As such, we have reached another part of the matrix.

As we grow stronger we also grow a bit in lean muscle mass. This simple reality comes from the fact that hypertrophy and strength are also related.

This has mistakenly led some pro-team coaches to conclude that their players shouldn’t focus on becoming even stronger.

I know some pro coaches that even cap the load their strongest players are allowed to train with out of fear that they will become “too strong”, and that this increase in strength will lead to never-ending hypertrophy gains and slower movement speed.

But that’s the wrong takeaway.

Because strength and muscle mass progression just aren’t identical, and they will not develop uniformly. They correlate, but they are not going to progress in a linear fashion between the two, best of all, you are in control of this due to how you approach strength training.

This is why overly large specimens eventually become limited in explosive speed and movement.

In absolute strength the bigger you are the stronger you will always become. But relatively at some point becoming bigger will not make you more athletic, fast, and explosive.

This comes into play when your total mass is already too big for your relative strength to successfully power even faster, and more explosive movement.

Here is why.

A muscle’s ability to produce force depends on the cross-sectional area of that muscle. Other factors are, how you train, and the muscle fiber type your selective training has created.

Your skill at generating explosive speed and power for the required movement pattern also matters. As do how well your body recruits motor units in your muscle chain.

Variables which all depends on your approach to strength training.

As animals and people increase in size, the mass of their muscles gets bigger faster than their capacity to generate enough force to move the bigger mass they now have developed in an even faster way than it used to move their relatively smaller body once upon a time.

Ergo.

The remedy.

Do it all, and accept the scientific way each training modality pushes your body to adapt and progress and become the healthiest, fittest, and most capable you could ever hope to be.

You do this by training several disciplines.

A: You build explosive strength in the gym at a high intensity, explosive strength, with big loads, explosive reps, and going for 5 to 25 reps per set, closer to failure. Big exercises instead of isolated work.

Longer set rest intervals so you can attack each set with full intensity and explosive power.

Dead stop between each rep so you can grind out more reps despite the load being high.

This is how you build both explosive strength and high-intensity muscular endurance. Isolation work is great, as is lighter loads with a less intense and brutal approach.

But it is mostly for hypertrophy, or to correct imbalances, or to allow you to add a second or third workout day for each muscle group when your price of recovery of doing a second or third day with yet another highly explosive big load session is too much for your recovery capacity.

So build your foundation on explosive high-rep training with big loads, adjust what needs to be adjusted, from volume per session to frequency,

Big exercises, bigger loads, and an explosive high-rep approach are the primary foundation. Reduce volume and frequency as needed.

B.

Also include sprint intervals after your strength training session, 2 to 3 days per week. Cycle between a short but intense 20 to 40-second sprint, and 2 to 3 minutes of walking, jogging, or slow running in between each sprint.

Repeat this cycle for 5 to 10 minutes in total. Depending on your capacity for recovery.

Merge these intense short-on-time intervals with lower effort endurance across longer sessions, such as walking for 40 to 60 minutes 7 days per week, and jogging or running slowly 1 or 2 days per week for 20 to 40 minutes.

Once you become a big enough person, you will become limited by your ability to produce enough muscular force to move your body of mass fast enough, because your body mass is too big. Similarly, people who are too small will also be limited by their muscle chains’ inability to produce large enough forces to propel their body mass explosive enough, because their muscles are too small and too weak to generate enough force.

It is in other words, the same issue, a lack of explosive enough power, but for fundamentally opposing reasons.

Coach Mike, Strength By Fitness.

You do not need to become an actual marathon runner. In fact, for this type of explosive athlete, we do not even want that.

But you need that array of explosive, bigger load strength training. Sprint intervals and longer, but slower, lower-effort cardiovascular training so you can power your body with explosive speed, fast recovery in full, and a good cardiovascular engine for endurance, just not at the capacity of a professional marathon runner.

Do this consistently to build the needed muscular power to move explosively and fast, train with a big enough volume and enough aerobic sprint-interval training too, in order to sustain that higher level of strength and muscle mass operating at a higher intensity and speed for a surprisingly long period of time through the full range of movement patterns that you need.

Is this complete athlete harder to build?

It sure is, it takes more consistency and time. But you can do it. It’s just science and determination and time put together. Fueled by your rocky-like determination to put in the work every week, for all of life.

And I know you can do this because this is how I train.

This article is also available over at our Medium page Strength By Fitness for those of you that are paying Medium members.

Increases in locomotor speed were accompanied by increases in ground reaction forces, decreases in ground contact time, and increases in stride length.
Quote from the study.