Ep 3: Why is Strength so Important?
Today’s episode is all about the “S” word—STRENGTH. What is it, why is it important, and how to get it.
If you’re listening to this podcast, it’s a safe bet that you have some sort of fitness related goal. You want to improve yourself physically in some way: build muscle, burn fat, get lean, get strong, improve athletic performance, look good in a bathing suit, or even improve mobility, flexibility, or balance.
What if there is one attribute above all others that permeates each of these attributes of fitness—that if you just focus on this attribute for a while as your top priority, it will translate to improvements in all those other attributes?
Well you’re in luck, and if I haven’t made it painfully obvious by the title and intro of this episode, that one fitness attribute is…strength!
In today’s episode, we cover:
What do we mean by strength?
Why is strength the most important fitness attribute?
Assuming strength is so important, how do you get it?
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Transcript
This podcast was transcribed automatically, so please forgive any errors or typos.
[00:00:00] Philip Pape: Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast for busy professionals who want to get strong and lean with the strength training and sustainable. I am your host Philip Pape. And in each episode, we'll examine strategies to help you achieve physical self-mastery through a healthy skepticism of the fitness industry and a commitment to lifting heavy and eating right.
[00:00:31] Welcome to episode three of Wits & Weights. Today's episode is all about the S word strength. What is it? Why is it important and how to get it? If you're listening to this podcast, it's a safe bet that you have some sort of fitness related goal that is you want to improve yourself physically in some way, build muscle burn fat, get lean, get strong, improve athletic performance.
[00:00:59] Look good in a bathing suit. Or even improve mobility, flexibility, or. What if I told you there is one attribute above all others that permeates each of these fitness attributes, that if you just focus on this attribute for awhile as your top priority, it will translate to improvements in all the others while you're in luck.
[00:01:22] And if I haven't made it painfully obvious by the title and intro of this episode, that one fitness attribute is strength. In today's episode, we cover, what do we mean by. Why is strength the most important fitness attribute and assuming it's so important, how do you get it? Let's start by defining strength.
[00:01:44] Although 10 people might give 10 different answers. The definition we're concerned with is the production of force against. We're not concerned with power speed, your ability to do something without getting tired or your ability to do something quickly. Only your ability to overcome a force or load measured by absolute physical.
[00:02:08] Absolute strength is measured simply by the amount of force you can produce. As indicated by the weight you can lift. This could be measured by your one repetition, maximum, or one RM on a barbell movement. Like the squat bench press or deadlift, or it could be measured on other movements like the overhead press, the barbell row, or any number of exercises across multiple numbers of repetitions weather, three, five.
[00:02:37] If you're following a program where you perform three sets of five, you can measure strength by your maximum three by five weight. Once more strength is simply your ability to exert force on an object. And we'll measure that by the weight. Having to find strength. The next question is why is strength relevant in starting strength?
[00:03:00] Mark Rippetoe writes quote, physical strength is the most important thing in life. Our strength, more than any other thing, we possess still determines the quality and quantity of our time. Here in these bodies, a weak man is not as happy as that same man would be if he were strong and. Andy baker wrote that quote strength is foundational to a better life.
[00:03:24] There is no instance in life or sport where stronger isn't better and quote, these may sound like exaggerations, but my personal experience has shown me time. And again, that strength is so much more important than people think. Once you have it, you realize the physical and mental doors and opens, let alone vastly improving your health, fitness, and lunch.
[00:03:47] Unfortunately, the vast majority of so-called fitness programs from CrossFit to bootcamps, to orange theory, to P90X, and many others attempt to generalize across multiple fitness attributes without focusing on any one. In particular, for example, CrossFit claims to improve 10 attributes, cardiovascular and respiratory endurance, stamina strength, flexible.
[00:04:15] Power speed coordination, agility, balance, and accuracy. Yet the physical reality is that all of these attributes have a common baseline in stress. Although many of these programs recognize this fact in their descriptions and guides, they don't prioritize strength above all else. I personally was stuck in this hamster wheel with a generalized fitness approach for many years when I finally prioritized strength, that is my ability to handle greater and greater loads on the bar.
[00:04:47] Everything else related to fitness became easier and progressed more. What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of the benefits of strength training? For many, it's getting big or jacked, but building mass, like that takes hard work and dedication over a very extended period. In fact, strength has a cornucopia of benefits that almost make it seem like a magical elixir.
[00:05:13] And for many who have worked to gain strength, that's not too far from the. In the barbell prescription strength training for life after 40 Jonathan Sullivan wrote that quote, strength training can slow arrest or even reverse many of the degenerative effects of aging, loss of muscle and strength, brittle bones, floppy ligaments, dysfunctional joints, and the decline of mobility and balance and quote.
[00:05:40] Now that sounds like the fountain of youth. According to the fitness Wiki, here are 10 more benefits of building. Improved ability to manipulate or move objects in day-to-day life, including yourself increased bone density, reduced risk of osteoporosis, improve balance, and reduce risk of falls. Reduce symptoms of arthritis, back pain, obesity, heart disease, depression, and diabetes.
[00:06:08] It can improve cognitive ability in older adults. It can improve blood pressure triglycerides. HDL cholesterol can reduce the risk of cancer. Broadly reduces the risk of injury can help maintain joint flexibility and improved ability to control weight gain through increased calorie. For athletes, strength can correct.
[00:06:31] Muscular imbalances, prevent injury, increase power or explosiveness and increase muscular endurance. Whoa, what a list I'm assuming you're now completely convinced that getting stronger is probably a wonderful idea, which brings us to the final question. How do we build strength? It really comes down to lift weights.
[00:06:56] Eat. Lift weights, eat and sleep. Repeat that's it. But I would be doing you a disservice if I left it at that, because as we know, a lot of things can be simple, but they're not necessarily easy. There are many roads that lead to the same destination, some more serpentine than others. And we are going to pay for ourselves the most efficient road we can to get to that destination based on.
[00:07:23] The decades of experience, personal anecdotes, research, knowledge and outcomes. We've seen whether it's among powerlifters, bodybuilders, or everyday folks like you and me who have been successful doing this at a high level, becoming stronger requires a few key elements, heavy resistance training with sufficient frequency and recovery.
[00:07:49] That includes. Eating enough food to create what we call an anabolic environment and eating enough protein to provide sufficient material to build muscle. Let's cover each of these in detail, we'll start with resistance training. There are many strength building programs out there. Some are much more optimal than others.
[00:08:14] And generally, if you pick one of them, you work hard, you stick to it. You'll make much more progress than someone who jumps around from program to program or even worse. Does. In episode two, we talked about how to choose a strength training program. So if you didn't listen to that episode, go back, revisit it, choose a program and start training.
[00:08:39] We established that the optimal approach is one that uses barbells and compound lifts. Namely the squat, deadlift and bench press with the addition of the overhead press and even power clean or barbell rows in some. The conclusion is that you must train heavy with sufficient frequency to build strength by heavy.
[00:09:04] I mean, the load on the bar is high enough to drive the appropriate stress on your body to put it objectively when you're a rank novice following a linear progression, that would be heavier than last time by some meaningful amount, whether that's two and a half, five or 10 more. This is why we use barbells and compound lifts.
[00:09:27] Let's reiterate that barbells allow you to train your entire physical system in a full range of motion with multiple joints recruiting, significant muscle mass. It aligns with the neuromuscular functional reality of our human anatomy, both skeletal and. Barbells let you control the weight over time.
[00:09:50] Whereas machines are the ones controlling you barbells also allow you to scale from very light, to very heavy in an efficient, consistent way. Therefore you can train heavy and progress. Also by heavy, I mean, not so heavy that you can't use proper form and control the movement as Greg knuckles puts it, quote, you should use something between the heaviest weight that you feel very comfortable and confident with and about 15% less than that.
[00:10:21] And if you choose a program like starting strength or the big three routine, you'll see that sets of five are a cornerstone of effective beginner strength. The strength spectrum is generally considered between one and eight reps, where five is the sweet spot for new lifters. And here's why let's say you did only singles the, so those are sets of just one rep you would be required to recruit the maximum force possible for the movement, fully engaging your neuromuscular system, which would provide an excellent stimulus for strength.
[00:10:58] But the volume perhaps is too low. On the other hand. Sets of say eight and above require much more muscular endurance because of the duration and cardiovascular requirements sets of five are a good compromise for novice. To stimulate an increase in strength while maintaining good form consistency, muscular coordination, and still benefit from multiple hard reps from an endurance perspective.
[00:11:26] If you followed my advice in episode two and started. You'll find soon enough, if you haven't already that sets a five can be very hard, especially the last few reps of the last few sets, but that's a good sign that you're applying a stimulus that your body has never experienced before. It teaches you how to do hard things.
[00:11:49] One of the realities you'll come to value over the years. And I say this from experience. Now when you're training this hard, you need time to recover before hitting those same muscles. Again, newer lifters can train more often because they recover quickly as quickly as 48 hours, even for the leg muscles.
[00:12:11] Workout sessions are shorter because rest periods are shorter when you were a newer lifter, as you get stronger, or as they say closer to your genetic potential over months and years, you'll place more stress on the body in each session requiring longer recipes. Thus longer workout sessions and more recovery between sessions.
[00:12:33] At that point, you transitioned from a beginner three days per week, full body style program to either a modified intensity program with longer sessions or something like a four or five day body parts split. Now, one of the keys to recovery, when you are resistance training is to avoid over. And that is when your performance can't recover sufficiently to enable the appropriate adaptation.
[00:13:02] And this leads to much harder and ineffective workouts, which then just sabotages your ability to recover and adapt. Lastly, you have to get sufficient and high quality. And for many, that means not being on a screen till right before bed and getting at least seven or eight hours of sleep per night, which may sound like an insane requirement for busy working professionals based on your habits, but is something that will pay off big time when it comes to recovery between lifting stuff.
[00:13:34] So that's resistance training. That is how we build strength in the gym. And we'll be talking about many more details behind lifting, training, rest periods, and so on in future episodes. But the next thing I want to talk about is getting enough food and getting enough protein. Now, maybe you didn't think we would talk about diet today and it's true.
[00:13:56] Today's episode, isn't the diet episode, but it's a fact that. Your body's a system and building strength requires lifting combined with the right kind of environment from a food perspective so that you're lifting actually pays off. So you have to eat enough food. It's a fact of biology that to build muscle, you must be in a caloric surplus, even if you're a brand new lifter, who's able to build muscle while losing.
[00:14:27] A caloric surplus is simply taking in more energy through your diet than your body burns each day. The easiest way to tell if you're doing this is by the weight on the scale. If you're gaining weight each week, you're headed in the right direction for packing on muscle and taking advantage of that new training program of yours that you're working so hard at.
[00:14:49] Let me go on a little. If you think you can't eat enough or gain weight, I want you to get out of your head. All the silly nonsense about being a quote, hard gainer or having any quote, fast metabolism. These aren't real, they're just excuses to avoid eating enough. If you are a human being. Your energy system is ruled by the law of energy balance.
[00:15:13] We'll get into much more detail on this in the next episode, which will be an exciting one full of useful information and plenty of myth-busting. But for now, just accept the fact that if you start training hard to build strength, you must eat enough to be in a caloric surplus. No excuses. Part of eating enough is also making sure you get enough protein.
[00:15:35] Even if you're eating enough calories, you'll need a sufficient amount of protein within those calories, they can't be all fat or carbs. Protein is required for muscle protein synthesis or put simply gaining muscle mass. Now how much protein is enough? This has always been the. And the subject has been exhaustively researched in recent years.
[00:15:56] The consensus seems to be that around 0.8 to one gram of protein per pound of body weight is a good target with no need to go much higher than 1.3 grams per pound. Despite all the bro science out there suggesting that you need hundreds of grams of protein per day. I personally shoot for one gram per pound each day.
[00:16:20] It's a nice round number. And if you fall short, you're still well in the ballpark. What does this look like for a 200 pound man? That's 200 grams of protein per day for a 150 pound woman. That's 150 grams. Now this might sound like a lot. This might be hard if you are not using. So stay tuned for our upcoming episode on diet and nutrition, where I break down a plan of action and some ideas for getting sufficient protein.
[00:16:48] But for now, look for ways to get closer to this target of 0.8 to one gram per pound, starting with things like. Eggs and dairy. All of this leads me to a concept called the stress recovery adaptation model, stress recovery adaptation, which neatly captures much of what we just talked about. First, you apply a new stress to your body with very heavy weight.
[00:17:17] At moderately low reps, we're talking the F one to eight rep range, but primarily around five for most of the effective beginner programs. Second, you give yourself enough time to recover. By resting, sleeping enough, eating enough and getting enough protein. Finally, your body then adapts as a protective survival mechanism to handle a slightly higher level of stress.
[00:17:42] Next time, next time you go to the gym, you have a new baseline and you should be able to lift a little more weight, and it does this by increasing your neuromuscular strength and muscle size, but only if you gave it enough fuel rest and sleep to. Stress recovery adaptation, the magical formula to building strength.
[00:18:05] All it requires of you is hard work, dedication, and consistency. Now here's a bonus tip. Even if your goal is just to have a better physique, just to look. You must have a baseline of strength to grow big dense muscles and support your ability to handle heavy enough high rep exercises. If, and when you Wade into the bodybuilding and hypertrophy world, you can't just jump in and start doing hypertrophy in the eight to 12 rep range and hope to gain much muscle mass.
[00:18:40] You have to lift heavy and gain strength. Let's recap, today's episode, we covered a lot of material, but I think it's important to understand deeply that which might become the foundation of your health and fitness for the rest of your life. My goal in this podcast is to help you become a highly educated, informed consumer and practitioner, an independent thinker and beholden to so-called fitness experts.
[00:19:09] Today, we talked about what we mean by strict. From a fitness perspective, why it's critical to the very essence of your health and all fitness attributes and how you can achieve greater strength through resistance training, eating enough food, getting enough protein and sufficient recovery to exploit the stress recovery adaptation model inherent in our biology.
[00:19:35] In our next episode, we'll talk about cardio fat loss and Metabo. Then episode five, we'll discuss how to approach your diet without going on a diet. We'll dive into a lot of the things we discussed here regarding calories and protein at a much deeper level and how you can put it into practice. And in episode six, we talk about developing systems and habits to put your fitness on auto-pay.
[00:20:01] If you have questions for me or topics you'd like to hear on future episodes, just connect with me by email, Instagram or Facebook. All the links are in the episodes. Show notes.
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