So - should you be trying to get stronger, or should you be trying to put on muscle, or perhaps both ? Most bodybuilders want size whether or not strength comes with it. Most relative strength athletes want more strength and no size. The rest - usually want a mixture of the two. But how do we decide which to do, or more specifically which we should do to get the most benefit from our efforts.

Well, rather than just toss a coin and decide how about a more scientific way to determine your training objective ? this is where knowing your Strength Deficit can be extremely beneficial.

Simply put - are you using all the muscle you currently have - ie you need more muscle, or are you not even applying the muscle you have ie more nervous system low rep work ?

Take the following steps in your next workout -

Select a compound exercise - e.g. squat, bench etc and warm up progressively to your 1RM attempt - note your maximum. It is important to ensure that the attempt is taken at a relatively slow tempo so go with a 4010 for now.

After resting approximately ten minutes add 10% to the bar and perform a 4 second eccentric or negative (hence the slower tempo above). The spotter should lift the bar and assist in racking it with as little effort on your part as possible.

Rest approximately 1-2 minutes and then add the same weight (the original 10%) to the bar. Repeat as above.

Continue with this program until you can no longer perform a controlled four second eccentric.

Now - here's the key - compare the maximum lifts to each other. If the difference between your RM concentric and your RM eccentric is greater than 30% - then you need to concentrate on low rep strength work. Basically your body is not utilising the muscle it has - and needs to learn to recruit as many fibers as possible by doing some more neural type training.

If the difference between the lifts is less than 30% - then basically you are recruiting all the muscle you have - and if you want to get any bigger or stronger - you're going to need to build some new muscle - so get your average rep into the hypertrophy zone.

And there you have it - a very simple method to give your own training a more specific direction. Try it out - it might make a huge difference in your results and in your physique.