Simply Strong

A regular practice of strength training isn’t difficult.

A life of weakness where one has allowed fitness and strength to deteriorate is difficult.

It could be a simple 5-20 minutes without equipment. It could be weight lifting for frail 96-year-olds: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/2342214/. These frail 90-somethings had 50% speed improvements in walking. They had strength and balance improvements, with just a simple 8 week lifting program.

We overcomplicate things, thinking we need 2 hours of strenuous depletion to get anywhere. We buy into the aging mythologies, the victim narratives, the “can’t” word choice. We obsess over scales. We hand over this prudent activity to “fanatics” alone. And as a consequence we opt to do little or nothing at all.

Strengthening keeps you capable. Lack of strengthening ensures you become incapable.

Lifting doesn’t have to be overwhelming. It just has to be. Without it, we find that organs, the brain, and the skeleton will deteriorate.
Improving strength is for all. It doesn’t belong to bodybuilders and athletes alone. It’s not flagrant exhibitionism. It’s conservative life insurance.

Fitness, strictly defined, is capacity. It’s not looks. Don’t let capacity get handed over to superficiality. Capacity isn’t superficial. Training capacity isn’t superfluous. It’s as or more important than saving for retirement, choosing the right health insurance coverage, and putting in the effort for your career. All of those actions we take with the well-founded belief there will be a future return on investment, which, in turn, gives us the capacity to do other things.

Somehow, basic maintenance of our temple has become de-prioritized such that it’s bookended as excessive leisure, despite the fact that “busy” people spend 10-20 times more time on entertainment. If we were to take just 2% of the time we spend on watching shows, games, etc., and allocate it toward a practice of strengthening, we could make a substantial impact on the health crisis in the developed world.

But we have to start with disabusing everyone of the false belief that strengthening is difficult or impossible or “for those types of people”. Strength is a skill. Practice however you can. That’s it. Really.
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Take one minute for some bridges and squats. If the motivation strikes you, learn deadlift. Practice. That’s it. Keep it simple. Be consistent. Don’t get weak. Get less weak. That’s it. Really.