Shades of Strength
Navigating through the nuances of the concept of strength (my thoughts). Includes movement video.
NOTES:
Hey class, welcome to another session. I hope you brought a bag for learning, and another for possible (most likely) confusion. I have been processing this concept (strength) for many years in my head. I have been working with it, training for it, helping people get more of it, and learning how to maintain it. And yet, while I present this post in front of you with the intention to impart (at least some) knowledge, I still don't get the concept entirely.
What you will be reading today is an attempt to make sense of it while trying to take you through some of the nuances of strength. Meaning that you may end up with questions instead of answers, or with an intellectual argument, which is good. I like the idea that an instructor doesn't need to know it all. This is an invitation to converse!
I have been reading a book titled The Raw and the Cooked: Adventures of a Roving Gourmand by Jim Harrison (which I keep bringing up because it has me so excited about food, cooking, writing, and moving in nature). Since I’ve been reading it, I’ve been making a lot of bread, using more garlic than before, and learning to appreciate wine, but the book, as I have written and said before, has a lot to teach about fitness and wellness.
I perceive Harrison’s writing as an intellectual but colloquial conversation, which goes through different slopes and tangents, only to add more sense to what is being said. Prose at its full potential. He was a mad scientist and enlightened artist of the written word, who (so far from what I’ve read from him) constantly tripped between timelines and stories. I try to emulate his style, as I find it a fascinating way to explore today’s topic. I hope you can read it well.
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So, strength!
Strength is a ubiquitous term that runs in all walks of life. We “regain” our strength when we recover from illness or injury, or when depression and anxiety take a break. We “get stronger" as we grow up, and healthy foods “gives” us strength as well. It is said that a person who doesn't budge so easily “has a strong character”, and many women confess to like the look of “strong arms” in men. And when we are facing a hard time, we are told to "summon our inner strength".
Strength is like the soul of most fitness and wellness belief systems (religions and politics doesn't stay that far behind), and we can't move without it. We need it, period! For sure there is a scientific definition. Something like “the capacity to produce force”, etc.
When I started as a trainer, and back in university, I felt confused by that definition. There was a void between what was being explained and my balding head. The professor would say something like, “Juan, did you get it this time?” and I’d be like “Yeah, yeah!” but in reality, I was still confused. I place the concept of strength in the file if things that while are defined in absolute terms by almost everybody, there are still some shades of it that hold some kind of mystery.
Strength is mostly explained in a very technical and numerical way. They never leave space to explain how it (strength) manifests within us at different moments, places, and situations - without measurement, and spontaneously. What we generally get is a nuance-less definition.
My confusion (I like to believe, for purposes or mental health preservation) doesn’t come from not knowing the definitions and how to train it, but more from, where does it come from, what to use it for, how much do we need, and when, and where?
You see, the socially accepted notion that if muscles are somehow visible and big, toned and lean (not skinny or flaccid) then it is said that a person is strong, doesn’t convince me.
Culturally speaking, between our civilized fitness performance impositions, and our evolutionary hunter gatherer efficient movement needs, the idea of strength changes. Even in academic areas the concept is still being argued. And philosophically speaking, only a few have dared to question the premise, because “Who the hell improves strength functionality by thinking? Thoughts don't burn activate fibers and pump muscle?”
The idea of strength gets foggier when people start throwing in moral and social values into the already muscled definition. However, I’ll add a few more scoops of confusion by asking the following. Can people who don’t look strong be strong? And how does that even look?
I see strength as a manifestation of our entire being (embodied) in all of its aspects under given conditions that require such a capacity, in different ways. Looks have nothing to do with capacity, and to a certain extent not even body shape, muscle size, or numbers in a log. Capacity of strength on the other hand is not only about how much a muscle can endure under training or assessment.
When I discovered my powers just for a few minutes
When I was a kid my friends and I used to break into a community center to get into the pool and play. The clear blue water (sometimes turning green) was so tempting under the hot all-year summer sun that lights the Caribbean, that fences were no match for us. Keep in mind this was a private place, so…
One day the cops came, and I discovered that I was more capable of high intense physical activity and strength than I thought. I was able to jump a ten feet wall that led to a cemetery and to our “great escape”; only to be caught anyway. Whatever! The point is that I was able to go through grass, cars, forest - sprint over a 24-inch diameter rusty sewage pipe that ran over a rocky river raging 50 feet below (and the dam wall at the cemetery).
All those feats I did were not planned or trained. Yes, I did some sports as a kid but it is not like I was training to run from the cops like that.
Before that day, prior to our "great escape", I was never able to jump the dam wall. The sewage pipe? I was able to pass somewhat easily, not because of my physical and spiritual strength but because of the opposite. My feet used to be turned inwards due to weakness and genetics (and possibly because of an old sprinter van running over my knees at a beach when I was even younger). I was using my weakness to keep balanced and avoid falling to death.
And my realization of "super strength"? I didn’t even notice. It came via my brother who after jumping the wall looked at me and excitedly exclaimed: “You were able to jump the wall! And I got excited for something that I wasn’t even aware of.
Perhaps I had tapped into a hidden strength that was dormant, but no matter, because after that day, I couldn't jump the wall again.
I was (mostly) the scared, thin, and weak, always sick kid among my friends and family. I was always drowning in every puddle, crying for everything, falling from the bicycle, and I would run from fights. Not a bit indicative of strength. So how is it that I did it? How is it that I was able to jump the wall?
Maybe it was that "inner strength" that motivators keep taking about. And nothing better than a bunch of angry officers running behind you to find it. Please don’t take this story as fitness advice.
Fear can bring out strengths that we don’t even imagine we have. There are cases reported all over the world about people who are not even apparently healthy, doing extraordinary feats of strength (and endurance, and agility, and coordination, and bravery) when faced with a threatening situation. But to bring it to a more ordinary manifestation, what about all the people that exist in this world who live up to a hundred years, and they are still strong, without having ever been strength trained?
These people (mostly) have no musculature to show off whatsoever. And sometimes they have no perfectly aligned and uninterrupted white teeth. Then there is the issue of emotions.
Decentered for performance
There are all kinds of performance improvement methods, and strength is a much-looked essential part of it. There are training methods, physical therapy, motivation strategies, and sports psychology techniques - to help athletes gain, maintain, or recuperate strength - and some of these strategies have permeated the general population. Trainers love to say that “we are all athletes” but guess what… we are not!
There is the issue that such strategies and techniques to keep athletes ‘forever strong’ are mostly used to win the game - not for them to be strong, fit and healthy for everything else. You can do a little research to see the amount of injury and movement dysfunctions that athletes suffer due to some of their strength training methods.
And at the gym? I have experienced how big, strong-looking, muscular people are able to bench press hundreds of pounds - only to have issues standing from the bench and in need of assistance picking weights from the ground.
Basic instincts
As sports and fitness scientists learn more about how we move and how the components of fitness manifest in us, there has been a lot of emphasis in working on body alignment and movement sequencing to improve the performance of activities that require strength. And yet this is something that many people know how to do instinctively, without having ever been to a gym.
My father used to be a relatively thin, non-muscular car mechanic who could move very heavy objects around with relative ease. This was confusing to me because I couldn't comprehend how he was able to do those things. And the older he got the heavier weights he could manage.
One day, while working with him, trying to explain a task, he showed me that strength is not necessarily about muscle size. He showed me how to use leverage, body positioning, and momentum - things that are rarely taught at the gym and much less in traditional strength training where resistance has to be fought instead of handled.
Later on, while working at a pizza place, I witnessed a cook lift a huge industrial mixing bowl full of over a hundred pounds of freshly made pizza dough like it was nothing. When I tried to lift it myself - even after my bragging about being able to bench press a lot, to squat a lot more, and to bicep curl the shit out of anything that crossed my face - I couldn't do it.
As I matured and developed a better relationship with exercise, movement, and physical education, I realized that the things that we know as the components of fitness are defined in a limited way. Strength is mostly discussed in the form of numbers under controlled conditions, with periodization and cycles. However, there are plenty of ways in which such components manifest - where numbers, perfectly aligned bars, and ergonomic benches have no relatability.
Maybe, by not trying to find more or it, and by just learning to feel it as it manifests, we can understand our individual strengths better. Perhaps even improve it for our general daily living.
Questions. Conversation starters.
What is the image that comes to mind when you hear or read the words ‘Strength Training’?
Do you remember any moment in your life in which you were able to lift something very heavy, or do some above normal physical feat, that under regular conditions you’d never thought of being able to do? Share your story!
Movement Video
What? Star Spins (made up name).
How much? Recommendation: 3 to 4 rounds of 1 minute. Add more rounds if you can and want and adjust the duration according to your capacity and availability.
When? When you can. You can divide your rounds throughout the day.
Where? Wherever you can do it. Make sure that the floor is even or stable enough for you, or that you are capable enough for it.
A variety of surfaces can help you create more space awareness, develop better balance and stability, and even help you improve movement timing.
This movement is intended to be explored and played with, progressing little by little as you control your body. Watch the video a few times and try to visualize how you would do it. See below for instructions and modification notes.
You can combine this movement as a compliment to your workouts or general physical activity.
Instructions:
Start by rotating your core and swinging your arms. Once you get confident, use the momentum of the rotation and the arms swing and jump off, sideways, so that you spin in the air.
As soon as you land, follow through with the rotation and then recoil, jump and spin to the other side.
Repeat according to your recommendations, goals, or capacity.
Notes:
Do not cross your legs
Keep your arms extended
Modify by simply pivoting your feet on the ground (no jumping). How fluid can you do it without jumping?
Take your time, this is not a competition. If you have issues with your hips and knees and find it difficult to do this, don’t do it or perhaps try to do it at a slower speed and shorter movements.
If you want, you can send me a video of you doing or attempting this movement, for me to analyze and come up with advice or corrections, or variations for it, that can benefit you and others.