We all want to be stronger. Some have valid reasons and some don’t actually need to be stronger in the sense that they think. Whichever umbrella you fall under, this message is for you.
When we think of strength we think of how much can you lift, how high you can jump, and how far you can throw. Although all of these are NOT feats of strength, we put them all in the sme category. But why don’t we put balance in that category? Why don’t we add mobility to that? These aren’t really strength attributes either, but you can express strength THROUGH them.
Let’s think about a house. How do you build a house? Bricks and a roof and some doors and windows and you are good to go, right? I can visually make that work out amazing on my own and I don’t know how to build a house. I can make it look like a house, and use the same song materials as the next guy, but when my house gets tested against the elements… good luck to me.
The thing I’m forgetting is the insides. The rest of the structure that make that house functionally strong and resistant to outside forces. I dont know a ton about housing, but I do know there is the foundation. You want that to be level, even and structurally sound. Google also told me there’s the framework, which includes beams and joists, and studs and such, that need to be set up in a particular manner to work together to keep the house from collapsing. All of these things add to the integrity, durability and strength of the house. Already, this house blows mine away, and we haven’t even gotten into interior decorating choices.
Now, let’s think about building a strong body.
Roll Out The Lumber
One factor is the structure itself. You want it to be optimally balanced, so we can’t have muscles that are out of whack, tight, or inflamed. Foam rolling, massage and other release techniques can help the body feel more fluid and moveable under stress.
Make Sure All The 2×4s Are Solid
What allows us to move around against gravity with out falling over and collapsing? Balance, maybe? If you can’t withstand outside forces of nature, you will collapse, get knocked over, fall into the sea and never be heard from again. Ok. I won’t be on that boat, but I think you get the picture. You need a stable frame to move around that won’t be blown over. That means work all those little muscles that support those big showy ones, and you’ll be better at using the chest, back and biceps muscles everyone is familiar with without causing undue stress which leads to injury, sidelined and puny, weakened, atrophied muscle (like my left calf complex currently).
Get The Tensioning Right
Unlike houses, we need to be able to create force against gravity. If we can generate force optimally, we can also produce the most amount of force without increasing the risk of something breaking down. So movement training comes in handy here. When we can get our brain on the same page as our body, good things happen when we DON’T engage both at the same time. Bad things happen otherwise.
Make It Pretty
Now comes the outside. The walls of the body. The show muscles. Once you get the other things under control, we can start traditional strength training. Just pushing a lot of weight becomes HIGHLY effective when all other systems are working finely tuned. We can lift more, which allows us to get stronger. This is imperative that we do this AFTER all the other things are taken care of. If we get put under stress and we aren’t optimally loaded, that’s when our “strong bodies” aren’t so strong anymore.
We can build a body much like we build a house. In order, and step by step. Both wont come tumbling down unless a natural disaster happens… and maybe even not then.