I don’t mean that in a new age, self help book kind of way. Chances are you probably have muscular-skeletal strength that you haven’t been able to tap into yet, because of the way you’ve been training.
The biggest factors that affect how strong you are in the gym are your muscular strength and stability (this is what your muscles are capable of) and neural drive (what your brain will let your body do).
If you’ve been at the gym working out with weights, or doing any kind of resistance training, chances are your making solid gains on your muscular strength. This is represented by the actual growth in size, strength or endurance of your muscles, and their ability to stabilize themselves. The capability of a muscle to move will be determined by all of these factors.
Neural drive is concept that encompasses many layers of neural activity centered around moving muscles in a specific motion. Utilizing different movements require muscles firing in a different sequence. Changing the intensity of a particular lift will change the rate at which the brain stimulates motor neurons. The more practice you have at a variety of motions, the greater the synchronicity of the motor neurons needed for an exercise.
Increase the intensity in your workouts for at least one set to get greater neural drive. Intensity is the percentage of your one rep max (1RM) that you are lifting. If my 1RM is 100 lbs, than 90 lbs is 90% intensity. Increase the intensity, and your increase the rate at which your motor neurons are stimulated. You may find that you are able to do more than you thought you could during your workouts if you drop in a very intense set or two.
It is not what weight you are lifting that matters. It is the purpose behind your training.
Form and Function.
