Strength is often understood as a catch-all term, what it means can be very different from person to person. In general, though, there are five different types of strength you should know about.
Below, you'll understand more about all the different facets of strength and how they relate to your training program and goals with expert insight from Matt Delaney, Equinox's Director of Programming and Innovation.
What is Strength?
To understand all the different types of strength, consider strength in its most basic terminology. "Strength is the ability of a muscle or group of muscles to generate force under specific conditions," says Delaney. "This specificity leads to the numerous types of strength that can be expressed," he explains.
Strength pays off in and outside the weight room. Case in point: "Strength can improve quality of life in a number of different ways, from moving through activities of daily life with relative ease to the increased caloric expenditure that comes with adding muscle mass.”
Relative Strength
Relative strength is the amount of force you can produce in relation to your weight. It's an important concept to know since it's often used to measure or benchmark your progress when progressing through a strength-training program.
"There are a number of ways you can benchmark against [relative strength]. Like how many times can you squat, deadlift or bench press your body weight (or a percentage/multiple of)?," says Delaney. These are just a few examples of how you can measure relative strength, but for the best results (especially if you are a beginner) work with a personal trainer who can help you keep track of your benchmarks and make a plan for you to progress at whatever level you are at.
Maximal Strength
Maximal strength is likely what you think of when you think of "strength" in simple terms or as the heaviest amount of weight you can lift. To dive even deeper it's "the maximal amount of force which a muscle, or a group of muscles can generate, irrespective of time and body mass," explains Mark Safer, Senior Manager of Personal Training Development Strategy at Equinox.
Maximal strength is not just about lifting heavy weights, but it also translates to real-life functionality (aka moving furniture or lifting heavy objects).
In an Equinox Club, training max strength could look like performing deadlifts or squats with the heaviest load you can handle for 1-3 reps.
Try It: Pure Strength: Full Body
Moves: Heaviest deadlifts, squats
Explosive Strength
Explosive strength is all about producing as much force as you can in the least amount of time. One example is taking a medicine ball and throwing it as fast as you can against a wall. The key concept with explosive strength is you're exclusively focused on how quickly you're able to move something. Outside of the Club, explosive strength has benefits too, like being able to lift your child with ease, and quickly.
Try it: MetCon3: From the Ground Up
Moves: Powerlifts, cleans, snatches, box jumps
Speed Strength
Although commonly thought of as agility or quickness, the ability to quickly execute an unloaded movement, or a movement against a relatively small resistance is known as speed strength. Being able to quickly change directions or make sudden, controlled movements is in fact something you can (and should train for).
Try it: Tabata: Total Body Takeover
Moves: Box jumps, Skaters
Strength Endurance
Whether you realize it or not, strength endurance is the type of strength that most people train for, especially if you favor classes or cardio machines at the Clubs. By definition, strength endurance is the ability to produce and maintain levels of force for moderate to long durations. In real life this translates to being able to carry groceries longer, or tote around your kids with more ease.
While strength endurance has its benefits, you want to be sure you are rounding out your training with other types of strength, especially if you are not seeing the results you want from your current routine. "If you're doing 15 reps of the weight in a Group Fitness class, you're working strength endurance," says Safer. There's nothing wrong with training in this way, but if you're looking to build muscle you'll have to increase the load, making it heavy enough to elicit that adaptation.
Try it: MetCon3: Strong and Steady
Moves: Kettlebell swings, Tabata
The importance of training all types of strength
By now you may have identified which type or types of strength you train the most, and you may also notice some gaps where you could train more. So where do you go from here?
"Life happens in 3D and the type of strength required at any given moment will be dependent on the task at hand," explains Delaney. Take a look at your program to Identify what areas you aren't paying enough attention to and make a plan to incorporate those elements into your training.
"Someone who favors heavy barbell lifts might have to carry something for a distance or sprint to catch a cab, so their training should prepare them for that. "Focusing all of your time on one adaptation might be leaving you vulnerable if life demands something outside of your comfort zone, so spending time incorporating these different elements of strength will help you build a more robust system."