use and when to use them. That is what makes our educational programs (you can check out HERE for 30% off with code “laborday”) so powerful. We don’t teach you just new exercises, we empower you with the knowledge to know how to create and use the RIGHT exercise!

Pressing

Pressing gives us so many unique opportunities to build real-world strength because we can go horizontal or vertical, one arm, two, or alternating, and from a host of different positions. We can use different tools to emphasize different strength training qualities.

Going overhead helps us teach more mobility and stability of the upper body together as you can see from these movement concepts.

There are so many options in horizontal pushing as well, but physical therapist Jessica Bento shows that it still has to be purposeful and progressive. 

Pulling

Like pushing, pulling can be done horizontally and vertically and with the same challenges to the upper body. Most people never come close to exploring the options they have in pulling fully. Plus, they miss the real world strength application when they often take the core OUT of the exercise by lying on the bench. That goes AGAINST how the body functions and impedes our ability to build real-world strength.

Jessica shows some great pulling examples especially practical for the many home workouts that are going on that can still build great real-world strength.

Instead of just beating your head against the wall or making people compensate because we don’t have the right progressions, understanding how to progress and build real-world strength is so key. 

The point of this post wasn’t to give you just more exercises. Rather, I wanted to point out how limited our view of strength really was and how our misunderstanding causes us to get “trapped” into very singular ways of training as well as being overwhelmed by all we can do. That is why for the past 15 years we have worked so hard to build systems, not just novel movements. When people ask we focus so hard on DVRT (Dynamic Variable Resistance Training) is because the system leads us to the RIGHT tool and the RIGHT exercise. In the end, giving us better results!

Find out how you can empower your training, our Ultimate Sandbags, DVRT Online Education (that has integrated tools and kettlebell certifications as well), along with our workout programs can give you so much more! Save 30% for a VERY limited time with code “laborday” HERE