Why Does Strength Matter?

So you may have noticed the quote “Where Strength Matters” on this site and be wondering to yourself “why does strength matter?” Well, let me tell you a little bit about strength and why it’s so important. First off let’s have a definition of strength. Strength is the ability to produce force against an external resistance. With this definition we are talking about your bodies ability to use your muscles to move your bones to apply force to anything we interact with. Here’s the thing, we interact with a lot of stuff. Every time you type an email, get out of your chair, move your best friend into their fourth apartment in the last 3 years, you need strength.

Strength is the foundation of our interaction with the world and here’s the cool thing, we can improve it. We can stress our bodies in a way that drives an adaptation to produce more force and an awesome side effect of this is you build more muscle. So what’s not to like?

In the context of the weight room, strength is displayed by lifting weights. Yup, pick stuff up, put it down. Contrary to popular belief it’s a little more complicated than just doing a whole bunch of curls and triceps extensions. There is a measured and scientific way based on the principles of biomechanics, anatomy and physiology to make sure you are not only applying the right amount of stress to your body but in the correct way.

While we’re at it with the fancy science definitions lets go ahead and define stress too. Stress is an imposed demand placed upon the body that either causes a negative or positive adaptation. In the context of training, stress is imposed on the body via the sets, reps and weight used of the exercises you have chosen. The goal of this stress is to drive a positive adaptation or change. In our case the positive adaptation we want is to get stronger. The question then becomes, how much stress and what exercises do you choose?

The answer to the what question is relatively easy, the harder question is how much. We use barbells to apply the stress, more specifically the squat, overhead press, bench press and deadlift, as the foundation of our training. We use barbells because they allow us to incrementally load the weight over time to add the right amount of training stress each workout. We use these exercises because they impact the largest amount of muscle mass over the greatest effective range of motion possible. This results in us training a whole bunch of muscle, in a very effective way that is measurable and allows us to start as light as we want and go as heavy as we can over time.

So we train to get strong because it allows us to do our daily tasks easier. It allows us to perform better at our chosen sports or other athletic endeavors. It allows us to build more muscle mass and fight off disease states involved with aging and other metabolic problems. And we use barbells because we can get the most muscle trained with the correct exercises with an eye for making progress over time.

So that my friends is why Strength Matters.