5 Super-Fast Ways to Get Stronger Ft. Jeff Cavaliere

If your workout routine solely surrounds cardiovascular exercises, you end up burning muscle weight along with stored fat. This is why strength training should be an irreplaceable part of an effective exercise program. It helps you lose weight by converting excess calories into muscle mass. Knowing this, some people unfortunately obsess over strength exercises as though nothing else matters. In the pursuit of bulking up the body, though, they end up neglecting other important parameters such as speed, stamina, flexibility and mobility. While they do manage to attain a pretty impressive physique, they fail in challenges as simple as running a couple hundred meters or doing a few box jumps. And this is not a sustainable way to get stronger.

Founder of Athlean-X and fitness YouTuber Jeff Cavaliere is known to take an athletic approach to building the body. His workout routine is well-rounded and gives equal emphasis to all the areas of fitness. This, in turn, improves his performance while strength training, makes his workout more productive and generates a better physique. In one of his videos, he also shares ways to speed up strengthening the body. He explores tips that have worked for people in the past and explains exactly why.

Build a strong foundation

A lot of beginners in strength training go overboard with the number of sets and reps in the pursuit of looking built up. While there’s nothing with wanting to improve your physique, the approach you take makes a huge difference in your performance. Jeff Cavaliere recommends focusing on setting a solid foundation for optimum results. Fixing gaps such as bad form and improper technique right at the start can stop them from coming back to bite you. Prioritize perfecting your movements rather than obsessing over the results.

Compound exercises

Another advice Jeff Cavaliere gives to beginners in strength training is to incorporate as many compound movements in their exercise program as possible. Unlike isolation exercises, compound movements work on multiple muscle groups at the same time, thus stimulating them to bulk up faster. They also burn far greater fat in the same amount of time and make your workout routine more productive as a result. They take a holistic approach to health and improve your strength, speed and stamina simultaneously.

Progressive overload

Strength trainers often face the problem of hitting a performance plateau along their fitness journey. This means that despite investing considerable time and energy into working out every day, their efforts don’t yield the desired results. A great way to escape this, according to Jeff Cavaliere, is to add progressive overload to compound exercises. Continually take your workout routine a notch higher in terms of intensity and frequency. Try different and more difficult variations of exercises and lift heavier weights gradually.

Balancing movements

A common mistake that many make while working on their strength is to only focus on one-dimensional movements like bending, squatting and sitting which solely train them in the sagittal plane. Jeff Calaviere, however, recommends a holistic routine that serves all four planes in the human body: horizontal, frontal, sagittal and median. Explore corrective exercises even if they’re not the most fun, as they will fix the imbalances in your body and improve your performance in the process.

Work on well-roundedness

Jeff Cavaliere takes a holistic approach to becoming stronger. A lot of strength trainers, he observes, have a bulked up body but fall short in other parameters of fitness such as speed, stamina, agility, mobility and flexibility. Ask a weightlifter to run a hundred metres distance or do a few box jumps and you’d probably find him panting at the end of it. And that’s not how an athlete would approach fitness. To be truly fit and strong, you need to work on all the parameters that come into play. Neglecting them can create challenges in the form of muscle weaknesses. That’s why you must mix strength exercises with cardio, coordination and balancing movements.

Chart out your workout plan keeping Jeff Cavaliere’s tips handy and watch your strength soar to the sky!

Cover artwork by Dhaval Punatar/AskMen India