How to Determine Your Strength Training Status
What and Why Strength Training Status is Important:
Strength training status or lifting level is used to classify a lifters training abilities and proficiencies, generally into beginner, intermediate, advanced, and very advanced training status. It is important to accurately classify your training status because training status helps determine multiple aspects of training: 1) training intensity (percentage of 1RM), 2) training volume (sets and repetitions), 3) training frequency, 4) and rate of adaptation to training (variation needed). Where more advanced lifters need higher training intensity, volume, and frequency and have a slower rate of adaptation (higher need for variation).
The purpose of this article is to:
Share the findings of E.R Santos et al 2021.
Set more objective parameters to determine an individual’s training status.
Set clear objectives for when an individual changes their training status.
Uninterrupted Training Time and Previous Training Experience:
Time of training experience, in months and years, is the most used variable to classify individual training status. Often is it the only consideration when evaluating an individual’s training status (1). Although these two factors are the most important, they do not take into consideration other factors. This simple classification does not accurately factor these examples: a) the former college athlete that has taken 1 year off and they have been training for the last 2 week, or b) someone that has been takes your average group exercise classes for 3 years and wants to start a strength routine, or c) a powerlifter that is transitioning to weightlifting.
Although training experience is a primary factor in determining training status, only use the time of training experience might be insufficient and generate inaccurate classifications of training status. Only using training experience is insufficient because the quality of training may differ from individual to individual.
Time of Detraining:
We all take time off from training, sometimes it is a planned deload or a vacation; other times it can be the result from injury, illness, or mental fatigue. Your time off from training can have seriously affected your appropriate training volume, training intensity, and recovery. But it is important to incorporate detraining into training status rather than have separate classifications for “inactive” vs “untrained” individuals (1).
Taking 1-4 weeks off of training has shown very little impact in regards to training status. In fact, taking 1-3 weeks off from training can actually be very beneficial and allow for the complete realization of training adaptations. 1-3 weeks of detraining can allow type 2A muscle fibers to become more like type 2X; this is the main idea behind strength training. You might see decreases in metabolic abilities but muscle mass and max strength are unaffected by short periods of detraining.
You will begin to notice the effects of detraining at round the 1-4 month mark. As detraining continues you will see a reduction in training adaptations primarily a decrease in strength not muscle size. Detraining periods, 4 to 8 months, seem to promote regression in muscle adaptations; although strength has decreased to a greater extent, strength remains higher than pre-training levels (2.3). In both of these detraining durations, strength remains higher than pre-training levels and returning to training results in a rapid increase in strength to post-training levels around 6 weeks (2,3).
Longer detraining periods, such as 1 year, tend to cause complete loss of muscle adaptations and functional performance to pre-training levels. Although returning to training causes a rapid increase in strength and muscle mass it takes longer than 6 weeks to return to post-training levels (1,2).
Exercise Technique:
Neurological changes are one of the first anatomical adaptations to occur when beginning a training routine. Neurological changes are responsible for the majority of strength increases during the first 6 weeks for novice lifters. For this reason, individuals with more experience in resistance training are expected to have superior coordination of joint actions when executing complex lifting movements (1). Proper exercise technique optimizes the safety and effectiveness of the training stimulus to the associated musculature. Exercise technique should also be a determining factor for exercise selection, training volume, and training intensity (1).
For the upper body, one push and one pull exercise should be selected (1). These movements can be either horizontal or vertical, I would recommend selecting a movement that is most similar to the ones used in training or competition. Olympic weightlifters should use the overhead press or push jerk where a powerlifter should use the bench press. For the lower body, a squat an hip hinge movement patterns should be used (1). Different implements such as barbells, dumbbells, or body weight can be used; along with different movement variations such as the Romanian deadlift or sumo deadlift; or high bar back squat or front squat.
When judging technique, the following must be observed:
Exercise should be performed with a low load, at intensity up to 50% of 1RM.
No coaching cues should be given before or during the demonstration of exercises.
The ability to rotate the involved joints through the full range of motion.
Control and fluidity of the movement.
Stabilization, which is the ability to appropriately fix the lumbopelvic area (i.e., core) and exhibit appropriate postural alignment at the beginning and ending positions of the exercise.
More advanced weight lifters are generally capable of lifting greater loads than untrained individuals. This is the result of neural adaptations associated with increased strength in advanced trainees, including increased motor unit recruitment, alterations in agonist-antagonist co-activation, increases in motor unit firing rates, and changes in motor neuron synchronization (1, 4). If used in conjunction with other information, such as current uninterrupted training time, the strength level may contribute to accurately classifying an individual’s training status.
E.R Santos et al, set out to standardize training status based on strength levels. The strength-to-weight ratio was chosen because 1) it holds true across all body weights and 2) there has been no study that has attempted to use the maximal number of repetitions performed at any given intensity to formalize training status (1). Santos et al examined how other researchers classified “weight-trained” vs “untrained individuals” in the squat, bench press, deadlift, and pull-up (4). I added weightlifting numbers to the chart by analyzing the average strength-to-weight ratios provided by Catalyst Athletics Weightlifting Levels data (5).
Santos, E. R. T. (2021). Classification and Determination Model of Resistance Training Status. Strength and Conditioning Journal, 43(5), 77–86. https://journals.lww.com/nsca-scj/Fulltext/2021/10000/Classification_and_Determination_Model_of.7.aspx
Psilander, N. (2019). Effects of training, detraining, and retraining on strength, hypertrophy, and myonuclear number in human skeletal muscle. Journal of Applied Physiology, 1636–1645. https://doi.org/10.1152/japplphysiol.00917.2018
Starton, R. S. (1991). Strength and skeletal muscle adaptations in heavy resistance-trained women after detraining and retraining. American Physiological Society, 361–640. https://paulogentil.com/pdf/Strength%20and%20skeletal%20muscle%20adaptations%20in%20HRT%20women%20after%20detraining%20and%20retraining.pdf
Willoughby, D. S. (1993). The Effects of Mesocycle-Length Weight Training Programs Involving Periodization and Partially Equated Volumes on Upper and Lower Body Strength. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 7(1), 2–8. https://paulogentil.com/pdf/The%20effects%20of%20mesocycle-length%20weight%20training%20programs%20involving%20periodization.pdf
Everett, G. (2018, July 9). Olympic Weightlifting Skill Levels Chart. Https://www.Catalystathletics.Com. Retrieved January 16, 2022, from https://www.catalystathletics.com/articles/downloads/CatalystAthleticsWeightliftingLevels2018.pdf