I (Mark Sherwood) started out training with weights thirty six years ago and don’t plan on quitting anytime soon. Throughout my years of training, I have been experimenting, researching, pondering, praying, and learning everything that I can about strength training based on a simple desire to get as much out of my own workouts as I can. I can claim nothing of prolific significance in regard to strength training honors. In all honesty, I have never trained a champion lifter, or a world class athlete, and am far from being a champion lifter myself. I simply enjoy learning, lifting, and comparing the results that different training methods have produced. All of this has prompted the formation of my own thoughts and beliefs in regard to effective strength training methods. I will share these thoughts and experiences with anyone who cares to deepen their perspectives on strength training by sharing a little bit of my story here and by offering the other information I provide on this website.
I started training with weights at the age of 16 in 1979 to build my strength up because I thought it would help me improve at pole vaulting which I did in high school. I also thought it would help me with basketball which I still enjoy playing. During my first year of weight training, I barely gained anything because I had no idea how to train. After buying some weight training literature, I changed my training and both my bench press and squat quickly increased by 60 pounds in three months. My deadlift also shot up almost 100 pounds during this same time period. Over the next year in a half, I slowly gained another thirty pounds of strength in my lifts, but the gains eventually came to a stop.
Even with a bachelor’s degree as an exercise specialist from the University of Wisconsin, and even though I read volumes of information on weight training over a few decades, I could never reignite any steady progress beyond those first couple of years of weight training. I tried gobs of training methods and occasionally managed to boost my strength for a few weeks. This would serve to get my hopes up, only to see my strength regress back to its previous level. The lack of progress never stopped me from training because I enjoyed it, and I felt better physically when I exercised as compared to when I didn’t. Not only that, I preferred to maintain the strength I had gained as opposed to quitting and losing it.
It took decades, but I can remember being in a locker room at the gym where I worked out and having a thought that was based on simple math. At the age of 46, it dawned on me that if I had found a method for working out that brought about even a slight amount of strength gains each year, then at my age I would be very strong. Even if I started out with baby weights in the squat, deadlift, and bench press, but I succeeded in figuring out a way to gain a pound of strength per month, or just ten pounds of strength per year, then I would be three hundred pounds stronger at this point in my life (which was 30 years after I had started training with weights). My thoughts about this continued over the next several years.
There had to be a way to gradually add weight little by little to my lifts. I had already tried starting out with a moderate weight and adding on weight week by week, and I had even tried methods where weight is added every workout for six weeks at a time. Nothing worked until I put enough of the right ideas and details together. I finally found that using the right amount of training stress and combining it with high frequency workouts were two huge keys that actually led to the ability to gain strength little by little in a fairly predictable manner. The overall idea behind the training is simple, but the details of finding the right training zone to make it work are important; very important. I’m always trying to refine these details for the best effect because finding the right training zone does not leave much room for error. Precision is a big key for making it work.
I know that the form of training that I advocate on this website is not for everyone, but I offer it as an option to anyone who is methodical and disciplined enough to try it. You can do simple workouts that are not highly taxing, and you can add weight to your basic lifts in a predictable manner if you are realistic about how much, and how often you add weight. If you would like more extensive details on the many aspects of weight training, please feel free to visit my primary website at www.precisionpointtraining.com. Best of training to you.
Mark Sherwood
Books by Mark. Click on the images for more information.
