Time to stop resisting resistance training
QWhy do you always suggest strength training? Is it because you’re a man who enjoys being buff and not a woman who’s happy doing yoga and going for a run?
AI presume you remember the interview in April 2010 where no-one wanted to be touched on their studio? I’m honoured that almost every Water Cooler has managed to massage you on yours.
If you are happy doing yoga and going for a run, then do yoga and go for a run. It will continue to be of enormous benefit to you. If you ask me what a rounded fitness and exercise regimen should look like, you will always get: strength (preferably weight) training, cardiovascular exercise, mobility and flexibility, prehab (yes, that’s the word) and potentially rehab movements.
Yes, I am a man. I did a quick Google search to see what “buff” actually means. Let’s address that. I fundamentally believe that form should follow function and that movement patterns and characteristics such as strength, power and endurance should be the goal.
Yes, weight training is central — but not the only factor — in building large and, in some instances, oversized muscles. This is not what we are talking about when we discuss strength training. In fact, it’s the opposite.
Throughout the years I have witnessed many women resist the concept of weights, and then seen how their lives changed when they did it properly. But, don’t take my word for it.
Zing Tseng, a journalist and author of the Forgotten Women book series, wrote this in The Guardian a few weeks ago: “I have grown two hard lumps on my arms. They are deltoids, apparently. I have never been remotely aware of having deltoids before — I always assumed my shoulders simply elongated into a formless mass of flesh that eventually gave way to the rest of my limbs. But now I have deltoids.”
After referencing the Ozempic craze — that’s where people who aren’t type-2 diabetics buy up all doses of the drug to lose weight while threatening the health of those who actually need the injections — she writes: “Weightlifting allowed me to reach into the recesses of my 2000spoisoned mind — the decade that made me believe that protruding clavicles were the height of red-hot sexiness — and gently rearrange everything. Not enough to stop me from looking at weighing scales with the tender longing and repulsion of an ex-lover, but just enough to make me rethink my relationship with my body: that it isn’t about what it looks like on the outside, but what it can do.”
She references being able to carry things, unpack heavy suitcases from high places, jump over fences to chase her dog, and much more. But she also references peer-reviewed science showing resistance training is associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer.
Perhaps you need more? Here are more benefits of weight training, not spewed by gym bros, but written by scientists who need to withstand the critique of their peers: improved metabolism, strengthening of the bones to reduce the risk of osteoporosis, improved mood, reduced anxiety and depression, enhanced sleep quality and a healthier hormonal environment.
Suggesting that people take up weight training, or another type of resistance training if they really don’t like dumbbells or barbells, has nothing to do with gender, nor a like or dislike for buff bodies. It’s about making suggestions that are good for the body and mind.
Not all weight and strength training is equal, though. There are so many bad habits and fruitless exercises being repeated daily in gyms where the average person has no clue what to do and just mimics other clueless people around them. This is not likely to happen at a respectable, smaller facility where the business model is coaching and not memberships.
If you’re a member of one of the beautiful commercial gyms, go to their information board and find qualified trainers and biokineticists. Invest in learning how to incorporate strength training into your regimen in a way that’s suited and tailored to your body and needs.
It won’t replace downward dog and crow pose. On the contrary, the two disciplines, when done properly, will benefit each other tremendously.