Had to take the day off today, because I’m sick. Whilst staying home in wonderment of my body’s inability to respond to my CNS commands, I thought to myself that over the weekend I had repeatedly broken one of the Cardinal Rules of Strength Training.

Namely, “Don’t Work Out When You’re Sick.”

The reason, of course, is that exercise is a stressor. Exercise is not what causes adaptation to occur; in other words, what doesn’t happen is - you lift the dumbbell 10 times, volia, you get stronger right then and there. Conversely, your body is temporarily weakened by your efforts in the gym. An incredibly complicated series of events occurs where your body works to make itself stronger - first, to “fix the damage” from your workout, then to overcompensate for it.

It is analogous to someone living in Florida in the height of hurricane season. Hurricane 1 sweeps into Tampa, creating damage in your house - cracks, leaks, etc. Once the danger has passed, you assess the damage and patch up all the cracks. You fill up holes where the leaks come through. In your infinite wisdom, you decide to reinforce the walls and windows so that next time that hurricane passes over, the house will sustain minimum damage. So you end up with a stronger house than before (that is, until Hurricane 2 sweeps through with double the power of Hurricane 1). So you repatch the house again. And so forth.

To summarize: The workout doesn’t make you stronger/fitter/more conditioned. Your body’s recovery from the workout does.

It’s a small intellectual distinction, but it is an important mental shift to go through, because your outlook on exercise changes.

It also helps to prevent you from working yourself into illness, sometimes.

I did get my third stripe in Jiujitsu, though.

I’m often asked by my clients why I consider “exercise” to consist almost entirely of strength training, strength training, and some more strength training. After all, all the major certifying bodies in my industry call just about any sort of activity “exercise”; who am I to buck the system?

Well, in my highfalutin’ perspective, I see the role of a trainer as a clinician. A clinician does not perform or prescribe willy-nilly; he takes great care to define his terms and acts in precise accordance to scientific postulates and “the laws of nature”, as discovered and perceived by man.

It’s exactly the randomness with which most in the fitness industry tackle the problem of exercise that needs to be combated.

But what’s the great danger? Why not equate exercise to recreation and blur the lines between the two? I mean, I love to snowboard and play Jiujitsu; it’d be great if those two recreational, sportive endeavors could count towards my weekly or monthly “exercise quota.” They’re certainly much more fun than slogging it out against the weights (though I get some sick enjoyment out of fighting the iron, too).

But I’m afraid I can’t consider that. Both activities are highly skill-based. To observe change in either one is to see improvement in sports-specific conditioning - indeed, even charting short-term progress would be a task in and of itself with all the ever-changing, random variables involved (if you don’t believe me, you should see the training logs of Olympic sprinters - yikes).

Also, not everyone can do what I do. I train a 73 year old woman with arthritis so severe she can barely make it down the stairs to the training floor. Is her 20 or so minutes of sub-max level weight training equivalent in benefit to the 2 hour walk she took the day before? (hint: it’s far greater.) What would be the “exercise equivalents” of, say, two hours of stairmaster to one hour of kickboxing? You could compare the two via calories burned, but there are other things to consider, most importantly:

How does performance of this activity get me closer to my goals?

In order to gauge value, one needs a system by which one can rank and compare. If anything goes, no such system is possible.

According to the American College of Sports Medicine (the AMA of the fitness industry), in context of health, almost any physical activity, from gardening to lacrosse, can be construed as “exercise.” While on the surface, this seems like a good approach to opening the door for more people who wouldn’t normally be involved in “exercise” to “exercise”, it robs those same individuals by downplaying the significance of particular modes of exercise being more advantageous in delivering health benefits (cough cough strength training cough) in less time, safely, and more effectively.

When you label anything as “exercise”, you get this kind of garbage. This is the ACSM’s recommendations - taken to the point of reductio ad absurdum:

Easy Exercises.

What happens is that people go out to walk their dogs and think, “Well, I’m exercising. So it’s ok if I don’t weight train.” or some nonsense like that. Perhaps I’m overstating a bit and need to get myself into bed for some recovery, so let me summarize:

When the New York Times reported that GNC stopped selling Pat Robertson’s protein shake, I thought to myself,

“Pat Robertson has a protein shake?”

So let’s do some fact-checking on the article:

1) Here’s a link to the YouTube video referenced in the article:

Pat Robertson Leg Pressing 1000 lbs.

Those “leg presses” are atrocious. He didn’t even put the safety stops down. Those are like, quarter presses. And he’s using his hands.

2) The world leg press record of 1335 lbs.

So it’s claimed that Dan Kendra of Florida State supposedly set this record of 1335 lbs in the leg press. Well, I’m fairly certain that the actual record, if there is one for the leg press, is much higher than that. How can I be so sure?

Just a hunch.
(With me on top, it makes 1120, not counting the weight of the sled. And McGregor, who is not huge, repped it twice while cursing out the cameraman.)

But seriously, if Paul Anderson can squat 1260 lbs, then can there be any doubt that a big, strong guy on a 45 degree leg press sled can move more than 1335 lbs?

Secondly, if that’s the form he’s using, there’s no way Pat Robertson’s even budging 2000 lbs.

3) In case you wanted to know what’s actually in Pat’s Shake: Ingredients.

Just your usual, run-of-the-mill, cheapo protein shake. Bleah.

To summarize?

Squat.

Leg Press. (But you don’t have to carry on like Ronnie does, believe me.)

Hell, do Pistols if that’s what floats your boat.

But for goodness sakes, use correct form and a full range of motion! And steer clear of evangelicals that tell you otherwise.

And tell Ronnie Coleman to slow down his negatives a little.