Why Do You Need Base Strength Training?
First what is Base Strength Training. This is the easy bit and its just as it states. Strength Training is the Base of you physical activity. It is what is prioritised as the focus of your training. Quite a few of you will now jump the gun and think this Informational Post is about enrgy systems. It is Not. I will save that Post for later in the year.
I am actually taking this a step down, into the depths of why you may have clicked on this search üotcome in the first place, it is the Why you need Base Strength Training that sparked your curiosity and that is because there is a problem you are trying to find an answer to.
So let me ask a question.
Which Category Do You Fit Into?
Admittedly the following groups are pretty broad, but I suspect you, my dear reader, will fall into one of them. You will connect with the problems and feelings associated with that group and what you should realise by association to a group (or more than one) is that you are not alone. That is right, many people face exactly the same problems, feelings of failing, frustration and just not knowing how to start, to restart, or be consistent.
You have been programmed by a set of expectations, you have developed a Weltanschauung (a Worldview), informed over the years by adverts from sports brands, various training programs you have tried and failed to stick at are just a couple of examples. Or yoz have or are right now, experiencing the getting worse at sports with age as your fitness has declined. Calling it getting older if indeed you are older, but I have seen and heard this from individuals in their late twenties.
Money wasted on subscriptions for those gym memberships each year as good intentions are blown out of the water by family time or changes in your personal situation like having a new baby, a new job add to the list of reasons why you never fully benefitted from the expense. Perhaps you simply could not gather the willpowerto jump in the car to go to the gym, so you invested in home equipment and well we all know what happened then!
Perhaps a holiday interrupting a flow of successful gym visits as you take a holiday from your life and proceed to eat too much crap, drink too much alcohol, sleep poorly and generally believe your body actually knows what a holiday is. That’s right your short run of wins ended but you could not find a flow state again. And if you managed to get back to it, you felt way behind where you were…..and the cycle goes on.
This list is seemingly endless. With all the information available to everyone about the importatnce of physical training from perspectives of life coaches, CEO Entrepreneures, Doctors, Physiotherapists, Sports coaches, Athletes themselves and yet the list of excuses could be printed on a wardrobe of T-Shirts that would have minimimalists suffering a stroke from the pure stress of choice!
I guess the real underlying reason is it just is not easy. Unlike brushing your teeth for 3 minutes before bed and as part of your morning routine. Everyone does this right?
There are a few older examples of athletes who are indeed in great shape. Typically endurance athletes as enndurance can indeed improve with age,. That said there are some strong athletes, lifting great numbers in deadlifts or performing Calisthenics movements that defy gravity. They all belong to a Group who have discovered how to be consistent. How to train for their goals. I will not list this group below.
I bet the vast majority of you reading this would have gone straight to the thought of “yes but they have great genetics” as the reason you give yourself as to the why these athletes can do this seemingly impossible feats of sporting ability at the ages of 55, 65, 75 or older. It is quite an assumption to make given you are neither a genetic scientist and do not know them personally.
These groups are how I see behaviours of those I have met, talked to and observed their training habits: I have observed some of this first hand, when I have given training programs to or coached personally one to one. Naturally one can argue around the Groups, but it is just a way to simplify the point I am going to make later. As you read on, consider the following paragraph.
What if there is a way to start and be consistent with training, staying healthy, feeling good both physically and mentally. No matter what your age today, whatever group you see yourself belonging to, whatever T-shirt of excuses you wear, what if you can indeed start, improve and stick with a form of training. Perhaps a few of the worlds population have figured out how to achieve their next best onemooreday….at least in the physical realm. They figured out how to be consistent. They figured out what type of training to start with.
Training – Go Hard and Go Fast
The word training conjures up images of professional sports people working at their maximum level that when we watch a video we may be inspired, in awe at what people are able to do. We automatically assume that these professional athletes do this day in and day out.
The advertisments for sports equipment re-inforce this as ordinary people are seen on their Peleton in front of a screen maxing out their heart rates. A Nike add for footware as sweaty basketball players run and jump scoring baskets with ease. A runner, keeping a fast pace with their body in the “strong” position, you know what I mean….arms pumping, intent look on their face as they hit a perfect stride and form. The common thread of training is just go hard, go fast. Going slow and stretching does not sell fitness.
What I find fascinating in my experience that when I talk with sports people, even with all the information readily available, the answer to my question is always “I had a wicked workout yesterday”, “I am so sore”, “I have a pain in my knee” or simply “I am so tired because I destroyed myself in the Crossfit gym five days ago.”
Actually that last comment is not quite true as no-one ever admits they destroyed themselves, at least to someone else and perhaps never even to themselves. A more true quote would be simply “yeah I did Crossfit a couple of days ago” as an excuse to not performing on the day in the chosen sport. These individuals typically take their sports and efforts seriously and want to do their best, every time they play.
Training to Play Sports
The occassional runner, climber, tennis player, footballer and so on, are enthusiastic at their sports. They enjoy a competitive game and do seek a level of performance but always say it`s for fun. Let`s be honest here. When you play sports for fun and you know that the last time you played better…it sucks. Just a little or sometimes a lot. Then you miss a few playtimes because you got injured. And then that sucks because you can`t play and are missing out.
The rationale is “I do not like to Go Hard or Go Fast”. You do not identify yourself as serious about sports so its ok. That said I see a lot of people really get frustrated with themselves and at the sport for just not meeting their expectations. There is a spectrum here that ranges from occassional to serious about training for a sport or indeed the sport is itself the training.
Wherever one sits on that Specturm of Effort, there is often a desire or need to want to get fitter or stronger or to have more endurance and they get caught in a cycle of on and off training, stop and start. The problem is you never get rid of those feelings. It is a never ending cycle with some good days thrown in at random but those problems always return or in fact never really leave you
Training to be Fit and Healthy
“I am not really interested in playing sports but I want to do something because I want to be healthy and fit for every day living.” Typically this group of people have no interest in sports but want to and do indeed understand the importance of movement, of being fit. They want to be fit because they correlate going to the gym with their health.
Typically this group loves New Years Resolutions and look foirward to January each year when they renew their motivation and rejoin the gym. Sorry I am being a bit flippant here I know. But what I really mean is that the knowing is there, the intention is there, but consistency is every year for about on average three weeks.
The willingness and desire stays with them like a dream, haunting them every day. Excuses know no limits. No boundries. Procrastination is common every day. There are times of success followed by a sense that you fell off the wagon. You let yourself down. Frustration at yourself because you know you are better than this. That you could do it, be consistent. That Magic pill is out there somewhere.
Walking is most popular with this Group and with recent trends in counting steps and a greater understanding of the benefits of walking has meant that more of the experienced athletes use walking as part of their training schedule. This includes me.
Some like to run, as an example. There is no timing of runs or tracking distances and the only way to understand if you are improving is subjective by how you feel. There is no way to measure if you are improving your health or pysical capabiliy. Again here we see the Continuum of Effort at play.
Training and The Other Group
I could generally group people into more subcategories but for the sake of keeping this post to a readable legth I will simply say The Rest of you. Those that want to train, but take the easy option and simply do nothing. Or very little. Let us not confuse training and movement here. Training is intentional and structured. Movement like Gardeining is good for you. Never stop Moving.
Those that do not see the point of training or what we can simply say as staying fit and in some healthy kind of shape. When time is valued for all other pursuits including the quick dopamene fix of a packet of crisps and a Netflix movie. As time passes, aches and pains, slower movements, heavier body weights, difficulty tying shoelaces, bad backs, increasing doctors trips for colds and illness all manifest. On the Continuum of Effort this group sits at the other end from the Go Hard and Go Fast Group.
Training and The Elites
I mentioned this group right at the beginning as the ones supposedly with the great genetics. The ones that are running, lifting, jumping and tying shoelaces as simple as can be. Effortless. Perhaps you envy them. You believe they must spend all their days training, engaging in pysical activity.
Let me ask you a question here. Where do you believe the Elites sit on the Spectrum of Effort?
I would find your answres here fascinating so please do leave a comment. I will read them.
My answer would be…they would sit along the entire length of the Continuum of Effort at any one point in time, depending on what part of their training cycle they are in.
The Continuum of Consistency
It is simple. Switch out the word effort and put in the word consistency and consider where each group may sit on the continuum. Across the groups you would most likely see levels of consistency splattered from inconsistent to moderate consistency.
The Go Hard and Go Fast Group have less consistency than you think. They miss training sessions because they overdid the last session or three. When they do train their level of effort is close to maximal. The Elites however have varying degrees of effort from lots of easy days to a splattering of max days of training. That is correct, they hardly ever train to max or failure. They do however train to max out their consistency. They show up and get into it, every time a training session is planned.
This excludes the Crossfitters. I recognise you and the principles of the sport. Keep on Moving.
For all the other groups, the efforts and consistency will fail to show a pattern. For sure the level of consistency for training will not be there. Focus is likely on the idea or perception of effort. Whether you felt lazy, dropped some sets you wanted to do. Did not make the distance or climbed poorly. Each being a subjective internalised feeling that leads to dissapointment, or you simply beat yourself up over it.
By now, the point I hope is made. Consistency trumps Efforts. So let`s discuss Why Base Strength training. Today I will keep it as simple as possible. Without strength you cannot get up off the floor or out of a soft comforatble chair. You cannot take three steps at a time. To do this you also need the Range of Motion of your joints to enable the movemnts required to perform those daily tasks. So that is Strength through the Range of Motion to do the required movements.
It may be that you think the last paragraph does not apply to you. I literally cannot put enough examples in here to cover everyone. But, wherever you are in your life with your abilities there will be a requirement for movement, you will have weaknesses in those movements, Strength is always required, at the top of a tennis serve, jumping over a rock or across a pothole whilst running. Performing a handstand, a dip.
It is incredibly difficult for me to not go off and discuss in depth at a tangent many of the concepts that naturally extend from what I have written here. So let me address what I have seen work with people who have realised that consistent training of strength through range of motion has improved them and how they achieved their own consistent behaviour.
The 3-Minute Workout
As I discussed back at the start, this is not about energy systems. If you do not have Strength through Range of Motion you cannot move properly or in a way that benefits whatever stage of life you are at right now. You will have a weakness. If you are not consistent you will not see the improvemnts you desire.
You brush your teeth every day for 3 minutes (I hope!) and this stops your teeth slowly rotting. You would never not do those three minutes. You experience no friction or forces stopping you performing consistently this task, daily. I have said to people…”you would never not brush your teeth because you know your teeth will rot if you do not……so why would you never stretch and move your joints, for 3 minutes each day, knowing if you do not your arm or leg would drop off!!”
Ok, so in the heat of the moment I exagerated, but, I made my point. You already know you can be consistent for 3 minutes daily. What was the biggest surprise for me, after giving just 3 basic mobility/stretching movements to my friend to do daily, after having held this conversation, he showed up a month later having done a full month without skipping a day….of daily 3 minutes of mobility work, through a Range of Motion that helped his daily movements and sport.
Guess what? He improved. He formed a habit of consistency and then could extend this forwards. I have repeated this with others and seen the same results. Congratulations to them. The habit has been formed.
Conclusion
Strength with Moblity takes time to develop. One needs to be consistent. This means one needs to do something every day or almost every day. One needs to show up and get into it. Just like brushing teeth.
One can learn a lot here. That being consistent is indeed possible to improve Strength, in a range of Motion, as a base to start or expand your consistency to improve your chosen sport and health. Pick three mobility/stretching exercises for a particular weakness in, for example, the hips, shoulders, back, legs and perform them.
Keep on moving and have a great next onemooreday.As with any form of activity, whatever stage of life, always consult a doctor prior to starting any exercise program.
