None of the people in the image below lift weights, train or exercise solely for the sake of vanity, lifting the most weight or compete in any strength sport.
They do what they do in their homes and in our gym to improve their everyday lives and how they feel while at work.
They are athletes in that they are good at physical exercise. They have more strength than the average joe or jane. They do it for fun. They fall in a category I call the recreational strength athlete. A person who lifts weights not solely for vanity, sport or maximising strength or endurance. But for a little of all of it.
I propose a more accessible view of the recreational strength athlete. First they are:
* Not a bodybuilder
* Not a crossfitter
* Not a powerlifter
* Not a strongman
* Not an Olympic lifter
All those protocols work just fine. They have made millions of people stronger and given trainees a strong sense of purpose and pointed direction. But recreational strength athletes do not fall into those categories. They may occasionally dabble in it. But they cannot be pigeon-holed.
Instead a recreational strength athlete is a person who can :
*Push themselves off a floor they are lying on
*Pull their chest to a ledge while hanging off it
*Pick things off the floor safely
*Squat to the ground and stand back up
*Roll off the floor and stand up safely
* Sit at the bottom of a squat
*Hang off a bar
*Hop across a puddle
*Lunge down the stairs
*Lower yourself down a high stool on one leg with the other dangling in the air
*Run up 4-5 flights of stairs without having to breathe too hard
*Move fluidly with stability when presented with practical obstacles
All the patterns I have described above are things you do everyday. They are also exercises that can be practiced, trained and dosed.
I truly believe strength can be framed as an accessible skill anyone can aspire to without the exagerrated images of vanity, performance enhancements, sterile machines and air-conditioned gyms.
Just a person on the beach, in a gym, on a terrace or in their living room moving to make their everyday lives a little simpler.
The downside of inactivity and deteroriating health are too subtle to be felt until it’s too late to be reversed.
That statement is a corollary of a popular one by Buffett (who borrowed it too): ‘The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken’.
Feeling the pinch is one of my favourite idioms. It’s origins in the 1800’s referred to children having to wear shoes they had outgrown for the sake of austerity.
In the modern context, we use it for finances, health, work and practically any scenario where you feel the pain or consequence of earlier choices or stagnation.
Call it group-think or just comfort in conformity, but as we age our tolerance increases for declining quality of life, popping pills, avoidable doctors visits and declining physical capacity. All those are perfectly avoidable with a little attention from your end.
Takeaway
The resilience of the human body coupled with the miracle of modern day health care means you can almost always improve quality of life and your health. It takes time, energy and resolve. Question is do you want to stop feeling the pinch ?