Lifting Myths
Hi, I’m Matt Bear. I am hoping to help dispel any myths that may be floating around regarding traditional strength training and the dangers that may be involved. Strength training, for our purposes, is a select few exercises which are performed with a barbell for the purpose of gaining strength. The weight used will increase at a slow, safe, and consistent rate. The exercises will be performed with a weight that is challenging to lift for only a few reps, while maintaining proper form.
The squat, deadlift, and bench press are sometimes said to be dangerous exercises. Performing these exercises with proper form is not dangerous. Performing them improperly is dangerous. In the same light, performing any exercise improperly is dangerous. Going for a run (the most harmless and most common form of exercise) with a bad stride can lead to a very unhappy set of knees, and sometimes tendonitis or a torn meniscus. Just getting out of bed is a quite risky endeavor; but, in the long run you are better off if you get up. Everything in life has a balance of risk to reward. It is smart to do the things with a lower risk to reward ratio. Strength training is definitely high reward. A poorly executed exercise is always a risk. But you are at a similar risk when you do those same movements poorly in everyday life. Any time you pick something up off of the floor, you are replicating either a squat or a deadlift. If you pick up your laundry basket with a bad spine position, over time you will eventually do what we all have seen others do; throw out your back doing a harmless everyday task. Reaching up to put a box in the attic will be less precarious if you have trained the overhead press or even the flat bench press. Not one of us wants to drop the Christmas decorations on our head and fall down the attic stairs.
Let’s just stop these unnecessary injuries before they become a problem. In order to prevent them from happening, we will learn how to properly perform these natural human movements with a barbell from just 3 workouts per week. If you can get to the gym 3 days a week, you will be golden. I like Monday, Wednesday and Friday or Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. This gives us a full day to recover between workouts. This gives us consistency which is a key component of safety. If you can deadlift 225 lbs with proper form, you can rest assured that your laundry basket probably won’t put you out of work for a week. The end goal is to make everyday life easier by controlling what is difficult. We cannot control the hardballs that life throws at us, but we can train for when they come. If the most physically demanding part of your day comes as a surprise, it can be devastating. If the most physically demanding part of your day was your gym session which you had control over, the other things become far easier, and your body becomes more durable. Bone, tendon, and ligament tissue all can become stronger through training, just like muscle. But, is this life of being in control and feeling empowered worth it if you have to be a big bulky muscle freak? Not everyone wants to be packed with muscle. I assure you; this is not a concern. I’ll explain why.
There are quite a few of us that grew up hearing that lifting heavy weights for a few reps will give you huge muscles and that lifting light weights for many reps, will build strength through time. We can leave this idea behind. The human body makes changes through a process involving stress, recovery, and adaptation. The stress breaks the body down, the body repairs itself and adapts so that the stress is more manageable next time. The type of stress will predict the type of adaptation. If the stress is not long in duration but is extreme, then fast twitch muscle fibers will primarily be used to do the work and it will be done quickly. These muscle fibers are more likely to grow than slow twitch fibers which are used in long duration exercise such as running or biking.
[So, lifting extremely light weight for lots of reps will not result in gaining strength or much increase in muscle size. This type of exercise is perfect if someone is wanting to burn some calories and get active. Extremely light weight can also be used with very slow reps for muscle therapy and recovery from muscle, joint, and tendon injury. But this type of training will not result in noticeable strength gain.]
Lifting heavy weight is also the most effective way to build muscle size. So, does this mean that we have come full circle, and strength training will make you look like a bodybuilder? No. And this is because in order to gain strength, the weight will be heavy enough that no more than 5 reps are being performed in a set. Sometimes as few as 1-3 reps are performed in a set. The stress is a lot but does not last long. In order to build size, the muscle must be under the stress for a longer period of time. The type of stress that builds size, is called hypertrophy. Hypertrophy is achieved by lifting “fairly” heavy weight (heavy enough that the muscle is sufficiently broken down), for more repetitions (more like 8-12 instead of 3-5). When the muscle is under stress for a longer time, the body forces blood to the effected area in a higher quantity. This means that at the beginning of the healing prosses, the blood-filled muscle is bloated and physically larger. This causes the muscle to heal larger. Enough of this type of training will lead to the muscle becoming noticeably larger. This process doesn’t work as well with extremely light weight because the light weight isn’t enough to actually break down much muscle. So, the muscle fills with blood because of fatigue but since the muscle doesn’t need to heal much, it doesn’t get bigger. On the flipside, strength training (heavy weight for low reps) provides plenty of muscle break down but does not stimulate as much blood flow, and therefore does not cause the muscle to bloat or lead to a huge increase in muscle size over time.
In conclusion, strength training is not dangerous when performed well and won’t take a lot of time out of your schedule. It will help to make you safer when doing everyday tasks. Heavy lifting will not make you massive, but it can be paired with hypertrophy training for those who wish to be big and strong. Essentially, you can train very specifically based on your goals. If your goal is to be strong and have a durable and resilient body, this can be achieved safely with heavy weight training. Aspire to be always improving yourself. Nothing is more empowering than discovering what strength you are capable of.
I hope this was helpful. If you are interested in strength training or have any questions, please feel free to message me through the “contact us” page of my website. If you enjoyed this post or found it informative, feel free to share it.
We can only be proud of what we have worked for.
Until next time, this is Matt Bear, signing off.