My journey in the strength world spans over 15 years, allowing me to reflect deeply on the significance of strength. I’ve encountered numerous clients who initially prioritized other fitness aspects over strength, often hiring personal trainers like me with strength as an afterthought.
It’s all about fat loss or muscle gain.
However, when clients learn that strength is the steam that drives this train, most realize the importance of strength, but only when it is framed within their vanity goals. All that work has to look good while flexing. Nothing is wrong with that, but most people who hit the gym don’t go purely for strength’s sake.
It’s either to improve vanity goals, performance, and #flexfriday appeal.
So, why does building strength matter besides the obvious? Let’s dive in and find out.
First, A Strength Story
During my high school and early college years, I was the dude who got sand kicked in his face at the beach. Not only that, but I was also relentlessly bullied throughout my high school years. Being skinny and lacking self-confidence, I was a target for it.
My pity party is to point out all this stopped when I hit the gym.
Strangers in bars and clubs no longer tried to bump into me deliberately to establish their dominance. People moved out of my way when walking down the sidewalk, and my siblings began to notice how others treated me with more respect.
Besides not constantly looking over my shoulder, my confidence improved, which bled over into other areas of my life.
That’s what strength did for me.
But they were newbie gains, which became more difficult to obtain once I got older, but the stage was set, and I was hooked.
4 Reasons Why Strength Matters
There are many ways and methods to build physical strength, and they all have one thing in common. They are all hard and will push you out of your comfort zone. So, if you’re prepared to put in some sweat equity, here are four reasons why strength matters.
The Obvious
If you know me, I like to state the obvious, so let’s start there. Improving strength will make fat loss and muscle goals easier because you’re improving your physical capacity to do more work. Disrupting the homeostasis (balance) within your body is critical to improving both because if you give your body no reason to change, it will not.
Getting stronger is a game changer because building it will not only enhance vanity goals but also put more gas in your tank for future efforts. It’s a perpetuating cycle of the good kind.
Building strength will improve bone strength through Wolffs’ Law and strengthen the connective tissue surrounding your joints, improving joint health and reducing injury risk. Let’s face it: doing more fun stuff and reducing your chances of getting hurt, who wouldn’t want that?
Strength Will Surprise People
Isn’t it fun when people underestimate what you are capable of?
The thing about strength is that you don’t have to be big and muscular to be strong because they are two different qualities, but it does help. Time and time again, my female clients tell me how their workmates told them to wait for a man to pick up something heavy, and they did it themselves and surprised their workmates.
Coaches can extol the benefits of strength. Still, until the client experiences it, they are not the only ones surprised when they realize what they’re capable of.
Strength Will Improve Confidence
Confidence is a feeling of self-assurance arising from one’s appreciation of one’s abilities or qualities. Picking up and putting down heavy things in the gym creates the self-belief that you can do it again and again. You believe in your abilities within the gym confines, and that pride swells within you because you can do the hard things.
While most other people are sitting on the couch watching Netflix.
The confidence to stand up straight and walk taller because you feel stronger and can do challenging stuff. How can that not positively affect other areas of your life? Making your life temporarily uncomfortable in the gym will help you stand up straighter when life’s winds blow directly at your face.
Self-confidence is an underestimated benefit of getting stronger.
It’s About Quality
Let’s face it: we are not getting any younger. Reaching milestones like 40, 50, and 60 comes with some age-related decline because it just gets harder to bounce back like when you were young.
We are living longer because of drugs on the market that help extend our lives and advances in medicine. But what good is living longer if you can’t do anything? At a certain point, in my opinion, the quality of your life matters more than the quantity of your life.
Strength training improves brain health, but studies have also linked it to increased health-related quality of life, defined as a person’s perceived physical and mental health. Being sharp mentally and physically as we age will improve the quality and quantity of your life.
Wrapping Up
Hopefully, I’ve answered that strength matters outside vanity and performance benefits. A small time investment in picking and putting down heavy things has a massive payoff. If you’re interested in getting stronger, I am your man.
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