This is our second part of many in our series on foundational strength. Last time we discussed the concept of building a strength base or improve GPP and some of the key metrics to examine when doing that. With that in mind and understanding we can now talk about setting a strength goal to work toward. In order to structure training correctly we need to understand what our strength goal may be. For many of us we want a goal that will facilitate our lifestyle or occupation where strength may be the difference between success and failure. Here are a few tips for strength goals.
1. Set goals relating to your needs. For example if you’re an infantryman you may not need to be as concerned about having a bicep curl PR but you probably should be concerned about having a heavy deadlift and squat to facilitate moving under load. This is one of many examples but make your goal specific in the gym so it will carry over.
2. Set short term and long term/ life time goals. As we have mentioned before strength achievement should not be built around an eight week plan or an arbitrary amount of time. The endeavor to get stronger, faster, more resilient should be constant. Have an objective to reach for say the next 3 months and then set a goal to reach in the next 2 years or longer.
3. Consider a bodyweight based standard you hold yourself to. When setting strength goals instead of getting wrapped up in what some shitfluencer is lifting consider setting goals around your bodyweight and where you want to be strength wise. An example of this was for a platoon I was in had internal platoon strength goals that everyone would be able to squat 2x bodyweight, deadlift 2.5x bodyweight, bench 1.5x bodyweight, and overhead press 1x bodyweight while maintaining rucking and running standards. These were measurable goals we could strive for and not everyone reached them but it provided a good framework of what we wanted to work toward. In the next few posts we are going to dive into different progressions and how do we increase our strength effectively.