Rule #2 for Maximizing Strength Gains: Choose Your Exercises Wisely
Watching soldiers lift heavy boxes taught me something about selecting appropriate exercises
[Header: this article is part of a 9-part series about maximizing your strength gains]
When you enter a fitness facility, there’s a nearly infinite number of exercises to choose from, so how do you decide? Fortunately, I have some simple guidance for you. But first, let me begin with a story.
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Military combat is a matter of life-and-death. So, soldiers have to prepare their body, mind, and soul for the difficult challenges ahead. While working as a research physiologist for the Army, I was an investigator on a study in which we tried to scientifically determine which exercises soldiers should perform to physically prepare their bodies for deployment. This required a 3-step process:
First, we measured soldiers’ performance on military tasks that they might need to perform during deployment. Specifically, we measured:
How accurately the soldiers could throw a dummy grenade at a target located about 100 feet away
How far the soldiers could jump while while wearing a bulletproof vest (to simulate, for example, jumping over a ditch)
How heavy of a box the soldiers could lift from the ground onto the height of a military truck bed (to simulate loading cargo)
How quickly the soldiers could march 2-miles while wearing a 75-pound backpack
Second, after measuring the soldiers performance on the military tasks, we measured their performance on a variety of common exercises. For example, we measured their 2-mile run time, the maximal number of push-ups and sit-ups they could perform in 2 minutes, their maximal strength (on the leg press and bench press), their muscular power (on jumping tests and medicine ball tests), their maximal aerobic capacity (on a fancy laboratory test), and a few other insightful tests.
And third, once we had all this information, we determined the correlation between military task performance and exercise performance. Once we had the answers to these questions, then we could determine which exercise are (and are not) most important for soldiers to perform when preparing their bodies for deployment. For example, if the leg press exercise was correlated with military task performance, then soldiers should perform leg strengthening exercises before deployment — or, alternatively, if the leg press exercise wasn’t correlated with military task performance, then this exercise probably wasn’t a necessary part of a soldier’s training routine.
Of the four “military tasks”, the one that required pure strength — the ability to produce high muscular forces for one repetition — was the maximal box lift task. The other tasks measured throwing skill (grenade throw task), maximal power output (running long jump task), and endurance (march with a heavy backpack for 2-miles). So let’s focus on the maximal box lift task for a moment.
The box lift task measured the soldiers’ maximal ability to lift a heavy box from the ground onto a 4.5-foot high platform. The soldiers would start by lifting a relatively light box from the ground. Then, when the box reached their hip-area, they would need to reposition their hands hands on the box so they could press the box onto the platform. If the soldier was successful (and used correct lifting technique), then we’d ask them to try again with a slightly heavier box. We’d keep increasing the weight of the box until the soldier could no longer safely and effectively lift the box. Impressively, some of the soldiers could lift a box that weighed over 200 pounds!
This begs the question, which exercises correlated to the ability to lift a heavy box? Not surprisingly, two of the exercises that most strongly correlated with the maximal box lift task were the leg press exercise (which somewhat simulates lifting the box from the ground to the hip-area) and the bench press exercise (which somewhat simulates pressing the box from the chest-area onto the platform). So, if soldiers needed to lift heavy boxes during deployment, then their physical training should include lower-body strength exercises (like the leg press) and upper-body strength exercises that involved pushing (like the bench press).
[Side Note #1: There was no significant correlation between the maximal box lifting task and the 2-mile run test. So, being able to quickly run 2-miles didn’t really help soldiers lift heavy boxes. That’s not to say that soldiers should avoid running, because having a high aerobic capacity helped with other tasks, like quickly marching 2-miles while wearing a heavy backpack. But it does emphasize the point that, if you want to be able to perform tasks that require strength, then you need to invest in some strength training. I’ll follow-up on this Side Note more in a moment, so stay tuned.]
Now to the most important part of the story — how do these insights from soldiers help the rest of us to decide which exercises to perform when we go to the gym?
Let me introduce you to a scientific concept called a “Task Analysis”.
Simply stated, a Task Analysis starts with making a list of the tasks that you want to get better at performing (like climbing stairs, lifting luggage into an overhead bin on an airplane, or certain sports movements, like blocking opponents while playing football). Once you have a list of the tasks, then you make a list of the movements that each task requires. For example, if you want to get better at lifting your luggage from the ground and placing it into an overhead bin on an airplane, then you can watch someone doing the task and notice that it requires a lower-body pushing movement (i.e., extending your knees and your hips) to lift the luggage off the ground, an upper-body pulling movement (i.e., horizontally adducting your shoulders and flexing your elbows) to get the luggage to your hip/torso area, and then an upper-body pushing movement (i.e., extending your elbows and flexing your shoulders) to press the luggage into the bin. Ultimately, this means that, in order to get better at lifting your luggage, you should choose lower-body exercises (like leg press, lunges, deadlifts, squats, etc.), upper-body pulling exercises (like bent-over rows, etc.), and upper-body pushing exercises (like bench press, shoulder press, etc.), respectively. For those of you who feel uncomfortable performing a task analysis and deciding which exercises to choose, then you might consider hiring an exercise professional (like a personal trainer), at least for a few sessions or maybe even a couple of months or longer. This will give you the opportunity to not only learn which exercises to perform, but also to learn how to perform the exercises correctly so you don’t injure yourself (and, as we discussed in last week’s article, hiring an exercise professional tends to give you greater strength gains in the long-run).
[Side Note #2: Much like the soldiers, if your daily training includes only endurance exercises like running, then this might not dramatically improve your ability to lift your luggage overhead. That’s not to say that endurance exercise isn’t important for your health and performance (because it definitely is!), but the point is, if you want to get better at lifting luggage, then you need to choose exercises that simulate lifting luggage, like the leg press, bent-over row, and bench press exercises.]
Now, to make selecting appropriate strength exercises even simpler, unless you’re preparing for a very specific sport or activity, leading exercise scientists recommend strengthening all major muscle groups of the body, at least twice per week. So, if performing a task analysis isn’t for you, then simply choose an array of exercises that challenge your lower-body and upper-body, during pushing movements as well as pulling movements (for example, upper-body pushing and pulling exercises include the bench press and pull-ups, respectively). By strengthening all the major muscle groups, you’ll prepare your body for a broad array of tasks (like lifting your children or your luggage, climbing stairs, general preparation for trying new sports, etc.).
So, to boil all this information down to some simple rules:
Choose exercises that simulate the tasks you want to be able to perform. For example, if you want to be able to press your luggage into an overhead bin, then choose exercises like the shoulder press.
If you’re unsure which exercises to perform, then consider hiring a personal trainer to help you decide — and, importantly, to show how to perform those exercises correctly so you don’t get injured. You might need the personal trainer only for a few sessions. Or, if you’re someone who might benefit from the extra accountability and motivation, then you can consider a longer-term relationship with a personal trainer.
When all else fails, perform a simple exercise routine that challenges all major muscle groups (think upper-body and lower-body exercises, as well as pushing and pulling exercises).