HOW TO TRAIN

Your strength will improve as a result of creating high-tension levels in the muscle,
which is directly related to the training method employed. Your ability to generate
maximum strength depends on the size of the muscle involved, the capacity to recruit or
use your fast twitch muscle fibers, and the ability to coordinate all of your muscles
involved into action. The ability to recruit your fast twitch fibers depends on training
content, in which heavy loads and explosive power training should dominate. Improving
your muscle coordination and synchronization depends on learning, which means
performing many reps of the same exercise.
High-tension levels in the muscle are necessary to create increased levels of force and
strength. So how does one go about creating a lot of tension in the muscles and thus
improve force output? The answer is simple. Lift a moderately heavy to heavy load in
good form with as much force as you can muster! When lifting a heavy load, even
though you might be pushing as hard and as fast as you can, the weight probably won’t
move all that fast. Each muscle cell has to contract forcefully for fairly long periods of
time, therefore your muscle cells are subject to greater amounts of tension which is
necessary to create strength. Lifting a lighter load with more speed doesn’t subject the
muscle cells to the prolonged levels of high tension, so, although useful for increasing
other aspects of performance like increased rate of force development, won’t have near
the effect of heavy weights at creating maximum levels of useable strength and force.
Won’t Getting Bigger Muscles Slow Me Down?
If any of you out there are worried about becoming overly “muscular” or getting too big
from weight training, first I might ask what are you worried about? Don’t you know the
opposite sex loves hard bodies?! All kidding aside you definitely don’t have to develop
huge bodies and large muscles to become significantly stronger. Research shows that
strength training methods typically bring a 3:1 ratio of strength vs. muscle mass increase.
This means if your body mass increases 10%, your strength should increase 30%, which
makes your gains purely functional.
Say you weigh 150 lbs right now and can squat 200 lbs. Your bodyweight is 75% of
your squat. Let’s say you gain 15 lbs of bodyweight bringing you to 165 lbs while at the
same time your squat increases to 260 lbs. Now your bodyweight is only 63% of your
squat! This means your relative strength, or strength per pound of bodyweight, has
improved substantially and your performance will also improve dramatically. The take
home point is to not be afraid of gaining muscular bodyweight.

source: higher-faster-sports