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What is strength?
Posted by
Shepard
,
01 February 2008
·
1,022 views
Lately, I've been thinking often on the importance of strength in our modern world. Strength would seem to be quite important at the individual level during our evolution. Obviously not that mandatory as a species since we are fairly weak for our size compared to other species. But, how important is physical strength in the modern world?
These days I'd argue that it's much more important than most people would like to believe. Many intellectually-inclined people have talked about the superiority of the mind over the body and neglect reaching their physical potential. Since we are still a biological system and the body and mind are not seperate entities, I find this line of thought quite flawed.
I am not a strong man. Not even close. I have known strong men (not maximum strength powerlifting men, but the kind of functional strength that comes from a lifetime of manual labor), and what I've seen from them makes me feel even more justified in my opinion. A knew a strong man that developed brain cancer, but continued to live out his life in exactly the same way as he had before until he died. His strength didn't save him, but I'm confident that his physical strength had everything to do with his ability to be useful and be with his family until he died. I'm also confident that the mental strength brought about by hard physical labor kept him sane during those times, as he continued preaching very shortly up to his death.
There are plenty of ways to become strong. The difference between training for strength/performance and training for physique is night and day, however. The training protocols could be similar, but I've found the attitude and the reason for lifting to be such a positive difference that I can't understand why I used to exercise with strictly physique in mind. Being under a bar and not knowing if you'll be able to complete the next rep is a powerful thing. It leaves you with a continuous feeling until the next training session. If you've experienced it, you know what I'm going on about. If you haven't, it's too individual an experience to try to put it into words. This past year of falling in love with barbell training and falling out of love with what the mirror reflects has left me with so many benefits I won't cheapen the experience with listing them. It might be something worth trying.
Now, some strong people:
These days I'd argue that it's much more important than most people would like to believe. Many intellectually-inclined people have talked about the superiority of the mind over the body and neglect reaching their physical potential. Since we are still a biological system and the body and mind are not seperate entities, I find this line of thought quite flawed.
I am not a strong man. Not even close. I have known strong men (not maximum strength powerlifting men, but the kind of functional strength that comes from a lifetime of manual labor), and what I've seen from them makes me feel even more justified in my opinion. A knew a strong man that developed brain cancer, but continued to live out his life in exactly the same way as he had before until he died. His strength didn't save him, but I'm confident that his physical strength had everything to do with his ability to be useful and be with his family until he died. I'm also confident that the mental strength brought about by hard physical labor kept him sane during those times, as he continued preaching very shortly up to his death.
There are plenty of ways to become strong. The difference between training for strength/performance and training for physique is night and day, however. The training protocols could be similar, but I've found the attitude and the reason for lifting to be such a positive difference that I can't understand why I used to exercise with strictly physique in mind. Being under a bar and not knowing if you'll be able to complete the next rep is a powerful thing. It leaves you with a continuous feeling until the next training session. If you've experienced it, you know what I'm going on about. If you haven't, it's too individual an experience to try to put it into words. This past year of falling in love with barbell training and falling out of love with what the mirror reflects has left me with so many benefits I won't cheapen the experience with listing them. It might be something worth trying.
Now, some strong people:
Anyway, for once in my life I am going for the physique angle, as it presents a different challenge.