When Is Strong Strong Enough?

There is something about the current conversation around women's strength that is exhausting. Along the way, a very good message, women should build strength, has become another thing for women to optimize.

Lift heavier. Build more muscle. Eat more protein (and fibre). Even "make time for recovery" sounds exhausting. It starts to feel a little Sisyphean: like a very tough chore that will never, ever end. 

But: we don't have to be in an intense muscle-building phase forever.

When you are building muscle, you do need to challenge your body and progressively increase the training stimulus over time (progressive overload). 

But once you've built that capacity, the job changes.

Research suggests that once muscle is built, training volume can be reduced and you will maintain strength and muscle for a period of time (depending on the individual). In one study, people who cut their training volume by roughly half after a building phase were able to maintain the muscle and strength they had gained.

In other words, building and maintaining are different jobs.

This is important for women who are already exhausted. The idea that we now have to spend the rest of our lives progressively lifting heavier, training harder and optimizing our recovery can make strength training sound like a life sentence.

It isn't.

There can be a period when you decide: I'm going to build. You train consistently. You challenge yourself. You progressively overload. You make strength a priority. And then there can be a point when you say: I am there. 

At this point, the goal is not to stop but to maintain. Your workouts can be shorter and a little less intense. You might spend a summer playing tennis and riding your bike instead of following a perfectly progressive strength program. That's not falling off the wagon. That's managing your training to match your life.

Women should not take strength lightly. I absolutely want us to build enough muscle and strength to stay ahead of the physical changes that come with time. But I also don't want strength training to become another place where we feel we have to be perform and be perfect.

That's why "am I strong enough" may actually be a more interesting question than "how strong can I get?" Am I strong enough to hike, to ski, to play tennis, to ride my bike, to carry the bloody heavy bag of dog food, and generally, to say yes?

Build the capacity now. Then go use it. ☺️.