If you want to get fit, you likely know the importance of building strength. But, did you know there are actually four different types of strength?
Fitness expert Ilija Jahura understands that knowing about the different types of strength is important if you want to improve your overall fitness. Here’s an explanation on each, and how you can improve each one.
1. Relative Strength
Relative strength is a measurement of how much weight someone can move when compared to their bodyweight. So, instead of comparing how much one individual can lift, for example compared to another person, you would see how much they can lift relative to their own bodyweight.
This comes into play in competitions that are separated into weight classes, such as wrestling, MMA and boxing. But, building relative strength is also useful for anyone who wants to keep their weight at a certain level while also building strength.
A great way to do this is to perform brief voluntary contractions of your muscles at maximum effort. This involves exercises in a range of three to five reps at top effort.
2. Absolute Strength
Absolute strength, sometimes referred to as maximal strength, is a measurement of the total force your muscles can exert for any particular action. It’s the simplest form of strength measurement, since it involves just charting how much total weight you can lift.
Power lifters are often focused on absolute strength, since this is how they are measured in competitions. In everyday life, absolute strength comes into play when you need to lift or move a heavy object, such as a couch or a big rock.
To build absolute strength, powerlifters focus on doing what’s known as 1RM, or one rep max in three different types of lifts. These are the bench press, the deadlift and the squat.
3. Strength Endurance
Strength Endurance measures your ability to exert force repeatedly over time. In most cases, it will involve exercises that you will perform at a relatively low- to mid-strength level over and over again, rather than a heavy amount of weight in a few short reps.
To build your strength endurance, you can perform exercises such as hill sprints, sled pushes and weightlifting at a high volume. These exercises will have your muscles feel like they’re burning as you’re pushing yourself. You’ll be resting as little as you can to fight through the lactic acid levels in your muscles.
4. Explosive Strength
Explosive Strength, sometimes also referred to as power strength, measures the speed at which you can use the strength you have. As Ilija Jahura explains, if it takes you longer to lift a weight than someone else, it may indicate that you have less explosive strength, or power.
An easy way to think of this is if you punch a target. If you do it too slow, you will lack power behind the punch.
To build your explosive strength, you’ll do heavy lifting at high speed for a short period of time. You’ll do this over a few different rep sets, with long periods of rest in between.
About Ilija Jahura
Ilija Jahura is a fitness and health expert based out of Kelowna, British Columbia. His main focuses include diet planning, cardiovascular development, as well as hypertrophy training and muscle-building. But at the end of the day, Ilija is committed to helping his clients become the best possible version of themselves — not only in the gym but also in life — by helping them achieve their dreams and goals.
