How strong is STRONG ENOUGH?

Summary

In Alan Thrall's video, the eternal question, 'How strong is strong enough?' is examined, emphasizing that strength is multi-dimensional. Thrall identifies three core reasons for pursuing strength: ease in daily activities, enhanced durability, and increased lifespan. Beyond common barbell strength standards, Thrall discusses the value of bodyweight and machine training, showing that multiple metrics define physical strength. Ultimately, strength is personal and subjective, tailored to individual goals, and not just measured by how much one can lift. Fitness encompasses more than just PRs and is about overall well-being and balance.

Highlights

• The concept of 'strong enough' is relative to individual goals and purposes. 💪
• Barbell strength standards are popular but not the sole measure of strength. 🎯
• Bodyweight and machine training can lead to a high quality of life. 🚀
• Being 'harder to kill' involves more than just lifting heavy; fitness balance is key. ⚖️
• Strength should be about enjoying life and being healthy, not just PRs. 🏋️‍♂️

Key Takeaways

• Strength varies by individual goals, from ease in daily life to aesthetics. 📏
• Barbells aren't the only measure; bodyweight training can be equally effective. 🤸‍♂️
• Physical fitness is about overall well-being, not just how much you can lift. 🌟
• High intensity on barbell lifts isn't required for longevity and health. 🌱
• Strength is about personal fulfillment, not just competition. 🚴‍♂️

Overview

Strength is a broad term that goes beyond just lifting weights, as Alan Thrall explains. He proposes that being strong should make daily life activities easier, increase one's resilience to physical threats, and potentially elongate life. Thrall identifies three primary motivations for gaining strength, emphasizing that it's often a personal journey and not solely about numbers or records.

Barbell exercises often dominate strength discussions due to their measurable, progressive nature. However, Thrall argues that they are not the only path to strength. Illustrating with examples, he highlights individuals leading healthy lives through bodyweight workouts and minimalistic training routines. These alternative methods provide crucial fitness benefits without necessarily engaging in traditional weightlifting patterns.

Ultimately, what defines 'enough' strength is a personal verdict. Some may choose to chase high rep counts or heavy lifts, while others find satisfaction in endurance or versatility. Thrall emphasizes that true fitness involves a holistic approach, which includes mobility, endurance, and strength, all harmonizing to enhance life quality and longevity.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction to Strength The chapter titled 'Introduction to Strength' explores the concept of physical strength by posing questions such as 'How strong is strong enough?' and 'Strong enough for what?' The discussion is centered around understanding the reasons why people desire to be strong, rather than focusing on specific sports or activities. The chapter suggests that there are three primary motivations for pursuing physical strength.
• 00:30 - 01:00: Reasons to Be Strong The chapter titled 'Reasons to Be Strong' discusses three primary benefits of building physical strength. Firstly, strength makes everyday physical activities easier, such as walking, hiking, and playing with children, as well as tasks like loading heavy items. Secondly, a strong physique increases durability, reducing the impact of incidents like falls or accidents due to better-prepared bones, tendons, ligaments, and joints. Thirdly, although not fully detailed, the transcript implies additional benefits related to strength.
• 01:00 - 01:30: Strength and Longevity The chapter titled 'Strength and Longevity' discusses the strong correlation between physical strength and a longer lifespan, as highlighted by numerous studies. A key quote from Mark Ripto underscores that strong individuals are harder to kill and injure. The chapter focuses on three main reasons why people seek to increase their strength: increased longevity, injury prevention, and self-esteem. Besides these primary motivations, strength training is also pursued for improving body composition, muscle building, and weight loss.
• 01:30 - 02:00: Additional Reasons for Strength Training The chapter discusses various motivations behind engaging in strength training beyond just improving aesthetics. It highlights that many people lift weights for enjoyment, the challenge, achieving personal goals, and for their mental well-being. Additionally, it points out how strength training can become an integral part of one's identity, especially among younger individuals, as it offers a sense of belonging to a community or tribe, such as powerlifters.
• 02:00 - 03:30: Evaluating Strength: Barbells and Beyond The chapter titled 'Evaluating Strength: Barbells and Beyond' explores the various motivations behind why individuals pursue strength training. It highlights that the reasons for lifting weights can be deeply personal and subjective. Some people engage in strength training for personal satisfaction, challenging themselves to accomplish goals like deadlifting 500 pounds. Others may pursue it due to external motivations, such as earning a living as a coach, influencer, or personal trainer, where maintaining strength is crucial for their professional image and success. The chapter emphasizes that no matter the reason, these goals are valid and meaningful to those who pursue them.
• 03:30 - 04:30: The Importance of Functional Strength The chapter discusses the significance of functional strength in daily life. It argues that being physically strong can make life easier, improve durability, and potentially increase longevity. The narration highlights different aspects of strength, illustrating that strength is multi-faceted and can manifest in various forms. Examples are provided with scenarios such as deadlifting heavy weights versus being able to perform multiple pull-ups, which underscores the idea that functional strength is diverse and context-dependent.
• 04:30 - 06:00: Setting Realistic Strength Standards The chapter discusses the setting of realistic strength standards, emphasizing the importance of using barbells as both a strength-building and strength-testing tool. The narrator reflects on the common practice within the fitness community to use barbells as a fundamental reference for strength metrics. Highlighting personal training experiences and video content from prior years, the chapter establishes the significance of barbell exercises, asserting their effectiveness for developing and evaluating strength across various fitness levels.
• 06:00 - 10:00: Conclusion The conclusion emphasizes the benefits of using barbells for strength training. Barbells are praised for their ability to be progressively loaded and their capacity to train a wide range of motion and muscle mass. These advantages make them a favorable choice, supported by reasons from the Starting Strength book. The conclusion also acknowledges reasonable strength standards like the 'thousand lb club' and 'one, two, three, four plate' lifts. However, it opens the question of whether barbells are the sole metric for strength assessment.

How strong is STRONG ENOUGH? Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 In this video, I'm going to answer the question, how strong is strong enough? When I ask myself that question, a couple secondary questions need to be answered before addressing the first questions like strong enough for what? What does it mean to be physically strong? How do we measure physical strength? First question, strong enough for what? I'm not going to talk about what it means to be strong enough for sports, recreational sports, team sports, combat sports, or even strength sports. I think there are three primary reasons why people want to be strong.
• 00:30 - 01:00 Number one, it makes physical activity in everyday life easier. Walking, hiking, playing with your kids, loading heavy stuff in the back of your truck, doing any sort of manual labor. Number two, being strong makes you more durable. Falling over, tripping, losing balance, maybe even a car accident comes with far less consequences when you have body armor in the form of muscle. your bones, tendons, ligaments, and joints are all better prepared for impact than they would be without strength training. And number three, it can help
• 01:00 - 01:30 you live longer. There are more studies than I can count showing the association between strength and longevity and lifespan. As Mark Ripto says, strong people are harder to kill. They're harder to injure. They're harder to kill. I'm going to focus on these three primary reasons because I think they're the most common reasons why people want to be strong. But I want to acknowledge that some people strength train for other reasons. People also strength train to improve body composition, to build muscle, to lose weight. Some
• 01:30 - 02:00 people would say the only reason they do resistance training is for aesthetics, which is fine, but this video is not answering the question, how much muscle is enough muscle or how jacked is jacked enough? Then there's some people who would say they lift weights because they just enjoy it. They like routine. They like the challenge. They like achieving goals and all of that helps their mental well-being. I think younger people get hooked on lifting weights because it becomes a part of their identity. They can fit into a community or a tribe of people. I know this was true for me. Young people like being the powerlifter,
• 02:00 - 02:30 the bodybuilder, the gym rat, or the fit chick. Lastly, some people want to be strong because they seek other people's approval. And I don't mean that as a burn, but if their income depends on being strong because they're a coach, influencer, or personal trainer, they're going to be motivated to continue being strong. These reasons for lifting weights and being strong are much more personal and subjective. If you want nothing more than a deadlift 500 pounds simply because you want to achieve that goal or because you want to do it before your training partner does, I would never tell you that goal is meaningless.
• 02:30 - 03:00 If it means something to you, that's a good enough reason to chase it. With that out of the way, I'm just going to focus on the three primary reasons that I listed. Being strong makes physical aspects of life easier, makes you more durable, helps you live longer. What does it mean to be physically strong? Let's say someone deadlifts 405 lbs. Most would call that strong, but that person can't do three pull-ups. Someone else can do 20 strict pull-ups, but can't bench 225 lbs. Someone can farmers carry 75% of their
• 03:00 - 03:30 body weight in each hand for a quarter mile, but can't deadlift two times their body weight for one rep. Most people watching this video, most people in my circle of fitness often default to the barbell when talking about strength standards. And for good reason. I've talked about at length why barbells are awesome for building strength. Go search any of my videos from 2016 to 2019. That's pretty much all I talked about. Barbell movements are a great strength builder and a great strength tester. They can be
• 03:30 - 04:00 incrementally loaded, heavier than we would ever need, making them great for progression. They can be trained through a full range of motion and they train a lot of muscle mass. These paraphrased reasons are from a Starting Strength book and in my opinion, they're pretty sound reasons to use a barbell. So, barbells are great and honestly, most strength standard recommendations you find online are reasonable. Strength standards like the thousand lb club, one, two, three, four plate press bench squat, deadlift. I'm fine with any of those. But are barbells the only metric
• 04:00 - 04:30 we can use to define physical strength? What if someone decided to pursue bodyweight training only for the rest of their life? What if someone decided to pursue machine hypertrophy training for the rest of their life? Would these people have a lower quality of life? Would their expected lifespan be shorter? I'm going to assume no. And no. Take a look at Daniel from Fitness FAQ. He's primarily a calisthenics guy who recently made a video showing that he can't bench press 100 kg, 220 lbs. This
• 04:30 - 05:00 dude can do weighted dips and pull-ups for reps with 40 kilos, 50 kilos, maybe 60 kilos, I don't even know. Do you think that he would improve his quality of life, durability, and lifespan if he just started to focus on improving his bench press to 120 kilos or 140 kilos? I don't think so. Take a look at natural bodybuilder Jeff Alberts. Jeff is in his 50s, and I really never see him do back squats, deadlifts, and bench press with a barbell. Do you think he would improve
• 05:00 - 05:30 his quality of life, durability, and lifespan if he just started focusing on improving his barbell, squat, deadlift, and bench press? Again, no. In fact, in both of these scenarios, they might even lose some muscle mass, which arguably is more important than one rep max strength as you age. And they might acquire some minor injuries if they started to specialize for squat, bench, deadlift max strength. Take a look at Max, a guy on Instagram who goes by the handle busy dad training. He primarily does minimalist training with burpees and
• 05:30 - 06:00 bodyweight exercises. This dude is in phenomenal shape. Do you think he should worry about his bench press to body weight ratio? Should he start worrying about getting a squat up to three plates? He could live a happy, healthy, strong life, never touching a barbell or even weights for that matter. Seeing these examples proves to me that strength can be expressed in many ways, following many routines, using a variety of different metrics. And this is one reason why it's hard for me to give barbell strength standards or to answer
• 06:00 - 06:30 the question, how strong is strong enough? People fall into the trap of thinking barbell strength is the most important physical attribute. I know I did at one point. They'll avoid conditioning because it might affect their strength. They'll gain an unhealthy amount of body weight to facilitate weight increases on the bar. They'll drag themselves through chronic aches and pains in pursuit of PRs. They'll become frustrated and dissatisfied when their numbers aren't improving. never really appreciating the progress that's behind them, all while probably being strong
• 06:30 - 07:00 enough. Sometimes the number one thing that a person needs to make themselves harder to kill is to lose about 60 lbs of body weight. Even if that means they lose 120 lbs on their barbell squat, a heart attack doesn't care if you squat 455 pounds. Your elevated blood pressure is not waiting for you to increase your bench press from 290 to 305 lbs. Some people would be a stronger, healthier, more physically capable person by getting their mile time under 10 minutes, not by killing themselves
• 07:00 - 07:30 trying to bring their deadlift from 395 to 405. I still receive comments about my weight loss that was from 6 years ago now. People still say, "Oh, dude, you you lost some weight. You must have lost some strength. How do you deal with that?" I've improved other physical qualities. My one rep max squat bench deadlift is not the only thing that I care about. or a recent comment about the more I see you run and jump, the less weight I see on the bar. Again, one rep max barbell strength is not the only thing that I care about. I think that I'm strong
• 07:30 - 08:00 enough. If I was at the pearly gates and God told me that I had to give some strength standards before coming in. These aren't anything to live and die by. If you can't reach these numbers, no sweat. If you want to double these numbers, that's cool, too. I think these numbers will make you strong enough to make everyday life as physically easy as it can be, to make you a durable person, and to help you live longer. So, if I had to get some strength standards, here we go. Barbell deadlift, 1.75 times your body weight for five reps. No equipment,
• 08:00 - 08:30 dead stop reps, tight back, clean reps. Barbell squat, 1.5 times your body weight for five reps. No equipment, full range of motion, tight back, clean reps. Bench press your body weight for five reps. Your butt on the bench, minimal arch, hands just outside of shoulder width, no bounce. Overhead press 75% of your body weight for five reps. Or if you choose to never touch a barbell for the rest of your life, 12 strict pull-ups. No swinging, no kipping, no knee lift, just
• 08:30 - 09:00 chin over bar, full control. 30 push-ups, elbows locked out, chest to ground each rep. 15 body weightight dips, clean reps. five pistol squats on each leg. Generally speaking, I think that you'll reap all the benefits of strength training when you're in the ballpark of these numbers. Pursuing strength beyond this is mostly just for personal gain. I know this doesn't have to do with strength, but I'm going to say that you should be able to run a mile and under 9 minutes, too. We talk about natural
• 09:00 - 09:30 human movements, squat, hinge, press, pull, and I think run belongs in this list, too. Now, a point could be made that the stronger you are now, the stronger you will be in the next decade of your life and the next decade and so on. So, being as strong as possible right now will ensure that you're stronger later on in life. And that's a great point. I would reframe that by saying the fitter you are now, the fitter you will be next decade of your life. That's it. Thanks for watching and always remember, train
• 09:30 - 10:00 on time.