We exercise to get fitter. We strength train to get stronger.
That seems straightforward enough.
But what does stronger actually mean?
Is it lifting a heavier dumbbell? Doing more repetitions? Walking further or faster? Holding a plank for longer?
Those things can be useful ways of measuring progress, but ultimately most of us aren’t training simply to become better at exercise.
We’re training for life.
Strength that goes beyond the workout
Think about some of the movements you make during an ordinary week.
Getting up from a chair or the floor. Carrying shopping. Lifting something onto a shelf. Walking up stairs. Pushing, pulling, reaching, bending and twisting.
Perhaps it’s gardening, walking the dog, playing with children or grandchildren, travelling, doing a hobby or simply being able to get through a busy day without feeling completely depleted by it.
Exercise gives us an opportunity to practise and strengthen many of the physical qualities that sit underneath those everyday things.
We squat.
We push.
We pull.
We carry.
We reach.
We balance.
We move in different directions.
In a workout they are exercises. Outside the workout, they’re part of being able to live our lives.
Building capacity, not just muscle
This month I’ve been talking about building capacity for life.
Strength is certainly part of that, particularly as we move through midlife and beyond, but muscle isn’t the whole picture.
We need balance to react when we trip or the ground underneath us changes.
We need mobility so we have options for how we move.
We need cardiovascular fitness so we can walk, climb stairs and keep going.
We need coordination and power to respond quickly when we need to.
And yes, we need muscle to lift, carry, support our joints and help us continue doing the things we want and need to do.
Put all of those together and we’re building something much more useful than simply being good at a particular exercise.
We’re building physical capacity.
We don’t know what life will ask of us
There is another reason I think building that capacity matters.
Our health and circumstances can change.
We may experience an illness, an injury, an operation or a period when we simply can’t be as active as usual.
For someone diagnosed with cancer, for example, there may be surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy or other treatments ahead. Where appropriate, exercise before treatment – sometimes referred to as prehabilitation or prehab – can help someone prepare physically for what is to come.
During treatment, movement and exercise may look very different. It needs to take account of the individual, their treatment, symptoms, fatigue and medical guidance.
And afterwards, there may be a period of rebuilding.
The aim isn’t to create such a strong body that nothing difficult will affect us. That’s simply not realistic.
It’s about giving ourselves something to work from.
And that applies outside cancer care too.
Strength and fitness don’t give us control over everything that might happen, but having some physical capacity in reserve can be valuable when life temporarily asks more of us – or when we’re able to start building again afterwards.
Training for the future as well as today
There’s also a longer-term reason to think about what we’re training for.
We might exercise today because we want to feel better today.
That’s a perfectly good reason. But we’re also investing in the person we want to be in ten, twenty or thirty years.
Perhaps you’d like to keep travelling.
Keep gardening.
Keep getting down onto the floor – and back up again.
Carry your own bags.
Walk comfortably.
Maintain your independence.
Continue doing whatever it is that makes your life feel like your life.
We can’t guarantee any of those things simply by exercising. Health is more complicated than that.
But we can give ourselves the best foundations and capacity we reasonably can.
Progress needs to mean something to you
Today my new small-group Strength & Progress classes begin.
One of the things I want the women attending to understand is that progress won’t necessarily look the same for each of them.
For one person it might eventually mean lifting a heavier weight.
For another it could be feeling steadier in a split stance.
It might be improving a squat, getting up from the floor more comfortably, feeling confident using weights or discovering that something in everyday life suddenly feels easier.
Those are all valid forms of progress.
Because the exercise itself isn’t really the end goal.
What it allows us to do is what matters.
So the next time you exercise, perhaps ask yourself:
What am I training for?
Not what somebody your age should be able to do.
Not what you used to be able to do.
And not simply what number is written on the weight you’re holding.
What would you like your body to help you keep doing?
Start there.
Then we can build the strength, movement and capacity to support it.
Caroline