Myelination, plateaus, and strength as a skill

In the previous two weeks' tips I've discussed some reasons to prioritize strength development and high-level concepts about how to develop strength. This week I'm going to take a quick pass through the science about why the concepts from last week actually work.

To start, let's dig deeper into one of last week's lynchpin comments:

Strength is a skill

You're not alone if that comment seems strange to you; most people think that strength has to do with a muscle's size. And that is partially true.

(In more scientific language: The greater a muscle's cross-sectional area, the more contractile proteins it likely has. More contractile proteins means more "biological structures" available to produce force, equating to an increased capacity for strength.)

For an obvious example, you can probably easily imagine a muscular bodybuilder being stronger than a significantly smaller, less muscular marathon runner.

But a muscle's size is not the end of the story. Research has repeatedly shown that a nerve's ability to excite (i.e. activate or contract) the muscle it innervates is a greater factor in force production than the muscle's size. In other words, our brains/nervous systems can "learn" how to contract our muscles more forcefully (i.e. get stronger) even if the muscles don't get bigger.

How does this "learning" occur? To answer that question, we need to discuss some neuroanatomy research. (I'll keep it high-level and understandable.)

Here are the basics: Neurons are individual nerve cells that compose our nervous system. A part of every neuron is covered in a type of fat called myelin. Myelin serves as a sort of insulation for the neuron, enabling the signals transmitted by the neuron to be stronger, faster, and more accurate.

Whenever a circuit of neurons fires (as happens in the process of thinking a certain thought or taking a certain action), more myelin is added to each of the neurons in the circuit in order to strengthen it. That process is called myelination.

As you might guess, myelination causes any subsequent firing of that circuit to be stronger, faster, and more accurate. Which, in turn, causes more myelination. And the cycle repeats.

Zooming back out to a less scientific depth, this combo of neuron circuit firing + myelination, set on a regular repeat loop, occurs due to what's commonly known as "practice". The entire process is how we learn and develop any mental and physical skill. That includes developing greater efficiency of muscle contraction, also known as strength.

Ultimately, it's the reason the strength principles from last week (which also happen to be productivity principles) are effective.

Let's review...

Why strength principles work

When discussing the first principle, doing fewer things, I mentioned choosing just a few exercises that cover multiple bases and focusing on a small number of characteristics or skills at any given time (e.g. within a specific training program). The reason behind this should be obvious when you think about how you would go about practicing any other skill.

If you wanted to learn to play the guitar, for example, you'd learn the proper finger positions for a few chords and practice switching between them. As your movements became more fluid over the course of numerous practice sessions, you'd add another chord or two and repeat the process.

Progressing in this slow, focused fashion would allow the myelination process to do its work (whether or not you understood what was happening), and you'd progress faster than if you used the shotgun approach of trying to learn 12 different chords at once.

The same concept applies when doing fewer things in your strength training sessions.

Continuing with our guitar example, the other likely characteristic of your practice would be to work on skills right around the limit of your ability (e.g. switching between two chords that you just learned) and taking breaks just before you began to make mistakes. When you did make a mistake, you'd shake out your hands and try again, perhaps a bit slower this time, so that you could get it right.

In other words, you'd obsess over quality (principle #3 from last week) and work at a natural pace (principle #2).

Regarding last week's strength-based advice, this is similar to the suggestions of using the best possible technique that you're currently capable of and better technique as you become more capable (i.e. quality) and resting long enough between sets to remain as fresh as possible for as long as possible (i.e. pacing in order to maintain quality).

Of course, that's important because we want the correct circuits undergoing the myelination process far more often than the circuits where mistakes are made.

And that brings us to my last point for the day.

Plateaus aren't exactly plateaus

We will of course experience plateaus in the development of any skill, from playing guitar to public speaking to analyzing reports to increasing strength. And the longer we practice a skill and the better at it we become, the longer the plateaus we can expect to experience.

As long as we continue practicing with the intent to improve, we will eventually break through the plateau and experience some type of surge in progress. But it can be frustrating waiting for that breakthrough to occur.

During those times it can be helpful to remember that the myelination process is still occurring and that, in fact, the plateau isn't really a plateau.

As Dr. Nate Zinsser points out in The Confident Mind, "every minute of quality practice, every rep, drill, and practice session properly conducted, creates beneficial changes in your nervous system that ultimately, over time, bring about substantial improvements. Each of these changes is small, but they add up, and once they reach a certain critical mass they result in a noticeable 'aha' moment." (Emphasis, mine.)

In other words, the plateau might be our current external reality. However, the internal reality is that we're always on an extremely slight incline of progress (assuming we're practicing with intent).

That's a powerful thought to help us continue showing up and putting in the work to improve any skill, including strength.

Putting it into practice

Next week will include some absolute and relative numbers that, when applied to sets/reps/weight, will help you make long-term progress on your strength journey.

Until then remind yourself during any strength training session why doing fewer things, working at a natural pace, and obsessing over quality will help you make the fastest progress. Then give yourself just a little extra rest before the next set. 😉