It’s been within the past year or so that I have had more training submissions than ever, where people want to GET STRONG.
It’s exciting! Even if it’s not their primary goal of why they started training, it was on their list of things they are shooting for along the way. You wanna know what, I LOVE THAT. Wanting to lose fat, lose weight, gain muscle, or even just feeling better are great goals, and they can also get in our heads. Always looking for the scale to move, finding ways to disregard progress, and always chasing the next best thing.
When you want to get stronger, you can take your mind off things like the scale and focus on doing some great work in the gym. Above all else, your strength increases will help towards just about every other goal we listed above along the way.
This might be exactly what you need, a way to shift your focus to an action based goal instead of a result based goal. In the context of fitness, your result based goal is what you are shooting for, the reason you started. Your action goals are the things you actually need to do to get there. If your goal is to lose weight, there are actions you need to take so you can lose weight. Whether that is moving more, eating in a calorie deficit, or exercising regularly. Those are your action goals to get you to your end result.
If we keep our focus on the end goal for too long, things can seem daunting. But, shift your focus to the actions that actually move you in the right direction and things become more manageable.
Just like with everything in this world, there is a caveat. Even if your main goal is weight loss or fat loss, the reiteration of not wanting to get bulky is a high priority. And for good reason, if my main goals were fat loss and strength increases, I wouldn’t be super excited to be seeing some extra unwanted size a few months down the line.
The same goes for people looking to get stronger away from fat loss. It shouldn’t have to come with an asterisk that you will need to get big and bulky along the way (unless you want that). Is it even possible to gain strength without getting “bigger”?
It is most definitely possible, as long as you do things the right way!
First, before we even get into the steps of gaining strength without adding too much size, take PROGRESS PICTURES. You will not regret this. Months down the line, being able to look back at your starting point is a very overlooked piece of the journey.
Find a place with good lighting and where you can consistently take the same pictures months down the line. You want to have multiple angles, so front, back, and both sides should be taken each time. The more of yourself you can see the better. If the pictures are just for yourself, you can just be in your underwear. If the pictures will be sent to a support group or your coach, you can take them in tighter fit clothing or a bathing suit. Be consistent with the pictures, not only how often you take them, but where, and how you take them as well.
So how do you actually get stronger without getting bulky?
#1: Focus On BIG MOVEMENTS
When I say big movements I mean, compound exercises. The type of exercises that have a lot of moving parts (lots of joints and muscles working together) to carry out each rep. First off, exercises like these are great for building strength overall because you have to use so much of your body to execute them.
Think of something like a squat. It’s not just your legs doing everything. You need your abs tight, your shoulders strong/stable, hips moving well, ankles and feet stable, back rigid and strong, and even your grip can play a big role.
All these things work together to get your ass to the floor and back up with that weight pushing you down.
With saying this, I am also saying you can cut back on your isolation exercises (things that only use one joint, targeting one muscle). These types of exercises put a big emphasis on one particular area. So if you don’t want your shoulders getting bulky while you get stronger, putting your focus on things like overhead presses compared to lateral raises will be a good plan.
Think of those two exercises for a minute. How much stronger do you think you could get focusing on overhead presses? Now, how much stronger do you think you could get on a lateral raise? The amount of muscles working on a shoulder press allows you to gain strength in multiple places where the lateral raises are only going to be targeting one or two areas.
With that, the amount of muscle you are building during exercises like squats and overhead presses will be distributed to all those muscles that are helping out, instead of just targeting that one single muscle group.
Put your focus on BIGGER exercises. Get strong, move well, and perfect your form!
To go a little deeper on this, you still have to find the right style of training for YOU. If I just say to do these big compound exercises, that does not lay out what your entire training will look like.
Think about track cyclists, they have MASSIVE legs. Powerlifters, even in a weight controlled sport, tend to carry more mass than most people. What about crossfit athletes, they tend to carry a lot of mass and muscle just about everywhere as well. All of these sports use compound exercises in their training plans. Do you want to look like that? If not, then you have to find the right style of training for you and your goals.
For us general folks who aren’t ready to compete in a track meet or at the CrossFit games, I think we can still use compound exercises in a way that will get us strong without adding much size.
Here is what I would do:
- Start with 2-4 compound exercises
- No matter what type of plan you are following make sure there is as much even distribution on exercises that target the front side of the body AND the backside of the body
- Aim for 3-5 sets of good, strong, work
- Next, 1-2 targeted isolation exercises
- Find an area or two where you don’t mind seeing some muscle gain (we will talk about this deeper next step)
- Just because our focus is on compound exercises does not mean we disregard these!
- Not every workout I do or create has isolation exercises, so I put these as almost optional as long as you have enough compound exercises! (Especially on full body workouts)
- Do 2-4 sets on each exercise
- Last, core work OR conditioning
- That could be ground based core work or loaded carries for 2-4 sets
- With conditioning, take the amount of time you have left to workout, and MOVE (hop on an air bike or take 3 exercises and do them in a circuit)
Here is what this might look like:
Full Body Style:
1a. Back squat 4 x 6-8
2a. Incline DB Bench Press 4 x 6-8
3a. DB Romanian Deadlift 3 x 8-10
3b. Single Arm DB Row 3 x 10-12ea
4a. Single Arm Farmer’s Carry 2-3 x —
4b. Side Plank 2-3 x —
Upper Body Style:
1a. Bench Press 4 x 5
2a. Bent Over Barbell Row 4 x 6-8
3a. Push-Up 3 x —
3b. Face Pull 3 x 12-15
4a. DB Skullcrusher 2-3 x 10-12
4b. Hanging Leg Raise 2-3 x MAX
Lower Body Style:
1a. Low Handle Trap Bar Deadlift 4 x 6
2a. Front Foot Elevated Reverse Lunge 3 x 6-8ea
3a. Sled Push 2-3 x 10-15 yards
3b. Hamstring Curl 2-3 x 12-15
4a. Conditioning— 3-5 Rounds
-Airbike :30
-Med ball slam x10-12
#2: Figure Out WHERE You Don’t Want Extra Size
You probably have a general idea of where you don’t want the added size. Let’s take the female clients I work with for example. A common goal I hear from them is getting stronger and more defined legs. BUT most of them do not want big, bulky shoulders.
So what do we do?
We target the areas they want to grow more often compared to the areas they do not want to grow as much. This doesn’t mean we won’t do things that involve their shoulders. If you saw their workouts, we have a significant amount of work for their upper body. The focus shifts to getting strong in those big exercises like we talked about above, and if we are going to add in extra isolation work, it will be mainly on their legs or other areas on their upper body away from their shoulders.
So if you don’t want bulky upper arms, you don’t need to do 100 shrugs or 10 sets of lateral raises every week. Maybe a few sets every week is good to maintain the muscle you want to have there, but there is no reason to push extra hard on that muscle.
This is not a free pass to skip areas on your body just because you don’t want excess mass there. We can look back to our example from #1, your big exercises use a lot of muscles. If you neglect areas on your body, they will not be able to help you on certain exercises, making it MUCH harder to gain strength on those things.
Reduce the amount of targeted work on particular areas but DON’T skip them!
#3: Think of Re-Composition
Your body is carrying muscle and fat right now. As you may have heard, muscle is more dense than fat, meaning it will take up less total space on your body.
Muscle also has the ability to help you improve your strength. A larger muscle has the potential to be a stronger muscle. Now, when I say larger, I do not necessarily mean bigger (on your body). What I mean is more muscle in particular areas.
Re-composition will be the loss of body fat with the gain of muscle mass. Let’s say you drop 4 pounds of fat off your frame. Over a similar course of time, you add 4 pounds of muscle. You have stayed at the exact same body weight but will have changed your body composition. The muscle will be taking up less space on your body while also giving you the potential to use that muscle to increase your strength.
Just for some added insight, losing fat and gaining muscle at the same time is hard! So take your time and be patient along the way. It might not happen at the exact same time. You could gain 2-3 pounds of muscle during a period of time and then use the next few months to lower your body fat while maintaining the muscle you built. I like this style of focusing on either fat loss OR muscle gain at a particular time. If you can dial in and focus on ONE thing for a few months, you will be much more likely to see the result you set out to achieve.
#4: Be in a (slight) Calorie Deficit
I have talked about calorie deficit before, but the main idea is consuming less calories than you are burning on a daily basis. This is how you lose weight.
You know what is really hard to do when you are in a calorie deficit? Putting on size, meaning you will find it difficult to get bulky if you are in a calorie deficit.
You know what else is hard to do? Gaining strength while in a (larger) calorie deficit. This is why I want to emphasize the SLIGHT in the title of this topic. If you can find that point where you are just in a small calorie deficit, you will still be able to gain strength (especially in the early years with your workouts) without gaining much size overall.
Finding that ideal spot will vary from person to person. So, devote a full week or two to tracking your calories as closely and as accurately as you can. While you do that you are going to weigh yourself at the exact same time of day (right when you wake up) on day 1 and day 7. If your weight stayed the exact same, your average calories for the week are going to be pretty dang close to your maintenance.
If you gained a little bit of weight, you are most likely a bit over your maintenance calories and need to drop them down slightly. The opposite will be true if you lost some weight, so you may have to increase your calories slightly. Now, these numbers are not spot on. Your general activity, sleep, water intake, stress all play a role but for simplicity’s sake, track your weight and calories for the week and make an estimation of where you need to be for that slight deficit.
Everything we do when it comes to health and fitness is a small bit of trial and error. No one will have the exact same results as someone else because we are all so complex. So let’s not overstress about the slightest differences in the numbers. Make an estimation, try it out, and see if it works. If it does, GREAT. If it doesn’t, time to get back to work and figure out what will work.
#5: Do Your Thing!
Your goals are valid. There are more than enough instagram posts out there saying you won’t get bulky from lifting weights. I think these posts are generally trying to help by telling people to not be afraid of lifting weights but to be honest It feels like they are just disregarding how people are feeling.
We have seen MANY people in this world get very large (on purpose), from lifting weights. There is much more that goes on behind the scenes, but we can’t just brush off how people are feeling. Also, telling someone they just won’t gain that much muscle is crazy, we are basically telling people that this whole weight training thing doesn’t work that great anyway.
I know I am guilty of this back when I first started out. It definitely didn’t help anyone, and I sure put It in people’s minds that they won’t gain much muscle. Who the hell am I to tell a person how much muscle they can or can’t build?
So I will say It again, your goals are valid! Don’t let someone try to tell you how you should feel toward something. Instead, take these 5 tactics and get to work.
You CAN get stronger. And you can do so WITHOUT gaining any unwanted size!
Now, let’s get to work!
In good health,
Jeff
