Train in a stable environment to get stronger.

All else being equal, the stronger, faster athlete will always win. This concept holds true for virtually every level of every team sport… and a few singles sports as well. Knowing this, why do coaches and trainers constantly place their athletes in unstable environments and expect them to get stronger?

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1. If the tension is too low during an exercise, even when performed at a high volume, it  will not lead to much in the way of size or strength gains. 2. If the volume is too low, even if the tension is very high, it will not give you much size  or strength gains. 3. Ideally you want to maximize tension by using either a heavy weight, or lifting the  load as fast as possible while lowering it slowly. 4. If you select a load that you can do for 1-5 reps, you must do more sets to get a strong  growth stimulus. Oftentimes the nervous system, not the muscular apparatus is the limiting factor in force  production. Tsatsouline stated that “Your muscles already have the strength to lift a car,  they just don’t know it yet” (Tsatsouline, 2000). This statement is true and it’s a good image to help understand the potential improvement in force production by  developing the nervous system. Let us use Tsatsouline’s example.

Feats of strength by apparent weaklings are common.  Just think of the frail middle-aged women who suddenly possess superhuman strength  when her child gets trapped under an automobile or another heavy apparatus. There are  many documented cases in which the woman was actually able to lift the car off the  ground to free her child. A feat that she could not repeat in a million years under normal  circumstances.

Sure her strength was potentiated by adrenaline and other hormones, but  the muscles that lifted the car were the same she already had, new muscles didn’t  blossom out of nowhere to help her lift the car! The stress and extreme stimulation from  the situation simply improved her capacity to produce force with the muscles she already  had! Neurotransmission was improved, protective mechanisms were shutdown, sensory  feedback was ignored  All of this made her able to work to her full potential,  something that we don’t come remotely close to doing under regular circumstances.