How to Get Stronger in 2024: Proven Tips and Techniques

For the entirety of your life you believed that muscle size and the ability to lift heavy weights was perfectly correlated. That was until you spent your afternoon on YouTube watching a 170-pound powerlifter with zero body fat effortlessly bench press, squat, and deadlift far more weight than muscular men who outweighed him by at least 50 pounds.

Certainly, some of that ability comes from being a dedicated strength athlete with superior form and technique but the bottom line is that the powerlifter has clearly perfected strength training in a way that has made him undeniably stronger than people much larger than he is.

So the question is, how can you train to get stronger in 2024? Also, is it all about technique and skill, or are there some tips you can borrow from strength athletes that you can use to learn how to get stronger despite your starting point?

Key Principles of Strength Training

The process of developing strength can be a tricky concept to explore, because there is a lot of precision required to explore strength training techniques effectively. 

Depending on your starting point, there are many types of resistance training you can use to gain strength. It is important to understand the differences between training for strength, training to build muscle mass, and training to develop athletic qualities. 

There is a lot of overlap between these different styles of training, all of which can help you gain strength. However, if your primary goal is to increase strength over and above all other outcomes, some methods will get you there faster than others. And in call cases, the operative word is “patience.”

Progressive Overload

The concept of progressive overload involves gradually increasing some element of the challenge associated with your strength training as you make progress.

For example, even if your goal is to increase the one rep max of your bench press — or to increase the maximum amount of weight you can lift in a single repetition — the best way to accomplish this is to consistently elevate the difficulty of your workouts as your strength level improves.

This can be accomplished by adding more weight, adding more reps, or adding more sets to increase your overall training volume. Regardless, your strength training sessions should always strive to push your muscles to the brink of their ability to lift more weight.

Frequency and Consistency

Even if you just completed the most exhausting strength training session of your life, it may all be for naught if you don’t follow it up with subsequent training sessions that allow you to make consistent, measurable progress.

Whether the foremost goal is building strength or building muscle, most strength training programs will advise you to train your entire body a minimum of one time on a weekly basis in order to keep yourself trending toward consistent gains in strength and muscle mass.

Some of the most popular workout programs that specifically prioritize increasing strength will advise you to do strength training for your largest muscle groups at a rate of three times per week.

Rest and Recovery

One of the most frequently underrated aspects to effectively capitalizing on resistance training is what you choose to do in the aftermath of your strength training sessions. 

Following physical activity, you must give your muscles time to rest and recover if you want to achieve the health benefits of your training, including maximally increased strength.

According to studies, the optimal rest interval between strength training sessions of the same muscle groups is between 48 and 72 hours. (1) Stated simply, these results indicate that it is advisable to insert a full day of rest between training sessions that will overlap in their use of muscle groups.

Best Exercises for Strength Training

Again, depending on when you begin to engage in physical training, you can do many different exercises to get stronger. However, most structured exercise routines that are designed to build strength will include exercises that fall into at least one of three different categories. 

Research shows that operating exclusively within each exercise category can be an effective method of strength training in and of itself. However, for the sake of balance, it is advised that you incorporate all three types of exercises in your workout routine.

Compound Movements

Research shows that compound movements like the squat, bench press and deadlift are among the most effective exercises for rapidly building strength and muscle mass. 

These exercises are called compound exercises because they are multi-joint exercises that incorporate the largest muscle groups in your body.

In other words, it is impossible to execute a squat to train your leg muscles without bending at both your waist and knees. 

Likewise, it is similarly impossible to do the bench press without using several muscles in your upper body, like your chest, shoulders and triceps, due to the fact that your elbow and shoulder joints are both included in the exercise.

Isolation Exercises

As opposed to compound movements that work multiple muscle groups, and therefore engage a high percentage of overall muscle tissue, isolation movements work smaller groups of muscles.

While there are some schools of thought that suggest isolation movements are not an efficient way to strength train, an isolation exercise can be used to train muscles that can’t receive the full benefit of a compound movement because other muscles are a limiting factor.

For example, while your triceps may be engaged when you bench press, your chest may give out before your triceps have been fully fatigued. Therefore, adding an isolation exercise for your tricep muscles may help you fully exhaust your focus areas in ways that compound movements can’t.

Bodyweight Exercises

A bodyweight exercise relies upon your literal body weight to supply the resistance during the movement. This feature makes bodyweight exercises very convenient, since a movement like a push-up, which is also technically a compound movement, can be performed on any surface upon which you can lie flat.

Some bodyweight movements are so frequently performed with free weights that it is often forgotten that they are fundamentally exercises that use your body weight as resistance. 

For example, the squat is essentially a bodyweight exercise that people often add weight to in order to build stronger legs. However, it is perfectly possible to include squats in a strength training program without requiring that the movement be done with additional weight.

Some people will say an exercise like push-ups has no place in a strength training program specifically because they are too easy to perform. However, in the early stages of training, push-ups can be a valuable strength developing tool that can be used to develop sufficient strength to progress toward more challenging exercises that involve free weights.

Also, not everyone engaging in strength training is an elite athlete; a bodyweight exercise like push-ups can be a beneficial way for older adults to strength train without placing themselves at serious risk of acquiring an injury.

In addition, even if you never advance to a more challenging pushing exercise like bodyweight dips, push-ups can be modified in ways that make it more challenging. This includes narrowing the positioning of your hands, elevating your feet, or wearing a weight vest. 

How to Structure a Strength Training Program

Now that you know all the tools for how to get stronger, the question is how to best arrange them. When you assemble a strength training regimen, there are actually several different approaches you can take that are technically correct. Here are a few of the common approaches to strength training you can adopt when you hit the gym.

American College of Sports Medicine

According to the American College of Sports Medicine, an ideal strength training plan included two to three training sessions per week, consisting of eight to 10 multi-joint exercises that train the major muscle groups. 

In addition, the guidelines of the ACSM also stress the classic bodybuilding protocol of performing each exercise for two to three sets, with the final rep of the last set being very difficult to perform.

A weeklong breakdown of this sort of resistance training session might follow this pattern, with days of rest or cardio in between:

Monday: Bench press, Incline bench press, Bodyweight dips, Overhead press, Tricep extensions

Wednesday: Pull ups, Lat pulldown, Standing barbell row, Dumbbell curl

Friday: Squat, Deadlift, Leg press, Leg extension, Leg curl

5x5 Strength Training

If you talk to a strength athlete, there is a chance that they engage in some variation of the 5x5 strength training regimen pioneered by Bill Starr. 

This protocol usually requires the use of a gym, and along the way you will be expected to achieve a certain level of weightlifting skill in order to perform each exercise and keep your body free of any sort of injury.

This method of training also qualifies exercises using fewer muscles or smaller muscle groups as accessory exercises. So, while the core movements tend to repeat each day, there is usually at least one accessory exercise included on each for the sake of balancing out the body.

A weeklong breakdown of the 5x5 training protocol might look like this:

Monday: Power clean, Bench press, Squat, Pull up

Wednesday: Power clean, Bench press, Squat, Bodyweight dip

Friday: Power clean, Bench press, Squat, Barbell row

Nutrition of Strength Training

All of the physical activity you’re engaging in at home or at the gym in order to get stronger will all be for naught if you don’t support it with a nutrition plan that has foundation rooted in health.

Protein Intake

One of the reasons so many athletes insist on eating protein from both natural and supplemental sources is because of the necessity of protein for muscle recovery and growth. When an athlete endures a grueling training session, the amino acids contained within protein rush to the fatigued area and begin to reconstruct the damaged muscle fibers in a stronger configuration.

This is a process that readies the athlete to endure subsequent workouts, and also prepares them to perform at their best during organized competitions. Simply stated, it very difficult for a serious athlete to maintain a state of optimal health if they are not consuming substantial portions of protein.

Not only is protein at the root of muscle recovery, growth, and regeneration, but it also contributes toward bone density and volume in a major way. 

Since your bones are the support system beneath your muscles, they are not only essential to sustaining your health in a general sense, but building their strength is also reflected in the amount of weight you can hoist.

In this way, protein provides your body with the means to restore all of the structures and systems that support the development of greater strength.

Carbohydrates and Fats

While a high protein diet is essentially a requirement for an athlete who wants to achieve peak athletic performance, and to reap the greatest rewards from their hard work in the weight room, failing to consume adequate amounts of the other macronutrients — carbohydrates and fats — will ultimately place that athlete in a compromised state of health.

Your body uses carbohydrates as its primary energy source; the immediate source of fuel for your muscles — muscle glycogen — is replenished most readily through carbohydrate sources. Failing to consume carbs in between workouts ultimately places your body in a suboptimal state of preparedness prior to its next round in the gym.

With respect to dietary fat, it plays several important roles with respect to regulating hormones, including hormones that factor into muscle growth. In addition, many key nutrients for physical performance and muscle growth — like vitamins A, E, D, and K — can only be absorbed into your body through the intake of dietary fat. 

Therefore, excluding carbohydrates and fats from your diet will impose an unnecessary limit on your physical potential.

Supplements

Obviously, protein has been proven through science to be essential to muscle recovery and growth. In line with that, whey protein and other protein supplements are ideal for ensuring the sustained growth of muscle and other tissues important for developing strength.

In addition, creatine monohydrate has been the subject of more experimentation than just about any other nutritional supplement, and the science behind it indicates that creatine supplementation can dramatically accelerate muscle growth and strength increases.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

In a perfect world, it would be impossible to make mistakes during strength training. The reality is that you can compromise your health by making a few crucial errors during your training processes. Fortunately, these mistakes are easily avoided if you closely adhere to the script and take care not to deviate.

Overtraining

One of the most frequent and tempting mistakes to make during strength training occurs when people train entirely too much. This usually takes the form of either attempting to test their one rep max too frequently — which invites injuries — or lifting heavy weight for the same muscle groups day after day, which does not permit their muscles to recover, and can also cause an injury to occur.  

In order to avoid overtraining, you don’t necessarily need to avoid physical activity, or even to give yourself a break from the weight room. However, you should at least give trained muscles and body parts adequate rest so that you can focus on other muscle groups.

Not only does this prevent each body part from being overtrained, but it also encourages balanced development of strength and muscle. 

Undertraining

While getting adequate recovery is very important when you’re engaged in resistance training, it is also necessary to achieve an appropriate level of training volume if you want your strength level to increase steadily.

Many strength training protocols are carefully structured based on your perceived effort level, and require you to perform compound exercises at least three days per week as you make progress toward one low-rep set of each exercise during which you lift with maximum force.

In order to properly follow through with this prescribed exercise routine, you will need to commit to engaging in strength training at least two times each week, and ideally three times each week. In addition, you should expect to lift heavy weights in order to achieve the full benefits of the training program.

Selective Training

One of the common strength training miscues is to prioritize developing muscle size in some body parts of others. This usually takes the form of prioritizing training visible muscles like the chest and arms over less visible muscles like the back and legs.

In order to achieve physical balance, you are advised to exercise and lift weights in a way that helps you develop and distribute strength throughout all of the muscles in your body. Doing so will also help you to avoid muscle imbalances, and reduce your likelihood of accumulating injuries.

FAQs About Strength Training

If you’re new to strength training, you’re bound to have questions. Here are a few answers to some of the most common questions related to strength training to help you get started.

How long does it take to get stronger?

When you first begin to strength train, you may see noticeable results in as little as two weeks, as you force your muscles to make rapid adaptations to training against resistance. 

On the other hand, if you are an athlete who already has a long history of engaging in resistance training, it can take considerably longer to see significant strength increases from ongoing strength training.

Should I lift heavier weights or do more reps?

More often than not, it is more productive to lift more weight than it is to increase your rep count if your goal is to get stronger. Lifting more weight will force your body to make rapid adjustments to make lifting that weight easier, whereas doing more reps will increase your muscular endurance, thereby helping you lift a lighter weight a greater number of times.

A meta analysis of strength training studies proved that a single set of heavy weights performed a minimum of one time per week was sufficient to increase the one-rep max of study participants. (2) So strength studies support the concept of prioritizing lifting heavy over lifting long on a set-by-set basis.

Can I get stronger without weights?

While it is possible to get stronger without the benefit of weights, they certainly help. This is because using weights enables you to train your muscles in angles and movement patterns that are often difficult or impossible to replicate exclusively with bodyweight exercises.

Moreover, adding weight to a bodyweight exercise can make it even more challenging, thereby enabling you to continue to use that training technique even after the point where your strength had progressed to the point where that exercise had become an endurance movement.

With that being stated, studies convincingly show that individuals training with bodyweight exercises were able to produce muscle growth similar to that of a comparative group that used free weight exercises. In addition, the group that trained with bodyweight exercises experienced a greater reduction in intracellular muscle fat. (3)

No Secrets to Strength

If you’re trying to get stronger in 2024, there are plenty of tried and true tactics you can employ to do it. As long as you’re willing to put forth the effort, there’s a roadmap of training, recovery, and nutrition that you can follow to achieve a stronger and healthier physique.

References:

1. Monteiro ER, Vingren JL, Corrêa Neto VG, Neves EB, Steele J, Novaes JS. Effects of Different Between Test Rest Intervals in Reproducibility of the 10-Repetition Maximum Load Test: A Pilot Study with Recreationally Resistance Trained Men. Int J Exerc Sci. 2019 Aug 1;12(4):932-940. PMID: 31523350; PMCID: PMC6719818.

2. Androulakis-Korakakis P, Fisher JP, Steele J. The Minimum Effective Training Dose Required to Increase 1RM Strength in Resistance-Trained Men: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Sports Med. 2020 Apr;50(4):751-765. doi: 10.1007/s40279-019-01236-0. PMID: 31797219.

3. Ogawa M, Hashimoto Y, Mochizuki Y, Inoguchi T, Kouzuma A, Deguchi M, Saito M, Homma H, Kikuchi N, Okamoto T. Effects of free weight and body mass-based resistance training on thigh muscle size, strength and intramuscular fat in healthy young and middle-aged individuals. Exp Physiol. 2023 Jul;108(7):975-985. doi: 10.1113/EP090655. Epub 2023 May 3. PMID: 37133323; PMCID: PMC10988481.