66. Indulge in The Huge, Gigantic, Benefits of Strength Training.

Weight training has such huge benefits, and yes, this refers to females as well! It is such an honor to talk with you about this type of thing, my girls and son! Weight training and getting physically STRONG is so important in life, and I get to talk all about it with you.

Now honestly, where else in life do you get this kind of talk or advice? There is not really a place for it other than a haphazard PE class sometimes in school. Some people may just happen to get into it on their own, but not a huge percentage of the population does weight training. That’s something I would like to change, at least for you after reading this.

One of the very cool things that I get a chance to do these days is meet some very interesting, wonderful people. I had a chance to talk with Charles Poliquin about this. He is known as the strength sensei and is one of the world’s foremost strength training coaches. He walks his talk like few people I’ve ever seen and is in incredible shape, he’s incredibly strong and he knows the benefits of weight training.  I always knew strength training was wonderful, but hearing him speak at a group talk recently really solidified this for me.

I’m hoping that you will listen to or read this with an open mind because it can really change your life. Please know that if you’re female, you’re not going to end up bulking up like Schwarzenegger. That is a complete myth. If you go to the gym and work out, you’ll see some ladies in great shape. They are lean, toned, confident and not at all bulky as popular culture would have you believe. In fact, muscle takes up far less space than fat—the same pound of muscle is a lot smaller than the same pound of fat.

Benefits of Strength Training:

Functional Fitness.

That is the everyday fitness to be able to lift things and do things with confidence that other people can’t or won’t do.

This is especially important when you have children because you can lift them up, you can help them, you can carry an enormously heavy stroller, get them in and out of cars, and be able to take them with you places. You can hold a baby carrier with a baby in it and have incredible mom-strength as a female. Of course, as a guy, you can do all of this as well, and it’s expected of you.

Helps prevent aging.

I mentioned this earlier—but I want to make sure this lands with you: In a conversation I had on Facebook with Mr. Poliquin after my stroke, he told me that the best predictor of longevity in people is their muscle mass and how much strength they’re able to maintain as they get older. Everything that I’ve seen verifies this.

If you’ve seen bodybuilders or people who have been strong their whole life, they tend to age very well. There’s a lot of anecdotal proof for it—and even a simple Google search shows a lot of evidence for this. 9

Folks that train are more functionally capable, they age better—and it seems that they’re also mentally sharper with lower rates of dementia. 10

Strength training will help a lot with higher bone density. One of the biggest causes of people going downhill is that they have brittle bones. The number one cause of nursing home admissions is breaking a hip bone. If you weight train and have a healthy foundation for getting strong, then your bones will remain much denser throughout your lifetime and there will be a lower chance of them breaking or getting brittle in your older age. 11

Aside from bone density and longevity, with weight training your connective tissue, your ligaments, and (of course) your muscles are bigger and better. When done right and done the correct way (without killing yourself trying to do much more than you’re capable of doing), weight training will decrease the chances of you getting injured. That’s especially true when you’re using correct form, the weight is appropriate, and you do it gradually and get better and better at it.

Improves Mental Clarity.

I know that on the days when I work out, I have this incredible chemical concoction in my system that just allows me to breathe better, feel better, and makes my mind sharper than on the days when I don’t.

If you are weight training, you can get into a great meditative state while you’re doing it. You regulate your breathing, you learn to focus on getting something done, on getting your sets and your reps finished. Again, that long period of focus or the short burst of activity that you control will help with your mental acuity and just generally help your mind in a ton of ways.

Improves Mood, Emotions, and Feels Good!

Along with the mental clarity, I would say that your emotional state is going to be a lot better. When you’re taking care of yourself, you’re going to feel better about yourself. There’s a higher chance that you’ll be happy. When you take the time to care enough about yourself to improve your body, then you’re generally going to be a lot happier of a person. Although it can be done, it’s very difficult to be depressed after a great workout.

The last part that I’ll tell you about as far as benefits is extremely important because it actually helps you continue when it’s tough at the beginning. Weight training just makes you feel good when you do it. Again, I already mentioned about how I feel better on the days that I lift weights and I’m thinking more clearly. You get a great rush. I like to listen to some incredible music while I’m working out. It gives you a chance to get some aggression out and do something to help with your emotions.

Once you’re done, it’s just a huge rush of dopamine that you receive when you can check it off and say, “I finished, I DID that!” and you feel better the rest of the day. Go, you!

The Importance of ENJOYING Weight Training.

I heard about a study through Brian Johnson and Optimize.me on people that set New Year’s resolutions to lose weight and to get in better shape at the gym. They divided the study into two groups of people. One group of people said that they were doing it for their children and to be around a lot longer for the health benefits that would accrue at a later date, etc.

The other group did their workouts because they said that it made them feel good in the moment. They felt a lot better about themselves when they worked out than when they didn’t.

Coming back later, the study found that the people that lifted weights and worked out because it made them feel better were 75 percent more likely to stick with their workout plan and still be there many months later. On the other hand, the people that were doing it for a far-off abstract goal had often quit long before then. Take care of yourself first—this will allow you to take care of others better.

I would recommend finding a routine that you really enjoy, that makes you feel good, doesn’t decimate you, invigorates you and has you feeling great instead of torn down. When you get out of the gym you want to feel better than when you went into it.

My dear wonderful children, I hope you get the importance of this. When you hug me, I want it to be a tight hug!

Advice in Practice:  

• Start at home. If you haven’t worked out before then do some light body weight exercises rather than going into a place where you pay a whole bunch of money and you may or may not continue. You want to set to the bar of completion a lot lower initially than what you do in the end.
• I’d recommend a home regimen of doing pushups, planks, burpees, air squats and that type of thing even if it’s only for five to ten minutes and as a part of your Miracle Morning practice. Do that and start to feel the benefits of feeling better when you do it. I think as you start to feel better, you’re going to want to bump up your exercise regimen, start lifting weights and to take the benefits to a higher level.
• The next piece of advice is to find great programs on weight training, especially female weight training. One of the sources I recommend is bodybuilding.com . Don’t let the name scare you because there’s a lot of great information on it.
• The next thing is to find someone that you know who does this well, who has been weight training for a while, and shadow them on a trip or two to the gym. Tell them what you’re trying to do and more than likely they’re going to want to help you. If you can tag along with them, see what they do, and maybe get their help in designing a program for you, it will go a long way towards helping you out with this. Also, you’ll have someone that knows that you’re trying to get better and they’ll hold you accountable for what you’re trying to do.
• Write out some goals for weight training, fitness or weight loss that you would like to accomplish. Again, don’t make this too outlandish. Make it something initially that’s going to be fairly easy to accomplish. This can help during the bad times, and you’ll be less likely to give up on your goals. You want to be able to accomplish them, get some wind beneath your wings, build some confidence and set higher goals to keep going with this practice.
• Find an accountability buddy. Find someone that’s doing it. It could be the person that you shadowed at the gym or it could be someone else that’s trying to get into better shape, but just check with them, see what their goals are and hold each other accountable. Check in with them once a day, a few times a week when you’re supposed to work out, or maybe once a week, but find someone that can do it consistently and help you out.
• The last part I just want to tell you is to remember that it gets easier! Everything is tough when it starts. You may not feel great about doing it, but as you keep going it’s going to become easier and easier. What you’ll find is your energy levels will go up, you’ll get better at it and it’ll be something that you want to continue doing.

Remember that if you stick with it thirty days or sixty days, it really becomes a part of you and it doesn’t take a lot of willpower or effort once it becomes part of your everyday life.

So, that is the advice that I have on weight training. I sincerely hope this is one of the pieces of advice that you decide to implement into your life because the benefits from this are going to bleed over into everything else in your life.

As always, I love you, I cherish you and it is an honor to be your daddy.