A Next Step Fitness client saw an Instagram post which read: “In 1988, a doctor in Boston had a radical idea. Maria Fiatarone wanted to teach the oldest, frailest people to lift weights – at high intensity. No one had ever tried this. Everyone thought it was too dangerous. Everyone was in for a surprise.” “Isn’t this interesting?” asked our client.
Well yes, it is interesting and since this idea of exercise permitting one to “live well – age well,” which is part of the Next Step Fitness tagline, Stronger seemed to fall squarely into the Next Step Fitness lane. So, I read it.
Michael Joseph Gross’s Stronger: The Untold Story of Muscle in Our Lives is almost the companion book to Younger Next Year by Chris Crowley and Henry S. Lodge about which I wrote in the June Next Step Fitness Newsletter. While Younger Next Year is a self-help book, Stronger is not. Stronger is nowhere near as fun as Younger Next Year but provides a lot more meat – which is not necessarily a good thing if you want a readable book. Stronger is worth reading BUT is not a fun read. It seeks to deliver serious information but is dense and disjointed. Gross writes like an investigative reporter, packing the pages with academic details, philosophy, and historical research – not necessarily in chronological order.
But back to the companion book idea, if you recall, Younger Next Year includes “Harry’s Rules”:
- “Exercise six days a week for the rest of your life.
- “Do serious aerobic exercise four days a week for the rest of your life.
- “Do serious strength training, with weights, two days a week for the rest of your life.
- “Spend less than you make
- “Quit eating crap!.
- “Care..
- “Connect and commit..”
Stronger focuses on the Harry’s Rule #3, “serious strength training, with weights” aspect, a/k/a power training, a/k/a progressive resistance training – but the Stronger conclusion is to encourage at least three days a week of “serious strength training, with weights” if not six days or, what the heck, seven days a week, every day for the rest of your life! Unfortunately, science is not yet to the point where it can deliver a weight training prescription that will cure a given condition – no – for that you need a good advisor that can assign a program and weights applicable to a given day and given conditions.
If you push through the dense text and information, as I did, you might discern some of the key points I found.
- Having a doctor tell a patient to “do more exercise” is the equivalent of telling a patient, “take a drug.” Think about it.
- Kairos – do the right thing at the right time.
- The medical profession and the physical trainer (personal trainer, coach, etc.) divide has existed since the beginning of medicine.
- Doing both aerobic and resistance training are better than just doing either aerobic or resistance training alone. I quote from Stronger:
“Aerobic exercise alone is more effective than resistance training alone for reducing risks of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality, ***aerobics reduces both risks by about 10 percent more than strength training. But for cancer mortality, risk advantage runs the other way. Aerobic exercise alone has no effect on cancer mortality, while resistance exercise alone reduces cancer mortality risk by 16 percent.
“Across the board, it is the combination of resistance training and aerobic training – habitual engagement in both kinds of exercise – that most effectively reduces these three risks of death. Lifting weights in addition to doing aerobic exercise is associated with a 40 percent reduced risk of all-cause mortality, compared to 25 percent for aerobics alone. ***”
The following is a summary of the book, which is divided into three sections.
Part I: Mark the Field
The book starts by laying out the historic foundation of physical culture. Gross uses Charles Stocking, Associate Professor, Department of Kinesiology and Health Education and Associate Professor, Department of Classics, College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas as our guide to medicine and athletics, including weight training and wrestling, in ancient Greece. With Stocking’s credentials, not too surprisingly, Stocking is both a classics professor and record-holding powerlifter who has trained Olympic athletes.
This section of the book discusses ancient myths, like Milos, who was the strongest man in the world, having trained by hefting the same calf every day even after the calf had become a fully grown bull (i.e., progressive resistance training). The book addresses such things as ancient standards of beauty; ancient standards of strength; ancient standards of what an ideally muscled body should be. And, did you know “gymnasium” is derived from the Greek gymnasion which means “a place for naked exercise?”
The medical/exercise (athletic trainer) divide is discussed. Since ancient times, formal medicine has looked down on heavy exercise. People with heavy muscles were described as “thick.” Sound familiar? Physicians, beginning with the legendary Galen, traditionally pushed for quiet rest and total moderation. Meanwhile, athletic trainers argued that challenging the body was the true key to vitality.
One message in Strong resonates over all time: “When athletes arrived at Olympia, Philostratus wrote, they would train for thirty days under the sanctuary’s own staff of trainers, who ‘do not train by prescription, but provide exercises all improvised for the right time.’” The key word there, translated as ‘time,’ is kairos – and if you remember just one Greek word from [Stronger] let kairos be it.
Part II: Run the Risk
The second part of Stronger engaged me more maybe because we escaped from ancient Greece and Rome to modern day Texas. This section dives into the history of modern strength icons who dared to buck the culture. Gross focuses heavily on Jan Todd, a trailblazing female powerlifter, who began lifting in the 1970’s. Todd and her husband, Terry, became “historians” of the weightlifting world. In this section Gross introduces us to 19th Century “musclemen” like Katie Sandwina, a performing strongwoman, and George Barker Windship, a Harvard trained physician. We learn about Dr. Thomas Lanier DeLorme, who used weight training to help in the rehabilitation of seriously injured World War II veterans. He was a trailblazer in his field.
Todd’s research shows that strength training with weights has been practiced – at least sectionally or in certain schools since the 1800’s.
By focusing on Jan Todd, the author uses Todd as a foil to then openly encouraged use of steroids to build muscle that became endemic starting in the 1970’s.
One thing Stronger makes clear is that the world is continually surprised at the benefits of exercise and, specifically, of weight training. “In the 1988 experiment, getting stronger improved young women’s ‘confidence level about their bodies, and about overall effectiveness in life as well.” Not too surprisingly to most of us but each study seems to be seen as groundbreaking.
What is truly surprising to me is that as recently as the twentieth century, mainstream doctors openly warned that heavy weightlifting would permanently damage the human frame—especially for women. Fitness pioneers had to run massive social risks by ignoring formal medical warnings to prove that heavy iron creates a stronger body.
We are reminded that human muscle naturally wastes away as we leave our youth. Progressive weight training across your entire life is the only true way to save your bones and metabolism. However, weight training does not mean lifting like a maniac. Strict, zero-compromise technique acts as one’s armor against injury over the decades.
Part III: Gain the Prize
The final section delivers the most enjoyment and the ultimate scientific payoff. Gross highlights clinical breakthroughs, including the revolutionary work of Dr. Maria Fiatarone Singh in Boston.
What is truly shocking to me is that as recently as the 1970’s, senior citizens were encouraged to wither away – because of the fear that any activity would break them. Little did they know that it was the inactivity that was breaking the senior citizens and that activity could have prevented a lot of heartache and bodily decay. That is where Fiatarone comes in. She began with a study of 10 nonagenarians at a Boston rehab facility. The assigned exercise was knee extensions, starting at a very light starting weight (adjusted for each of the 10). By the end of the study, each of the 10 participants had gotten stronger.
The lowest improvement was 61% stronger and the highest improvement was 374% stronger. Their muscles had grown bigger and stronger and there were no medical reasons to say that the exercise had injured the participants. Fiatarone ultimately teams up with Dr. Nalin Singh. The two marry and move to Australia where they worked to develop a clinic where exercise/weight training is specifically prescribed for therapeutic purposes.
This section includes some truly terrifying statistics about the health of the world population – many with preventable diseases. For example, the annual cost of medical care for diabetics increases the cost of medical care by 500% or more. In addition, diabetes is so prevalent that, by some estimates, by 2045, the number of adults with diabetes in China, India, and Pakistan alone will be larger than the population of Western Europe.
This section is quite clear about the proven benefits of weight training. The mystifying thing is that despite the benefits of exercise (aerobic and weight training or progressive resistance training), the medical profession has not embraced education in exercise. A very small percentage of medical schools address a significant aspect of exercise and weight training. So, the divide between the medical world and the exercise world, notwithstanding people like Fiatarone and Singh, continues. And, rather than being prescribed, as an example, run three miles outdoors three days a week or do 3 sets of 10 rows starting at 10 lbs. and increasing to 20 lbs. by the end of the third set, we are left with what we started with: we must do exercises that are improvised for right reason at the right time. Kairos.
The Final Verdict
Stronger can feel like a marathon textbook read at times, but it offers valuable information and messages. Like, you are quite literally never too old to lift weights! Lifelong strength training acts as a powerful shield against chronic illness, depression, and physical frailty. The ultimate prize of muscle is personal independence as you age. As the body matures, correct form becomes your golden rule to ensure every repetition builds you up instead of tearing you down. It flips the script on fitness and transforms lifting heavy metal into a noble, lifelong duty to your own body.
While Stronger offers a lot of good information, maybe you just rely on this book review and save yourself a lot of grief. You don’t need to read Stronger to start building your lifelong armor today! As many others have said, “Trust me.”
