Maximize Gains with Limiting Factors

Knowing your limiting factors can help create the shortest route possible to your genetic potential. Limiting factors are our weak links. All the arm strength, trunk stability, and flexibility in the world won’t help you get another pull up if your grip is a limiting factor, for example. Plenty of athletes have enough hip drive and leg strength to move the barbell through a front squat, but lack enough trunk stability to stay upright and miss the lift.

What’s the limiting factor? Trunk strength. Sure, doing more front squat will make everything stronger, but strengthening your trunk? That’s a sweet shortcut.

The bad news is we all have limiting factors. The good news is that since you likely have weak links, you are leaving tons of performance on the table which you can access by addressing specific limiting factors.

In the pull up example above, one wouldn’t need to go through all the work of building raw strength to improve pull up capacity. Doing grip strength work, rather, would yield improvement right away.

Common limiting factors include range of motion, grip strength, glute activation, and posterior chain strength. There’s low hanging fruit, athletes. Go get it!

 

Logan Gelbrich

@functionalcoach