Strength Training

Strength is the foundation of a long, healthy life.¹

• Muscle mass is critical to maintaining metabolic health.
• You lose muscle as you age² (sarcopenia) so the stronger you are now the better off you will be in the future.
• Resistance training is the best way to increase, or at least maintain, bone mineral density which prevents bone loss as you age (osteopenia & osteoporosis).
• Fast-twitch muscles help you maintain balance and let you catch yourself instead of falling. These muscle fibers are stimulated by explosive movement.

Muscles grow over time through consistent application of sufficient training stimulus. Training stimulus for strength is basically:

• Movement: The exercises you perform.
  • Area of activation: Which muscles are engaged.
  • Range of motion: How far you move when performing the exercise.
  • Technique: Your proficiency at maximizing the benefit while minimize the risk of injury for a given movement.
• Work: How much effort you apply to the movement over time.
  • Resistance: How much tension you apply to the movement.
  • Time under tension: How long you perform the movement during a training session.

How do you translate a conceptual understanding of muscle development into a workout routine?

If you care about why and how strength training works you’ll need to do some more reading. Start with The Complete Strength Training Guide by Greg Nuckols. It weighs in at 54 pages and is a better, more concise resource than most books on the subject. Another commonly recommended introductory text is Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe. Social media content, even by “evidence-based” creators, varies widely in quality and efficacy but Jeff Nippard’s technique and training videos are a reliable source of good information. The Stronger by Science podcast is a fantastic resource but the episodes can be pretty long (brevity is not a core part of the Stronger by Science brand).

If you don’t want to start by reading a book, the fundamental concepts of training strength are:

• Consistency: Goals are achieved in days and years. Do what you need to do every day—even if it’s resting—and the results will build up over time.
• Progressive overload: You must increase the amount of work³ you perform in your training to get better over time. Increase work by increasing weight, repetitions, speed, or a combination of thereof.
• Adapt to your needs: YOU are responsible for avoiding injury and continue improving by finding the right balance of training stimulus and recovery that works for YOU.

There is no such thing as “accidental” muscle. You must work hard, and keep at it, to get stronger. If you stop, you will waste away.

Programming

It doesn’t make sense to invest enough time to gain the expertise required to develop your own training plans before you get started. Use a beginner-friendly training plan and learn what works for you as you progress.

• I started with Stronglifts 5×5 and added accessory work⁴ as needed.
• If moving a standard Olympic barbell (20kg/~45lb) is challenging for you, start with Couch to Barbell by Casey Johnston of Ask a Sowle Woman & She’s a Beast fame.
• I have purchased several programs from Meghan Callaway Fitness for both specific results and general fitness; they are very good (don’t ask me about my adherence).⁵
• The Boostcamp app comes with a lot of popular strength programs preloaded; the one by Greg Nuckols looks especially promising.

Find Your Direction

There’s no “best” way to exercise because fitness goals vary from person to person and each body responds differently to training. You must discern why you are training and find the right resources and support to ensure your continued success. Along the way, you will need to try different things, take notes on your progress, and make adjustments over time.

If you’re an athlete, train for performance and injury prevention in your sport. If you’re not an athlete, consider training for the Centenarian Decathlon™ to have the strength, stability, and endurance for a long healthy life.

In broad strokes, you need to lift things that are heavy enough to tax your system without injuring yourself. The particular details are legion:

• How much training load do you have time for?
  • How much training load can you tolerate before accumulated stress puts you at risk of injury?
  • How much endurance training are you balancing with your strength training?
• How can you vary your training to improve your performance?
  • How much rest time between sets is beneficial for you?
  • Do you respond better to low rep, high weight sets or high rep, low weight sets? What about with blood flow restriction?
  • Are you making gains on strict sets (e.g. 5×7, 3×10) or do you see a benefit using drop sets or reverse pyramid sets?
  • Are you making progress with a simple liner progression or do you need to incorporate periodization in your training cycles?
  • How often do you need a deload week?
• How does pre and post workout nutrition effect your performance and recovery?

You don’t need answers for all these questions—they’re examples. As you progress, you will need enough knowledge to critically evaluate the questions that are important to you, the programs you select, and the advice you listen to. The extent of your education is up to you.

If you want enough in-depth knowledge to build training routines yourself, Practical Programming for Strength Training, browsing ExRx.net (now, with paywall!), or a good exercise physiology textbook can help. The MASS Research Review makes exercise science findings more accessible than reading and interpreting the journal articles themselves.⁶ Using social media for fitness advice is unwise. It’s too easy to lose focus on building a foundation of excellence by getting the basics right (which really aren’t that complicated) when there’s so much noise about little things that don’t matter much.

There’s an over abundance of information available strewn across the Internet and (sometimes) GenAI can help you sort it out. For example, I got what seemed like a perfectly good response from ChatGPT with this prompt:

What would a bench press workout look like using reverse pyramid sets for a 1RM of 185 and a three rep target for the first working set?

It calculated the set weights correctly and suggested a sensible progression but recommended a total volume that was too high. “Junk volume” is when additional sets and reps offer diminishing returns for strength gains. Avoid junk volume because it will impact your ability to recover and increase risk of injury without a clear training benefit.

Stay on the Path

You must train long enough to see a difference before you reevaluate your training plan and adjust as necessary—every 12 weeks is about right. Progress takes time; don’t fall prey to fuckatounditis and hop from program to program without a clear direction or record of your progress.⁷

Equipment

Effective strength training requires enough resistance for progressive overload. This is usually accomplished by moving heavy things. Weight training equipment commonly includes:

• Barbells: Best for heavy, multi-joint compound movements
• Dumbbells: Compact & versatile but limited by grip strength
• Kettlebells: Best for dynamic movements
• Weight machines: Best for training muscles in isolation

Not having the “right” equipment does not prevent you from training. You can make gains with bodyweight movements, a handful of exercise bands, and jugs of water. Training at an elite level does require specialized equipment but you’re probably better off finding a specialized gym than buying it all yourself.

You can learn a lot about a gym from its equipment choices; if they only have weight machines and cardio equipment go somewhere else.

Buying fitness equipment is a slippery slope. Just because you have something in your home doesn’t mean you will use it.⁸ You can get a lot of mileage out of:

• A kettlebell or two. I get a lot of use out of a good, 1 pood⁹ (35lb) kettlebell for “exercise snacks” during the workday.
• A pair of adjustable dumbbells. I bought a set of Ironmaster adjustable dumbbells ahead of the COVID-19 pandemic to be the foundation of a home gym. They are great quality and spectacularly solid. There are other dumbbells on the market that adjust faster but I haven’t found any I can recommend without reservations.
• A pull-up bar. The kind that fits in a door frame is fine.
• A set of exercise bands. elitefts makes some nice ones, as does Rogue.

Everything else is a bonus.

Safety

Lifting and moving heavy things is perfectly safe if and only if you:

• Have the mobility, stability, and the knowledge to move with good technique.
  • Understand how and when to brace yourself for movement patterns that require it.
• Use loads that you can successfully complete with proper form.
• Always use safety equipment—barbell clips, spotter arms, etc.
  • Know how to safely bail lifts if you get stuck (for exercises where this is possible).
• Don’t lift alone; accidents can happen and you may need assistance from someone else.