It seems as if every few days, I either get an email or read a question on an online forum about gaining strength without gaining any size (and in turn, bodyweight). It generally goes a little something like this:

“I’ve been practicing (insert your favorite martial art here) for a few months, now. I’m in decent shape, and have Ok conditioning, but am getting tossed around on the mat. I would like to start working out to get stronger, but I don’t want to gain any weight. What should I do?”

So, can you work out to get stronger without an increase in hypertrophy (i.e. – increase in muscle mass) resulting in an increase in bodyweight?

Yep – you sure can. However, before I get into some of the “hows,” let me quickly cover a few of the “whys.”

First and foremost (PAY ATTENTION – this is important!!), I don’t care what kind of workout program you’re on, because if you’re not taking in an excess of calories, you won’t gain any weight. Bodyweight gain or loss is pretty simple – it’s all about simple mathematics. We all know that calories are what fuel, replenish, restore, and build our bodies. We ingest calories everyday by eating food, drinking certain liquids, and consuming certain supplements. We burn calories everyday by simply being alive and performing our daily activities. By “daily activities,” I mean everything. I’m not just referring to any training you might be doing, but anything you do during the day – walking to your car, typing on a keyboard, carrying in a bag of groceries, etc. In addition, there are all the activities that your body performs without you telling it to – breathing, digestion, your hear beating, and many more. All of these activities result in calories being expended (burned up) by the body. (INTERESTING USELESS FACT: All food contains a certain amount of calories, right? Did you know that celery actually contains negative calories? This is because, on average, the body burns up more calories on the digestion of celery then it takes in from it in the first place.)

So, what you’re looking at is a ratio: calories in (how many you eat) vs. calories out (how many your burn up). If your calories in are greater in number than your calories out (i.e. – you eat more than you burn), then you’ll gain weight. If your calories out are greater in number than your calories in (i.e. – you burn up more than you eat), then you’ll lose weight. If your calories out and your calories in are pretty much even, then your bodyweight will stay relatively constant.

Sounds pretty simple, doesn’t it? Well, that’s because it is. Take in too many calories = gain weight. Burn up too many calories = lose weight. Now I can go into greater detail (which I will probably do in future articles), but for the purpose of the topic at hand, it isn’t really necessary. As long as you have the gist of the argument, you know what you need to know.

To figure out about how many calories you should be eating, the first thing you should do is calculate your “Daily Caloric Maintenance Level.” This is just what you’d think it is – the number of calories per day you need to ingest in order to maintain your current bodyweight, in its current condition (i.e. – at its current bodyfat percentage level), at your current activity level. Do a quick Google search and you will come up with a variety of online calorie calculators. Try a few of them out. BEWARE: Don’t be surprised if you get a wide range of results. This is will happen simply because some calculators are more accurate than others. As a general rule of thumb, the calculators that require you to input more personal information are generally more accurate.

Once you have a general Maintenance Level figured, you can then adjust it up or down. Again, as a general rule of thumb, to gain weight, add 500 calories to your daily caloric intake. To lose weight, subtract 500 calories per day. One pound is roughly equal to 3500 calories, and 500 calories/day x 7 days/week = 1 lb. per week (this goes for gaining or losing). To keep your bodyweight constant, don’t add or subtract anything to your Daily Caloric Maintenance Level.

This is the point in which you can begin to “tinker” with your diet a little. Experiment some. If you’re not gaining/losing weight like you’d like, don’t be afraid to make a few subtle changes to your diet. Add a few calories here, subtract a few calories there. As long as you don’t make drastic shifts one way or the other, you should be able to figure it out without too much trouble.

NOTE – All of the above takes into account that your activity level remains constant. If your training sessions (martial arts, skills, strength, conditioning, GPP, or otherwise) radically change in length, frequency, intensity of effort, or any other factor, then your Daily Caloric Maintenance Level will need to be adjusted accordingly.

Ok, now that we’ve got the diet plan down, let’s take a look at strength training. Again, for the sake of the topic at hand, we’ll assume that you’re looking for an increase in overall brute strength (as opposed to strength-endurance, conditioning, localized muscular strength or muscular endurance, etc.). As such, there are a few basic tenets that you’ll need to incorporate into your workouts: compound (multi-joint) exercises, heavy (either near-maximal or ramping up to near-maximal) weights, low reps, low to medium set count, and plenty of rest. If you incorporate all these things into your program, you can’t go wrong.

There are a variety of different methodologies out there which work well: Pavel Tsatsouline’s “Power to the People, Westside Barbell’s “Conjugate Method,” the good ole’ tried and true “5 x 5,” Bryce Lane’s “Have it All” version of Charles Staley’s “Escalating Density Training,” and even my own “Singles & Doubles.”

Which one do you pick? Well, they all work. They all work in different ways, and they all produce somewhat different results, but time and experience has shown that they all work. How are they different? Well, that’s the subject for an article in the very near future…

But, for now, here is what you can take home: lift heavy, use few reps, and not too many sets. Get plenty of rest, don’t wear yourself out (so as to avoid overtraining), and eat a sensible diet that is at or around your Daily Caloric Maintenance Level. Your results will be dramatic increases in brute strength, without any undesired increase in bodyweight.

Train Hard, Rest Hard, Play Hard.