SESSION NOTES: Relative Strength (320)

Although barbell work is often trained with a strength focus, upper body bodyweight movements are often only trained for high reps with stamina. However, the high percentage of fast twitch muscle fibres in the upper body make it perfect for adding load.

This session contains both a press (dip) element and a pull (strict chest to bar pull-up) element.

The pull-up is chest to bar to maximise strength at the end of range, and ensure strength is achieved through depression of the scapula (shoulder blade). This makes it an excellent strengthening exercise for the torso as well as the arms.

The exercises alternate to allow you to rest as much as possible between each set of the same type of exercise, while still being mindful of time efficiency. The final set for max reps gives you an indication if you’ve gone too light, and if so, allows you to salvage some benefit from extra reps in the final set.

Resistance training, in this case using your own body (and maybe added weight) as the load, makes you stronger. Strength is one of the greatest predictors of both your lifespan (how long you live) and your healthspan (how long you live in a healthy state).

Resistance training like this will also improve your flexibility (by going through a full range of motion), posture and coordination. It will also build stability around your joints and spine to give you a healthy musculo-skeletal system and reduce joint and back pain.

Because you’re using your own body as the form of resistance, this session will improve your strength to weight ratio – making you better able to move your body around.

As a result of this style of session, you will experience changes in blood chemistry, including favourable effects on cholesterol, blood glucose, triglyceride and lipid levels.

This session increases your lean muscle mass. Muscle is a metabolically active tissue, so increasing it will maximise how much energy your body burns at rest. This makes it an effective session to reach healthy levels of body fat, both visceral fat (around the organs) and subcutaneous fat (under your skin). After this session, your body will go through a prolonged state of ‘EPOC’ (excess post- exercise oxygen consumption), meaning you’ll continue burning energy long after you finish training – further aiding healthy body composition.

The heavy levels of resistance in this session are designed to increase your upper body relative strength – increasing both your one rep max, and your ability to perform high reps of bodyweight movement. By being stronger relative to your weight, you can lift more, and you will be able to move your body faster and for higher reps because you’ll be lifting a lower percentage of your max.

As strength is an element of power, getting stronger will also improve your ability to move faster – beneficial for more power-based, explosive gymnastics movements.

This session will also improve the efficiency of your fast-twitch muscle fibres (those responsible for lifting heavy and fast), and will improve your neuromuscular efficiency (your ability to turn on a very high percentage of your muscle fibres).

The rep scheme in this session reduces from the previous time you completed this movement in an absolute strength session by one rep, meaning you should increase weight from the last time you did each movement.

Warm up to all your working weights, and go very heavy.

This should feel very heavy, and you should only just make the final rep of each set.

For the bar dips, if you’re not adding weight, use the smallest band possible (and stand in the band). For the chest to bar pull-ups, use the horizontal band (attached to two pins) to ensure you’re getting even assistance through the entire range.

Looping the band around the pull-up bar, rather than using the horizontal band. This will give you a different level of assistance at different parts of the rep, and will minimise the benefits.

Scapulae (shoulder blades) shrugging is a common fault in both movements – keep them down throughout.

Lack of depth is common in the dip, the shoulder should be clearly below the elbow. Also in the dip there’s a tendency to arch the back. Keep feet forward and body in a hollow position.

The pull-up should be strict through the entire range, including the top. No ‘tuck’ of the knees at the top of the rep to get the chest to the bar.

Another common fault is going too light. In the final set, you ideally want to not be able to do any extra reps. If you can, it’s a sign you haven’t used enough weight (or too big a band). Always increase weight from the previous time you did these movements in a Relative Strength session.