Why You Should Strength Train

I've been addicted to the iron forever. There wasn't any weightlifting for me in middle school, so before I got into high school I did pushups like a madman, plus some running. My reasons for lifting back then were simple: get ready for football and to be stronger in general. Thus, in high school I played football and was on the weightlifting team.

After football in high school, I stuck with Olympic Weightlifting and do some form of it to this day (plus some other things).

I think most people think that this is the mindset you need to have if you want to be in the gym, but strength in general affects everyone. Nature decays. Our bodies will decay at some point. That's the cost of being alive.

There would be times when I would take it easy (by my standards) or do nothing at all. But time and gravity doesn't care. At the very least, we can improve the quality of our lives while we're here and try to avoid the nursing home as long as we can.

Longevity (aka being "able" well into old age), strength, looking good, all come down to muscle/strength on some level.

You just have to train it.

"Physical Strength is the Most Important Thing in Life"

Stick with me here.

I don't mean to say that you need to deadlift 500lbs in 6 weeks. I mean you just have to do something. I heard the "physical strength is the most important thing in life" thing from Mark Rippetoe, creator of Starting Strength (a barbell focused program). On the surface, you'd think "that's easy for him to say" since he has a training program revolving around barbell training. I don't think that's necessary, but moving on.

Let's do some thinking.

You're born. You grow and get stronger as you age by default. We have recess. We play P.E. You may or may not do sports in high school. (Sadly at this point P.E. is an elective and the amount of kids that are active starts to go down). Then what? Do our backs get bad because we get older? No. We sit for long periods of time without every pushing ourselves physically any more. We start sitting in kindergarten. Then the amount of sitting we do increases as we get older (TV, video games, work, scrolling on our phones, etc).

You aren't getting what you used to get because you're not doing what you used to do. Don't blame age. Blame inaction.

The beautiful thing is that we can fight against the natural decay of life. Do pushups. Get in the gym. Just do anything. If we're going to lose muscle mass as we get older, then gaining it, through strength training, is how we can reverse or at least slow down the process.

The Strength Process

Again, you don't have to go in the gym and try to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger, but you need to do something. The hardest thing to change is someone's mindset. I hope what I said earlier gave you some motivation (or at least scared you into it), but I'll list it out in more detail.

The Mindset

• First, accept that you need to do it to avoid the nursing home. Things like falls can be avoided if your strength and balance are at least maintained through life. I know the mortality rates after falls are horrible, but it's usually because of weakness (caused by lack of movement) that got the person there.

The "I want to look better"

• Next if you want to look good, you're going to need some sort of muscle. Just burning fat into oblivion will lead to being a skeleton. You don't have to be a hulking monster either, so it's up to you to find a middle ground.

The "I want to be jacked/strong"

• For anyone that wants to be huge and strong, you already have good reasons. Keep going.

The "I want to lean out"

• You have to make sure to keep strength training in there. What's awesome about strength training is that when you do it, you build muscle. That muscle has a calorie "cost." That means the more it grows, the more calories you burn up by just sitting around the house. So strength training has two benefits: the muscle you gain gives you a better shape and you burn the fat you don't want on your body. This is why strongmen athletes, despite being huge, are still "solid" looking.

• Do some cardio or calorie manipulation if you want to lean out. Just walk and eat like an adult. Run if you want. Sprint if you want (which is awesome). Play sports on the weekends.

"So What Do I Do?"

OK here's the magical super secret on what to do.

Ready?

Here goes.

Figure it out.

That's the answer.

I enjoy lifting with the barbell and doing the Olympic lifts. Sometimes I dabble in bodyweight movements. Even more sometimes I might CrossFit. You might not care about any of that stuff, and that's fine with me.

The stuff I've keep up with are the following. Each of which are up to you to do some research:

• Original Strength - Huh? Crawling, carries, etc. Seems goofy but it's good stuff.

• Bodyweight - Pushups, situps, air squats, you know this stuff.

• ATG - From Ben Patrick aka Kneesovertoesguy

• Barbell Lifts - Powerlifting, Olympic lifting, bodybuilding, etc.

• CrossFit - Find a program and do it.

Don't like to do this stuff? Don't do it. Then again, I think I picked anything that could be done in the strength game. My goals could be completely different than yours. That's fine. Just pick something and start.

I know you were looking for a "what to do" but this journey will be your own in the end. I'd rather teach you how to fish as opposed to giving you one. The more you can make something that you enjoy doing the more you'll want to do it. Hello consistency.

Thanks for reading!

If you have any questions please feel free to reach out and I’ll do my best to answer them.