Consistent Strength Defeats All

This is what 15 years of training looks like. The focus has always been on becoming stronger. Obviously, her outcome is superior to every person whose stated goal is “weight loss.” When your sole intent in training is to become more athletic, to become better, to fight for every single ounce of muscle gain humanly possible, you will BE better. As a side benefit, you will look better. When your sole intent in fitness is to lose weight, generally you achieve neither weight loss nor any health and fitness improvements at the 15-year-later mark. There are substantive reasons for this which have to do with mindset, correct thinking, physiological mechanisms, and biochemical laws.

I met Tiffany (@deadlifts.dogs.donuts) early on in my career, circa 04/05. I’ve worked with her a few times. One of my peers coached her intently at one point. She and I were running the math yesterday, and figured she’s netted about 25lbs of lean tissue increase in those 15ish years.

When you’ve worked in the fitness industry for some two decades, you just meet tens of thousands of all kinds of great people. And you get to see truly what works and what doesn’t in the long haul. Notice she “aged” 15 years only to improve, progress, become better. The average American in that same period LOST 15-25lbs of muscle, tendon, ligament, and bone density, while GAINING 15-25lbs of fat. Really dwell on this point. The average person loses 1lb of healthy tissue per year after age 25, and they replace it with 1-2lbs of fat. Strength made her better. Average thinking made people 30-50lbs worse. That’s a 55-75lb disparity.

There’s a lot more that could be said here. But I want to simply reflect on consistent strengthening. Nothing is ever going to change the fact that heavy progressive lifting and protein sufficiency produces improvement. No wishful thinking will change this law of physics. No hoped for magical 30 day detox will make it untrue.

No walking, jogging, yoga, dance, cardio, or other common/popular default is going to create an uncommon outcome. Westerners are losing lean tissue every year. That is the rule. Each loss slows metabolism and makes you fatter. So you are going to have to embrace the uncommon behaviors to fight the common trends.

Consistent strength defeats all.