I read a post on social media lately by a woman who is working on her health and fitness.

She started out by switching to a Keto diet and her post indicated she was going to start strength training.

She said she was going to start slowly with 5 pound dumbbells.

I applaud her for getting started with some sort of exercise program, but therein lies the problem.

Most people don’t understand how strength training works to get you strong.

You don’t get strong by simply exercising.  And, unless you are 95 years old and have never trained at all, those 5 pound dumbbells won’t get you far.

If you’ve never trained at all, you’ll get somewhat stronger through any sort of exercise.

However, if you want to get much stronger than you are presently, you’ll want to embrace barbell training.

Why?

Legitimate strength training with barbells can get you significantly stronger due to how the training stimulates the central nervous system (CNS).

“Research published in JNeurosci reveals how the first few weeks of weightlifting strengthen the reticulospinal tract not muscles.”

This is why you can make significant gains in strength early on in your program without a significant increase in the size of your muscles.

However, you are not going to send a strong enough signal to the CNS to elicit significant gains in strength by lifting light dumbbells.

After a period of time, the four basic barbell lifts (the squat, deadlift, bench press and overhead press) combine to provide significant stress on the body when trained properly.

This usually means with sets in the 3 to 6 rep range.

After you’ve learned to perform the lifts properly, and you’ve progressed to a point where the weight gets heavy enough to require significant effort, that is when you are sending that strong signal to the CNS.

Your body then adapts by increasing the size of your muscles, increasing the density of your bones, and strengthening the connective tissue.

Keep in mind however, this does not mean you will turn into Arnold Schwarzenegger, or even Tiger Woods.

That requires a much longer period of time, and perhaps some additional “help.”

However, you will have noticeable changes to your body for sure.

And, even better, this will give you greater potential to increase your swing speed.

Now, get to work!