EDITOR’S LETTER

While it’s generally agreed there are 11 components of fitness – including less heralded aspects, like balance and coordination – few capture the imagination quite like strength. There’s a primal satisfaction that comes with lifting heavier weights, and a sense of achievement from realising the workout you struggled through a few weeks ago is now a whole lot easier. Strength is also easy to track, making it the yardstick most people who work out regularly use to monitor progress. The trouble is, improvement isn’t secured simply by turning up and getting the job done. If you really want to get stronger, you need to force adaptations – and to do that, you need to broaden your horizons.

This issue, we’re helping you do just that, with features and insights designed to introduce new training methods that could be the spark your training needs. From eccentric strength training – focusing on the lowering phase of each lift – to elite-level insights from personal trainers to the stars Don Saladino (whose clients include Ryan Reynolds and Jake Gyllenhaal) and Bobby Rich (David Beckham’s go-to man), in the pages that follow you will find the tools you need to unlock a higher level of strength and general physical conditioning.