Strong for Life

When someone describes their level of activity, I wait for them to say something about strength training. When they don’t discuss it, I know any training plan is incomplete.

I do believe we need strength training for optimal life. Not saying people can’t live a pretty good life by being really active in different ways, but there are so many major benefits from strength training that it will have a cascading effect on everything you do, and you would have the ability to enjoy it more.

Speaking on my own experiences, I was into boxing for years and I did some strength training, but not even half of what I could have been doing.

Why? In part because I believed some of the myths about size gains that occur through strength training, but not appreciating the main reasons for strength training. Which bothers me to this day because I could have been a far more effective athlete.

Quickly let’s redefine strength. Strength training is any sort of planned exercise that is dedicated to stressing a system that yields adaptation with progressive overloads.

I will describe all that language more another day, but I just want to ensure you understand it doesn’t have to lead to body building and giant muscle gains.

There’s are many reasons to invest in strength training, but here are three major ones:

1) Movement coordination

One of the very first benefits of resistance training is neurological adaptation. So, it’s basically practicing the movement properly so that the right muscles fire off.

You actually don’t grow much muscle in the first 8 weeks, you just use your muscles far more efficiently. And really, you should always view training as practicing how to do a movement right.

This could also help us balance out our body if we have imbalances from our daily life and prevent injuries.

Ask yourself: Do you like the idea of being able to lift things without fear of throwing out your back? Do you hate the idea of struggling to get out of chairs one day? Do you know that the probability of death after someone breaking their hip after the age of 65 increases to 80%? Have you ever felt unathletic and uncoordinated?

All of these problems can be helped by strength training.

2) Stress Adaptation

When you train, you are stressing a system, whether it be power, endurance, or eccentric loading, this is essentially sending a signal to your body that you need to get better at it.

Consider that when you cut yourself, the skin will believe it’s important to thicken it after that healing process.

Same thing happens to your muscles and energy systems that you stress. Then it builds back thicker and stronger. Note: building more muscle, means higher metabolic rate (you burn more calories).

At first this is marginal, but then builds. And Builds. And Builds.

Say your BMR (basal metabolic rate) was 2000 cals. Now when you strength train 3x/week, your average raises to 2040/day. But you keep going for 6 months. You now have a metabolic rate of 2100 cals.

Over one week you would have burned 700 more cals. Note: This is NOT including the exercise. This is you sitting there and recovering.

You may burn more calories with some types of cardio, but will your body build more?

Personally, coming from the idea of a “slow” metabolism, I valued this. To this day, Even if its’ just one or two exercises, I want to stimulate that growth.

I may just do a 10-minute circuit. But if I feel that slight soreness, that’s growth, that’s an increased metabolism.

3) Mental resistance

This isn’t something that you’re going to find in the books, but I believe that when you intentionally seek out training, it forces you to resist fatigue and strengthen your ability to persevere.

We are adaptive creatures. The world is actually being set up to make us more comfortable. When we train, we practiced getting out of that comfort zone.

In order to train, we need to set aside time out of our day and say “I will do this because I want to be better.”

You’re now doing something you don’t have to, but choosing to grow as a human.

Then there is a true character change…..

There is the feeling of just before you fail during the end of a set when lifting something. You get the burn and have a choice, “Do I push?”

We start to actually recognize “If I deal with this burn now, I’ll be stronger later.” Then something incredible happens to our minds….

We invite the burn. We invite the challenge.

We get psyched about tough workouts and battles in the gym. This comes from the mental activity we put ourselves through.

All training that pushes intensity can do this, but strength training has an intense nature to it and longevity.

Not everyone can run or sprint, or do HIIT the rest of their life, but I think everyone can and should lift.

I have many more reasons I can rant about the importance, regardless of the goal, but these apply to everyone greatly.

So, do you lift? If no, why not? If yes, do you realize this is why?

Knowing why creates half the intention. The other half is the character you get to choose to develop based on your goals.

Now if you haven’t lifted yet today, go lift something until it burns. Do so knowing you’re doing all of this for yourself and more.