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Resting Heart Rate: What is “Normal”? Resting heart rate is an easily measurable clinical parameter that indicates the activity of the heart pumping blood when we are not exercising or moving, that is, when we are relaxed. It usually ranges between 60 and 90 – 100 beats per minute, and can vary throughout the day, …

Relationship Between Session Intensity and Training Days per Week in Powerlifting Powerlifting is a sport of both relative and absolute maximum strength, comprising three movements: squat, bench press, and deadlift (Ferland & Comtois, 2019). This athletic discipline has existed as a strength sport for several decades but has gained increased attention in the last 10 …

The squat is one of the most important exercises for strengthening the muscles of the lower extremities. To achieve optimal performance with this fundamental exercise, it’s crucial to consider the speed and type of muscle contraction, as they impact muscle activation, strength, and power (Lee & Lee, 2018). In this article, we’ll delve into squat …

Mobile applications flood our phones, with some being more useful than others. Someone looking to get in shape can download different apps based on their goal: improving strength, running more, practicing yoga or Pilates, training the pelvic floor, or any other objective. Everything is available in the Android and iOS stores. A strength and conditioning …

Rest-Pause Training: The Art of Resting Within the Set In strength training program design, numerous variables are manipulated to achieve goals such as intensity, volume, and frequency. One of these variables is the rest time between sets, which can significantly impact how well we approach the next set. Traditional strength training prescription has focused on …

What Does Undulating Load Involve for Gaining Strength? The systematic variation of training stimuli, known as periodization, is effective in optimizing responses to power training (“American College of Sports Medicine Position Stand,” 2009). For this reason, there has been considerable interest in comparing different periodization strategies to assess their relative effectiveness. For example, in a …

What’s Range Of Movement? The range of motion can be technically defined as the degree of movement that occurs in a joint during the execution of an exercise (Haff, 2016). Range of motion plays a vital role in the muscular adaptations that occur in response to training: muscular strength, sports performance, and muscle hypertrophy (Kassiano …

Two Kinds of Muscle Action: Static & Dynamic The point of this article isn’t to go into detail about muscle actions, but it’s crucial to know the difference to grasp how they affect muscle development. There are two types of muscle action that distinguish themselves by whether there’s movement in the muscles and joints or …

Squats and deadlifts are two of the three exercises used to measure total strength in powerlifting championships, indicating their importance in the world of strength. Just as we often do with the two top athletes in a sport, many coaches compare squat vs. deadlift to choose which one is better for developing strength and power. …

What’s RIR in Weightlifting? Repetitions in Reserve (RIR) is a reliable tool for prescribing strength training load (Lovegrove et al., 2022). As the name suggests, RIR refers to the number of repetitions you leave undone before reaching muscle failure. This tool was originally created in “The Reactive Training Manual” in 2008 for use in prescribing …

Flexibility: The Context And Types Of Tests That Can Be Used To Measure This Attribute Flexibility, as a component of fitness, gained importance for the first time in the early 20th century with the emergence of the field of physiotherapy (Adler, 2014). Flexibility has been defined as the range of motion of muscles and connective …

1RM & PR – Definition In the world of training, there are two terms that often get mixed up due to their similarity, and they can even overlap in some aspects. The concepts that cause confusion are 1RM (one-repetition maximum) and PR (personal record). At first glance, we might think they’re the same because lifting …