Strength: Reflections from the barbell

Recently during a conversation about the rampant popularity of CrossFit (if you’re not familiar visit http://crossfit.com/) someone asked me, “why she would ever need to be that strong?”

As a strength coach and athlete the question caught me off guard.  I live my life driven by a desire and passion to get stronger. The concept of strength is woven deeply into my value system, my approach to training clients, and my daily life.

“Because it’s why we train, you can always get stronger…” I managed to respond unconvincingly. 

Her question has got me thinking a lot. Thinking about what strength means, why we strive for it and how strength training is a deeply personal way to understand and feel good in your body. It is also a very emotional process.

First let’s look at the practical physical reasons why strength training is a good idea:

1. The more lean mass you have on your body, the longer you’ll live. AND the less likely you are to contract: diabetes, heart disease, stroke, osteoporosis, arthritis etc.
2. Strength is recognized as a main predictor of lifespan (see above)
3. Strength training provides a shot of the hormones that will boost your resting metabolic rate, meaning your body becomes a more efficient machine and you get to eat more.
4. Strength training not only builds muscle, but also strengthens bones and connective tissue and wards off inflammation that is linked to greater disease risk such as autoimmune disease and diabetes. 

It’s clear there are very tangible benefits to strength training, but what other aspects of our lives might be improved by hitting the gym?

I’m interested in talking about the intangible benefits of our workouts.  

The barbell has taught me a lot of lessons: the importance of humility, how to safely push my limits, how to celebrate my progress.  Most importantly, challenging my body has taught me to understand how my physical and emotional states are deeply intertwined.

Emotion and the weight room may seem opposed at first, but when we begin to explore the relationship between strength and feeling good, an obvious connection takes shape.

Training is a healing process.  Yes, you can strengthen that pesky VMO muscle and alleviate your chronic knee pain, but strength training is also a deeply personal, emotional tool for healing more than just your body.  

It’s not about punishment and it’s not about pain. Yes it will be hard, yes you will sweat. Yes you will occasionally want to yell expletives and curse the bar for refusing to move how you want. But ultimately, you will find the strength inside. Not just the final push of a deep heavy squat that leaves you smiling like a maniac, but deep internal strength that is rarely accessed in daily life. 

Fitness myths I would like to see permanently put to rest

So, as a "health and fitness professional" I get asked a lot of questions regarding health and fitness. A lot of these questions come from well-intentioned curiosity and a lot of these questions are a by-product of the relentless stream of "health-fat-loss-fitness-toning-trouble-spots-low-carb-bootcamp-Jillian-Michaels"nonsense that constantly bombards us on TV, in magazines, and on the interweb. 

"My Nike Trainer app tells me I should be doing 20-30 reps of everything?"

"If I lift heavy weights, I'll bulk up and look like Arnold in the 70s."

"Cardio and salad are the best way to get ready for summer."

"Really, it's the healthiest diet I've ever been on. I only eat things from a straw." (http://jezebel.com/5895782/the-horrible-new-diet-that-totally-stinks)

Sound familiar?

Here are the top fitness myths I would like to see die, forever.

1. Women should not lift weights heavier than 12 pounds. Further, women should abstain from: deadlifts, Olympic lifts, barbell squats, bench pressing etc.

This is the biggest crock ever. 

Reasons why weight training is in everyone's (but especially women's) best interest:

• According to Tufts University, the two leading predictors of lifespan are:

How much lean body mass you maintain over the course of your lifetime.

How strong you are.

• The more muscle you have, the more calories you burn at rest. It is estimated that for every pound of muscle you gain you burn an extra 50 calories a day. People that means you get to EAT MORE.

• Weight training improves insulin sensitivity. Let me break that down for you: the food (blood sugar) you ingest can be stored either in your liver and muscles as glycogen or creep into fat cells increasing their fattiness and size significantly. Fat cells have a pretty much limitless capacity to keep growing. If you weight train hard enough and frequently enough blood sugar is required in your muscle cells to recover from all the activity you have performed. Your body will become more efficient at utilising the food you consume, you will loose fat. It’s simple really. Running won't give you the same hormonal response. 

2. Cardio is the best way to lose fat. In fact, running gets you fit.

Yours truly, stepping up to the bar.

• Lies, lies, lies.
• To paraphrase Charles Poliquin, "Humans are meant to either sprint or walk long distances."
• In my experience, running gets you: injured, complacent, and weak. But don't take my word for it. Start any marathon training program you find online with no resistance training and see how you feel in a month. 
• Furthermore, Less Muscle = Lower Metabolism.

3. If you fall of the wagon of your (no-carb, no sugar, no solid food, all grapefruit) super restrictive diet, you are a bad person and your body is broken.

• Health is about balance. The fat loss you're so desperately after will never come if you spend more time stressing and punishing yourself over a minor weekend nutrition slip than taking time to understand that finding your own personal feeling of balance and wellness is extremely important.



Don't fear the barbell.

• Being good to yourself, and this includes having compassion for yourself, is the first step towards health.

4. But I want to lengthen and tone my muscles, not bulk up. 


All genders are guilty of this irrational fear mongering. When people tell me they want to "tone or lengthen" I sigh internally and try to explain what they're looking for is fat loss, not toning. Strong and lean = healthy, functional and less disease prone. 

• The best way to get lean is to get strong. And we do that by lifting weights. Properly, with respect for the generations of strength coaches and athletes that came before us.

What is fitness?

What is fitness?

This question has received more attention from mainstream media of late than it ever has in recent memory. Fitness is most often associated with aesthetics, "it's what you look like" I can hear many of you thinking. "Ripped abs, defined arms, toned legs" are just some of the phrases that come to mine when someone asks earnestly what we really mean when we talk about fitness.

While in reality fitness has very little to do with what you look like and very much to do with what you can accomplish Physical fitness is defined as "a set of attributes that people have or achieve that relates to the ability to perform physical activity" (USDHHS, 1996)

These attributes are:

• cardiovascular capacity
• muscular endurance (ability of muscle to exert force over time)
• muscular strength (ability of muscle to exert force)
• flexibility (range of motion around a joint)
• body composition (percentage of lean mass to fat mass)

These five components have everything to do with what one can achieve with their body.  Fitness, to me, is the ability to achieve whatever you need/want/desire with your body and to feel grounded, strong and empowered in your body while doing so. 

I want to run faster, lift more, feel stronger and stay happy and injury free. 

Not all fitness goals are aesthetic and not all aesthetic goals (i.e. toning your thighs) are fitness related. 

For a realistic idea of fitness and the beautiful variety of athletic body types take a look at these Olympic athletes who challenge common held ideas of "fit bodies" 

http://ninamatsumoto.wordpress.com/2010/12/18/athletic-body-diversity-reference-for-artists/#

What does fitness mean to you? And how can I help you achieve your personal definition of fitness?

new kicks, new motivation

Ever since I was a kid I've had a thing for sneakers. Athletic running shoes. Kicks. Whatever you wanna call them I love them, which is convenient because I also tend to wear them out within 3-5 months of purchasing. Yesterday I indulged myself with a new pair for general training and sprinting.

Adidas Marathon 10. Old school style, but light weight and supported. So excited to try these out with a rope climb!

Muscle Ups at 300 frames/second

We all need a role model.

Disclaimer: chose your own soundtrack unless 90s instrumental adult contemporary is your thing.

http://www.sicfit.com/video/502723