THE STRENGTH PILL
This short article aims to present the reader with a convincing argument to find their “why” when it comes to training.
Strength is the ability to produce muscular force against an external resistance.
When approached this way, it should be fairly obvious that strength is a pretty fundamental aspect of our lives, not existing only in the exercise world vacuum.
If you stop and think about all the activities in your daily life that require the production of muscular force, it’ll be hard to find one that doesn't. Carrying groceries, moving furniture, lifting your kid, playing sports, getting up off a couch, running after a bus.
Even when analyzing the different stages of life, the main differentiator is physical strength. A baby is fragile because he is physically smaller and weaker than its adult counterparts and he can easily get hurt because of that. An adult in their eight decade of life might be described the same way. A woman’s experience with their first pregancy can be quite different if they are physically strong compared to if they are not. Physical strength is the common denominator of all human physical abilities, because we exist in a world dictated by physical and biological laws.
Our musculo-skeletal and nervous system have evolved to interact efficiently with our environment. Standing, walking, sprinting, jumping, climbing, pushing, pulling, holding, kicking, punching – all these common human actions are executed or improved by manipulating physical strength levels.
To paraphrase Mark Rippetoe, these are basically caveman activities - but we don’t live in caves anymore. Most of us live physically comfortable lives, where most of the stress comes in psychological or emotional form. But it is difficult to separate mind and body, so in a sense, the physical stress is there regardless of our involvement in the physical world.
Although humans have sociologically and intellectually evolved, our physical nature is not much different from that of our cavemen ancestors – it therefore requires and responds to the same type of stimuli in order to be improved or maintained.
Strength is a physical requirement for high quality existance on this planet as a human being, whether you believe it to be or not.
Or to put it in a less harsh tone: physical strength is like money. You can believe money doesn’t buy happiness, that it incentivizes corruption or that bartering is a more efficient way to exchange value. But it is the world you live in, and you need it to survive whether you want to or not. So, like all other humans, you work to try and make more money, and you try to save it, because it will help you live a longer better life.
Strength works the same way, it’s like putting money in the bank.
The goal is not to have money for its own sake, it’s what you can do with it.
The goal is not to gain strength for its own sake, it’s what you can do with it.
We would all take an extra million dollars if we could, right?
And I’m pretty sure if I offered you 5 or 10 or 15 years of strength gains in a pill, you would take it.
Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a strength pill - not the one that I described at least - but you can get those same results by putting in the work and training. It is completely in your control to get as much of it as you can during your lifetime. And remember, the same way that money loses value over time, strength also decreases with aging. You resist inflation or economic crises by making or saving more money - you resist aging and physical challenges by getting stronger.