Photo by Vicky Sim on Unsplash
Itâs pretty normal in our culture to associate cardiovascular fitness with the unadorned word âfitnessâ. When you think of âfitâ people, theyâre probably jogging on the beach, proud 5K or marathon runners, or maybe they just hit the treadmill every day.
But strength, ah, when people think of strength they think of the big, dumb bruiser drinking protein shakes, as in an infamous Planet Fitness commercial. And to make matters worse, as a culture we only seem to applaud people who are strong if they gained that strength without a gym. People talk about âold man strengthâ or âdad strengthâ, noting that âso and so got strong as a pipe fitterâ or âall their strength comes from growing up on a farm.â
So I wanted to take some time to talk about thisâŚ
Why Does It Matter?
The stronger you are, the less likely you are to die for any reason.
Low muscular strength seems to be a factor for depression, but the very act of strength training can reduce symptoms of depression, as well as symptoms of anxiety.
Being strong helps to maintain and even improve muscle and mobility and bone density as you age.
Strength training reduces cardiovascular risk factors just as much as endurance training.
With this in mind, itâs safe to assume that strength training is medicine.
Recommendations
What ever you do, donât just go for a run and consider yourself fit. Itâs not enough. If you want to live a full, disease free life, able to move well as you age, youâll want to incorporate strength training!
If you already have a workout routine focused around cardio, try replacing one or two days a week with heavy conditioning. Youâll be adding in some basic strength work to your existing cardio, getting the best of both worlds. Do this if you have a routine and want to mix in some strength work without disrupting it too much.
If you donât yet have a routine and want to just try some strength training, then the 20 Minute Strength routine might be for you - itâs simple, focuses on 1-2 things each day, a few days a week, and allows for experimentation to discover what encourages you to keep training. Do this if you want to work on strength training exclusively for a bit and self experiment.
But if you need something more comprehensive, the Daily 15 program runs 6 days a week for 15 minutes each day, covering slightly different styles of training each day - absolute strength, relative strength, and heavy conditioning. Do this if you want an all around program that covers all your bases without a lot of time spent each day.
So how do you incorporate strength work into your training?
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