The Primal Workout Week 5 - Strength Train

Everyone has the desire to be better on some level.

We all want more.

There's nothing wrong with that.

If wanting "more" means setting a goal and striving towards it, then it can be seen as a healthy pursuit. It also beats the opposite which is being so complacent that you don't try anything new or different.

There are plenty of categories that we can strive for goals. Health is one of those categories. However, if you're getting back into it or maybe into it for the first time, what do you do? Who do we turn to in order to see what goals we should be going for?

Doctors come to mind. They tell us to do cardio and eat healthy.

What about an end goal? What does "I want to get healthy" even mean?

Is it just about appearance? Do we have to train like bodybuilders? Do most people want to look like that anyway? Do we have to be strong like power lifters?

Personally, I fell in love with strength training early on. I've always had a program I was following. I love the fact that CrossFit gets people off the couch, and I've dabbled in it myself, but there needs to be a bit more. (As a side note, if you want to be a better CrossFit human, you need to work on what we're about to talk about anyway.)

There needs to be something where you can see progress in your training. This can apply to cardio intensive training, where you see your times going down, but I'm talking about strength training.

Strength training covers the bases for a lot of the same goals people have:

• If you want to look better, you need muscle in the right areas (more strength makes those muscles grow).

• If you want to be healthier, you need more muscle mass. Your metabolism will run faster and you'll avoid the skinny-fat problem that affects so many.

• If you want to perform better for a sport, you need to be a stronger human. At the very least you need bodyweight strength standards. As an example, if you compete in CrossFit, your numbers in specific lifts going up will make doing higher reps at lighter weights easier.

• If you want to be strong into old age, you need more muscle mass. This is especially true since we lose muscle mass as we age anyway. If that's the case, running on the treadmill forever won't fix that. Muscle is also very important because falling is a major cause of eventual death in the elderly.

So how do we get all these awesome benefits?

We strength train.

Strength Training: The Top of the Pyramid

If you've been following along these newsletters, this is the final week of the "Primal Workout Plan." I made everything else in this list (resets, walking, squat holds, and hanging) a baseline to work on, but it really doesn't go anywhere aside from checking off the box for the day and keeping you moving. (Are you supposed to progress from 10k steps to 20k? Do you even have that kind of time?)

We have a unique opportunity that our ancestors didn't have. I highly doubt they were lifting progressively heavier rocks over the weeks just to look better. Now we can do that. Again, the training as we know it didn't come about until the late 1800s/early 1900s.

After "surviving" the sedentary lifestyle, we can step things up and start adding more strength or better appearance to ourselves.

It's good for your mind because it gives you something to strive for in the short term and for the long term. At the very least it gives you numbers to maintain.

It clarifies your days because you know what you're doing today and tomorrow.

It's 1000% better than just "going to the gym" and "seeing what you feel like doing today," doing it for a little bit or to failure/burnout, and seeing what else is in the gym-buffet.

Note that this is called TRAINING.

This isn't "working out" or "hard exercising."

Let me break down each definition so you see what I'm talking about.

• An "exercise" is a movement that you do. The pushup is an exercise. But "exercising" could mean doing pushups in a planned rep scheme or it could mean doing as many pushups as you can in a given session. (Either one beats sitting on the couch all day.)

• A "workout" is the session that you're doing for the given day. The workout is a group of exercises put together. You can do a really hard workout for the day, but you could do that without really planning for tomorrow.

• "Training" is doing something today as part of a plan towards a goal in the future. So instead of "I'm going to bench some weight to failure today because it's chest day," it's more like "my plan today is 135 for 5 reps because I want to bench 140 for 5 the next time and 225 9 months from now."

You need a goal.

Your training is no different.

Now I'm not going to give you any standards. That's up to you. The goal is to get stronger, either with a barbell or your own body, until you reach the goal that you set for yourself. The important part is showing up when it's time to show up. That's the goal.

Strength huh? Do I have to?

"But I just want to look better!"

Yea, me too.

And if that's the case, then you want some muscle on your frame.

Now before you think that I want you to either be a bodybuilder or a hulking super-heavyweight powerlifter, let me offer a middle ground.

Let's say you "want to look better" and decide to eat a lot less and run a lot more.

Yes, being lighter is better for you and it'll take the pressure off your body, but what about your shape?

If you end up training this way, you'll just be a smaller version of yourself. If your muscle mass is lacking, you'll have less fat but less muscle too.

I realized that all of my "mentors" agreed on some level. Let's go into each one:

• Tim Anderson from Original Strength uses more "enduring strength." It's not quite lifting and not quite cardio, but it's a middle ground and it's measurable. (Example: being able to crawl for 10 minutes non-stop. Brutal.)

• Ben Patrick aka Kneesovertoesguy has both bodyweight and weight standards on different movements for the sake of athleticism. A stronger body can handle better performance demands.

• Greg O'Gallagher aka Kinobody's entire plan revolves around looking better. But he simplifies things by saying if you want to look better, focus on strength. I'm a guy so I'll use a guy standard as an example. If you want a bigger chest, you'll have a bigger one if you bench 225lbs compared to the guy that only benches 95lbs. If that's the case, you can apply those same rules to other movements and areas of your body. That combined with diet will reveal a good looking shape. Even though women normally want different proportions, the same rule applies.

• Mark Rippetoe uses the barbell. Mark preaches how more strength means more health. Even though he uses movements normally involved in powerlifting, he only does so for the sake of adding more muscle to human beings for the biggest bang for your buck. He's not a powerlifting coach (in the same way that a football player squatting isn't getting ready for powerlifting either), and the Starting Strength program also preaches the benefits of strength training for older individuals. That's a pretty wholesome message. He also notes that you'll look better accidentally by just having more muscle, so that's good too.

• Mark Rippetoe, Ben Patrick and a few other guys from ATG (Derek Williams aka Mr Infinity and Geoff Reed) constantly preach longevity. But they're using strength training and standards to improve health into old age. I have no clue what doctors are telling the older population, but sadly, I doubt it's to resistance train. If anything, they're probably being told to avoid it, which is the complete opposite of what they need.

• If you're in a strength sport, you already know this stuff. You want the numbers on the bar to go up. I'm preaching to the choir here.

I hope you agree that strength is important.

So if that's the case, if your schedule is really crazy, prioritize this over everything else.

Don't worry about hanging.

Don't worry about walking for an hour.

Don't worry about squatting down for 10 minutes.

Get in the gym, eat the frog and do the hard thing first.

Your Strength Program (That You Write)

Time to get into the nitty gritty. Here's how you set up or find a strength program that works for you.

Goals and Constraints

• A goal is what you want, that should be obvious. Again, if you're not sure, write down what you don't like about your body and your goals are going to be the opposite.

• A constraint is different. It's what you don't want to sacrifice in pursuit of your goal. It could be something like "I want a bigger chest but I don't want to bench press at all." Or "I want to get a bigger squat but I don't want to (nor have the time to) devote 2 hours a day to my workouts."

• You'll have to do some brain storming here. Whatever you pick will have to fit your needs.

Find or Create a Program

• Based on your goals, find a program that lines up with them. Yes, this will take some research, but it's better than just scrolling on your phone at night.

• Make sure it follows principles that work for most people: The most muscles worked for both muscle mass and time (for busy people) and has progressive overload. Progressive overload meaning things get harder meaning more weight, more reps or harder variations. Example: getting to be able to do 10 pushups on the floor instead of doing wall pushups to infinity.

Follow the plan until..

• Prepare your workout clothes, get your schedule in order, go to bed on time and stick with your program.

• Stick with it until you see the progress you're happy with.

• When you get stuck (after an honest try) and/or bored, feel free to make things harder or pivot into something else.

• Everything works…as long as you believe in it.

That's your program. Now go start it.

Going Beyond

What about bodyweight vs weight?

It doesn't matter.

I think for the vast majority of humans, you can use one or the other or even both to be a well rounded person. If this is a plan for the general population, then don't be afraid of being a generalist.

What's a generalist? It means you are pretty decent at a lot of things. Going to the extremes is for specialists, aka people that compete in something.

But if you just did about 80% of what a pro athlete did, you'll have 80% of their results, which is pretty good for the average Joe or Jane.

Eventually your progress will slow down. You can only run a mile so fast, or a 100 sprint so fast, or squat so much weight. And that's ok. Just make sure you're showing up. If you're maintaining a weight to stay fit for the rest of your life, that's a win.

Remember the baseline: more strength means more health.

Take care of your health.

Work on your strength.

Thanks for reading!

If you have any questions, feel free to respond to this newsletter or fill out this survey so I can fuel my content.

See you in the next one.