Without wasting your time reviewing all the supposed secrets of strenhgth building that simply don't work let's examine those that do.
Progressive Resisitance - You may be saying to yourself "no shit Sherlock!" to this one but the principle seems to be forgotten when you spend some time in gyms. Just think carefully how many guys have you seen in the gym over an extended period of time who have not added 1kg to their lifts. Ask yourself how much progress they have made and frankly how do they look? Exactly, like they did when they started! To be honest they are wasting their time. True strength can only be built through progressive resistance. The main way to do this is to add weight to the bar. Let me put it another way, in the most recent Milo by Ironmind the current 105+kg Russian weightlifter Khadjimourad Akkaev was asked what method he employs to build his strength and the answer he gave was pure gold. Here I paraphrase what he said: "I work on the max effort program. If I snatch 200kg today next time I go for 201kg". It can't be put anymore simply then this!
Increasing volume - Sorry folks, just adding weight to the bar is not quite enough. When you strip it back to the essence of what is been said here it is a simple concept. If you just kept adding weight to the bar there will be one of two things that will happen. Sure it may work for a beginner and you may make some good gains here. If you continued doing this in perpetuity the liklihood is that you will either reach a point you just can't lift the wieght anymore or you will continue to get stronger forever (basically impossible and if this is your case you are a genetic freak!!). The other more likely scenario is that it will become not possible to do this and therefore you need to increase the volume of your training in order to continue to get stronger. You can do 1 set of 100kg one week then 1 set of 101kg the next week and so on forever. What you will need to start to do is 100kg for 2 sets. Than the next week 1 set at 100kg and then maybe one set at 101kg's. The point been made here is that just doing say your regular 5 x 5 program is eventualy going to require for you lift your volume in order for you to reliaze continual strength gains.
Don't redline forever - Can you sprint at 100% capacity for more than 100m, say 3km's. Of course you can't. Just like you can't drive your car with your foot flat to the floor on the pedal and not expect your car to eventually have itself a severe problem. The same applies to your lifting. If you seek to lift maximal weights everyday eventually you will have a problem. Every few weeks, say every 4 weeks "deload" and lift say in the 50%-60% range for a few sessions. This will refresh both your body and mind. Don't panic you won't lose strength. You will actualy come back after say a few days of lifting like this and when you again attempt the top weights you will surprise yourself that the deloading actually makes the next time you lift heavy a little easier. With luck you will also be slightly stronger.
So there you have it. 3 very simple techniques that will guarantee strength gains. The moral is lift heavy, lift more each time and listen to your body. Follow these 3 steps and eat following the principles of the previous blog and you will become the beast you always wanted to be.