Lifting and strength is in my bones and every drop of blood coursing through my veins, that's why I have STRENGTH tattooed down one calf and POWER down the other.  That's is way I get so upset with all the stupid stuff I see people doing and how many misconceptions there are out there about strength.  I was very fortunate when I started serious powerlifting to hook up with Dave Tate of EliteFTS.  He got me started on the right path to proper technique and training.  There was also a lot of other top lifters and some of the strongest guys in the world that I met along the way that gave me good advice.  I feel like all these people took the time to help me out and it's now my place to pass it on sort of speak.  Plus it just pisses me off to see some of the stupid things people do when they could be making such better bigger gains.  Granted, I have done plenty of that stupid stuff myself!!!  I guess that lets me have a better understanding of what really works.
 
     The main thing that gets me going is that fact that everyone seems to make strength training this huge complicated thing.  They come up with these complicated workouts of waves, cycles, and percentages.  There are all these little smart guys getting degrees in strength training that quote all these complex Eastern block principles.  They talk with big words and make it seem like they know so much about training.  Of course my first thought to that is, "if you know so much then how come you are weak and little?"  These guys give there lives to the study of strength but don't want to be big and strong?  That's not the guy I want to learn from.  I want to learn from a guy like Louie Simmons of Westside Barbell that has lived the live and even in his 60s is still way stronger than most 20 years olds.  Louie is a very intelligent man and has come up with principles that almost all the top lifters use in some form.  He can give you some long intelligent reason to his theories, but they really are all very simple (genius in there own simplicity).  I guess I am just an average Joe.  Although I can talk with a lot of the big words and about the principles of different methods, I am a regular guy and I don't really care to talk like that.  I don't care if people think I am intelligent or not.  I think my knowledge of strength training is shown in the numbers I have put up.  I am the first to give credit to guys like Dave Tate, Jim Wendler, Louie Simmons, and others for getting me started on the right track, but I have always trained by myself or with my team.  That is were most of my own principle and ideas on strength training have come from.  From the real world where me and my partners have put in the time and put up the numbers.  It wasn't through some college funded studies with a lot useless information, it was though trial and error of regular guys putting there heads together like me and my team members.    
 
     STRENGTH TRAINING IS NOT THIS COMPLICATED COMPLEX THING, IT IS ACTUALLY VERY SIMPLE!  The whole thing is very simple; you break muscle down in the gym which actually makes you weaker.  You get stronger when you are outside the gym and your body is recovering!  This is a very simple but true statement that most people tend to forget.  Your next workout is only as good as your recover after your last workout!  Everyone likes to talk about training and exercises, but when is the last time you heard someone talk about recovery?  Yes training and exercises are very important, but recovery is even more important.  You can go to the gym with the best program in the world, but if your recovery isn't right then you will never get anywhere.  Ever heard anyone say they wanted to get their bench press up so they start benching more often and always going heavy?  A couple months into it they are getting all pissed off because there bench has actually went down.  They didn't pay any attention to recovery!  

     There are a lot of other factors to consider when talking about recovery too.  I figure most of the people reading this blog are regular people like myself.  You have rent or house payments, car payments, full time jobs, medical bills and family responsibilities.  These are all things to consider when thinking about recovery.  Your not a professional athlete or bodybuilder that makes a living (a good living) at your sport.  You don't get to eat good meals every couple hours or sleep 12 hours a day.  You may have to work a lot of overtime or your kid may be sick and you stayed up with him most of the night.  You might be a carpenter that has to work all day in 100+ degree heat and humidity.  There is always the stress of finances and keeping the bills paid.  These are all factors that can limit your recovery, which in turn means you need to modify your training.  

     Your recovery is directly linked to overtraining.  If you continue to not get enough recovery time you will push yourself into overtraining.  Get too far into this state and your progress will stop all together.  Now, the real hard part to this is knowing when you are overtraining or if you're just having an off day.  Of course if it's just an off day you need to nut up and push through it.  If you are starting to overtrain then you need more recovery time added into your program or just take a few days off.  This is all about learning to listen to your body.  Your own body is very smart and will let you know how it's feeling if you are just willing to listen to it.  I have always tried to compare all the top strength athletes to see what they have in common; training programs, exercises, or stuff like that.  There are top athletes that do all kinds of different programs or exercises, but the one thing I have found that they all have in common is that they all have learned to listen to there bodies and adjust there programs accordingly.  They know when to go crazy and push their bodies.  They know when there body has had to too much and needs more time to recover.  

     Learning to listen to and trust your body can be a very hard thing.  It can take years to get really good at it; I still struggle with it myself.  I have a very strong drive and lots of intensity.  It is very hard for me to back off even though I know it is best for me and that it will make me get stronger faster.  I guess I am still caught up in the more is better mode, when most of the time LESS IS MORE!  Know this doesn't mean that everybody should start backing off of what they are doing.  I still workout with very very high intensity and I bust my ass, but I listen to my body.  I want to work as much as I can in the gym, but I have to listen to my body and take the recovery time that I need.  So basically what I am saying is for people to start being away of the recovery and how important it is.  Pay attention to how you feel and keep track of your gains.  You should always be looking to make continual gains in your strength.  If things start to drop off or you feel as though your not getting any stronger, then take a closer look at how you have been feeling and your recovery.

     There are definitely some signs you can look for in your body when it comes to overtraining.  The ones that affect me the most are these:

Loss of appetite- You may get to were you just don't have the desire to eat and it becomes like work

Sleep issues- Overtraining can lead to lots of sleep problems.  Usually it will become hard to fall asleep, and once you do it is hard to stay asleep

Flexibility-  Most people don't stretch enough, but if you do and you start overtraining you may notice that you seem to get tighter or it will take longer to stretch out

Joints and aches-  You will notice a lot more aches and joint pain as you start overtraining.  Even any injuries you have will take much longer to heal

Feel of weights-  Weights that you normally handle easily will start to just feel heavy

Speed work-  I do a lot of speed work with lighter weight and accommodating resistance.  I feel my speed really drop off when I am overtraining

     These are just some of the things to pay attention and look out for throughout your training.  Some of these are things you may normally feel, so you just want to look out if they get worse.  For example if you lift the kinds of weights I do you will always have some soreness and aches, you just want to look out for when they get worse.  Also don't freak out and immediately stop working out if you get one or two of these symptoms.  One bad night of sleep doesn't necessarily mean overtraining.  Analyze everything that's going on and see if there is another reason.  Wait a bit to see if it turns into two or three nights.

       When it comes to strength training there are many factors to consider.  There's: technique, training, knowing and fixing weak points, nutrition, genetics, and recovery.  All of these things are very important.  For me though, it all really boils down to three things.  These three things are the main reason I got to the level I have in powerlifting.  They are HEART, WILL, AND PLAIN OUT 'STUBBURNESS'!  I got here because I gave it all my heart, I wasn't going to stop, and I wasn't willing to let it not happen.  Strength it all about heart!

     What I hope people take away from my little article here is that you have to listen to your own body; it will let you know what it needs!  Everyone is different.  We have different amounts of fast twitch or slow twitch fiber, we have different recovery rates, we have different lives with different amounts of stress, we have different genetics, we have different builds, and we all have different issues to deal with.  There is no one great program that works for everyone.  You have to learn to listen to your body and adapt a program to meet your personal needs.  I follow a modified Westside template in my training.  I do this because I see that program as an outline with some very basic but true principles.  It is very easy to adapt it to meet an individuals needs.  I train with my small group of guys and we are all able to do small modifications to meet all our individual needs.  Like I said, listening to your body can be a hard thing to do, so just start small and work your way into it.  It may take years to master, but your gains will grow by leaps and bounds as you're learning.

     I would like to take this chance to thank Dave, Jim, and all the staff of Elite Fitness Systems (elitefts.com), MonsterMilk and MuscleMilk (Cytosport.com), Metal Gear and wear (Gometal.com), Fatheadz (Fatheadz.com), SportKilt (Sportkilt.com), and BodytechUSA (BodytechUSA.com).

Chad Aichs
www.chadaichs.com