Why You Need to Be Strong

How to Live Longer, Gain Respect, and Prepare for Life's Challenges

We have the privilege of living in the safest, most prosperous time in human history (despite how your news station of choice might have you feeling). Because of this ease, human beings don’t NEED to be physically strong anymore.

We can work and make a great living from our chairs or couch. We get food and essential items delivered right to our doorstep. No manual labor or effort is required. We could get by just as the fat humans in the children’s movie Wall-E do. So why bother being fit?

"Tough times create strong men, strong men create easy times. Easy times create weak men, weak men create tough times."

Simply put - it’s admirable to do things that others won’t or can’t do. It’s easy to be weak, it’s easy to be passive, and it’s easy to be like everyone else. Being strong and healthy in a sick and weak world will immediately separate you from 90% of people, especially as we enter a time in history where weak men and women are leading us.

Strong people are more respected.

Let’s start with the surface level. We tend to find other men and women who appear physically strong and fit more respectable, authoritative, and attractive than those who aren’t. There’s a reason action heroes aren’t overweight. There’s a reason that people enjoy watching our nation’s fittest, most capable athletes compete in sports. We as humans are wired to admire strength, athleticism, and power.

Think about it - If you are meeting someone for the first time and they give you a weak handshake, your opinion of them is formed pretty quickly, right? We tend to look at people that have endured a hard life or show that they work hard with much more respect because we know it isn’t easy. Being weak is easy because all it requires is passiveness. We don’t respect those who walk the easy path because anyone can do it.

Building physical strength prepares you for life.

People that are strong aren’t that way by accident; they are and look the way they do because they’ve had to work long and hard at it. The dedication required to push the human body to what it is capable of is rare. It requires discipline and consistency, two qualities most people simply don’t have.

Physically strong people also encounter failure more than the average person who spends their life avoiding unknown risks. How will you ever know if you can deadlift 500 lbs unless you try? The ability to face the fear of failure, fail, and then try again breeds a different mindset than most people have nowadays. Ask anybody who has been training for more than a year how many times they had a weight come down on them. Ask them how many times they failed to lift something only to later use that same weight as their warm-up.

Life is a long, arduous journey with many ups and downs, failures, and triumphs. The road is never a linear path to success; you will have many setbacks. When a human being can exhibit disciple and voluntarily push their body to its limit, day in and day out for years, it’s highly likely that person also applies the same fortitude in other areas of their life.

People who lift weights also report feeling more confident in their daily lives and activities, even ones that have nothing to do with strength. Strength leads to confidence which leads to feeling, performing, and becoming your most optimal self. Simply put, it’s a mental health boost that so many people in our society could use to become all they can be.

Strength helps you live longer.

A vast majority of Millennials and Gen-Z’ers in America are physically weak - that doesn’t bode well for our future quality of life, healthcare system, and frankly our security as a nation. The cool thing is, strength is objective - you either are or you aren’t. Of course how much people lift can vary based on sex, body weight, and body frame but a good place to start to see how you stack up is a Strength Standards calculator. In terms of looks, while 6-packs are nice to look at, they don’t always denote strength. If you see a person with a powerful looking back, glutes, or forearms, it’s highly likely they are a strong person.

Someone who regularly trains also has a strong grip (hence why we respect a strong handshake), as the grip is the connection between the person and weight. In fact, in a study of Americans ages 20-34, occupational therapists found that men younger than 30 have significantly weaker hand grips than their counterparts in 1985 did. The same is true for women of the same age category.

Why does that matter? Well, research has shown that grip strength is associated with a number of health indicators, including:

• Mobility

• Overall strength

• Cognitive function

• Bone mineral density

• Heart health

Decreasing strength is no surprise when you also see that America has an obesity rate of 41.9%, an 11% jump in the past 20 years! It’s also known that testosterone levels in men are plummeting generation after generation. This is more than likely correlated with the rise in obesity and our increasingly sedentary lifestyles. This shows that being more active and working to increase muscle strength could go a long way.

How you can build strength:

The fact is that America is becoming filled with physically weak, passive, dependent humans. We are on a dangerous trajectory that we need to solve - FAST.

Like all problems, we start by looking in the mirror and fixing ourselves first with small, consistent changes in our daily lives. Don’t let the fancy workout classes or Instagram influencers fool you. Getting strong and aesthetically good-looking doesn’t have to be complicated- all it requires is some pretty damn simple workouts.

Learn the following exercises and learn to do them WELL. There are countless books and YouTube videos to show you how. Practice them in your house 3X a day with a broomstick or body weight until you can do them with good form. Better yet, ask a friend who frequents the gym if you can tag along.

Take action: Pick 3-4 of these exercises and do them every other day for a max of 3X per week consistently and watch your body change!

• Squat

• Deadlift

• Overhead press

• Bench press

• Row

• Pull-ups

• Push-ups

• Dips

• Lunge

• Walk/Run/Sprint

  • Note: DON’T run/sprint unless you know how. Sound silly? Well, running is a SKILL. Too many people who want to get in shape think the easiest way is to lace up the sneakers that have been buried in the closet and go on a 5-mile run. You can hurt yourself and you’re reinforcing bad running form and habits. Start with weight training and walking. It’s a lot easier to stay in control of your movements.

That’s it. If someone ONLY did these exercises, 3X per week for 1 year, they would look, feel, and perform better than 95% of people in this country.

If you maintain a healthy weight, strength train, and eat well 80% of the time, you will not only live longer, but you will have more life in your later years.

“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” - Chinese Proverb

Follow a sample workout plan below:

Comment below if you’re planning to put this workout plan into action. We are here to support you along the way!

And, if you know someone who would benefit from strength training, share this with them and then invite them to the gym with you.

Have a great week!

Sebastian