I don’t doubt for one moment the confidence that strength training and improved body composition give a person.

But other than confidence, is lifting as transformative as it appears? Put another way, is all the motivation and ‘hype’ around lifting being life-changing overblown?

There’s a famous line in the TV show House about the titular character being a jerk even before an infarction left him in chronic pain.

Or is strength training like winning the lottery that leaves a person feeling happier and more content?

I think the three things strength training does well:

Stick with the same boring things over and over again until you get better at them in some shape or form. It takes a certain amount of discipline and resilience to get this done.

When you have a bad day or you’re tired, showing up to work out and learning to scale it back, adapt, or just surprising yourself by having a really good day when you thought you wouldn’t can build some sense of resilience or belief that there’s value in showing up even when life is kicking you in the n**ts. And it might turn out OK. In the same vein, there are days when just walking away from a fight is an important capacity. You just have to be willing to accept that it is not your day and just fold. Live to train another day.

Trust in the process and numbers. Ignoring your feelings to do the work. The capacities you are working on, what you are capable of doing, and trusting the results or numbers is important. The body is not a clock or a thermometer. It is not always going to be a reliable barometer of what you are capable of doing. But you have to believe in the inherent value or worth of the capacities you have. Even if the ‘results’ don’t always reflect your capabilities. You may not look like you deadlift xxx kgs. But the worth of doing the deadlift is being able to lift the weight. Same goes for jumping or any other capacity.


Now you’ll notice that those traits aren’t exclusively inculcated by strength training or going to the gym. Learning anything requires resilience, discipline, and belief that learning that skill is worth the money, time, attention, and energy you are investing in the endeavour.

But as for the transformative capacity of strength training, I believe in what the outdated research on lottery winners shows: if you were miserable and horrible before winning the lottery, you are likely to remain that way after. If you were happy and go-lucky before, you are likely to be the same person after a good workout.

PS: I really didn’t want to train today. Some days reps feel so hard i feel angry with myself for being me. But the job has to get done.