A couple of days ago, while out
paddling with friends, someone asked me if I was still on "that
low carb diet?" I had to think about that. In our modern
culture, "diet" implies a short term change in regular
eating patterns to achieve a desired outcome - generally weight loss
(importantly, not fat loss). There is also some nuance of
faddishness about a "low carbohydrate diet." Faddishness
implies a way of eating that is not merely unsustainable but also
unhealthy.
Ski hut bacon and eggs breakfast
Of course, the answer was yes. And
after some thought, I realized that I had been on this "low carb
diet" for a decade. Although if asked, I would describe my diet
as avoiding grains, seeds and industrial seed oils. But it is true,
I also avoid starchy vegetables and only eat a very little fruit.
Insulin resistance in older women is a thing - look it up
Bridge pull-up anyone?
But these days I am much more obsessed
with strength and building muscle mass to reflect too much on the
nuances of diet. We all know, or should by now, that you can't out
exercise a bad diet, which is why you see so many amateur athletes
with less than ideal body fatness. And certainly, being over-fat is
not a good thing in terms of long term health outcomes, but, if you
were to pinpoint one thing that leads to living not merely a long
life, but a healthy and functional long life - i.e. staying out of
the nursing home and continuing to do activities you enjoy - it would
be muscle mass and overall strength.
Doug cranking pull-ups on a mountain
Which makes it all the more perplexing
that strength training remains very much a fringe activity. Among my
circle, which now spans two countries and is made up almost
exclusively of people who enjoy exercise, virtually no-one strength
trains with enough consistency, resistance or quality movements to be
considered serious weight lifters. And yet, the older you get the
more vital it is to protect and preserve muscle. By the time you
reach the point where getting off the floor unaided is impossible, it
may very well be too late.
It is a shame that strength training,
which is itself relatively simple conceptually - pick up increasingly
heavy objects and put them down - is so poorly understood. Not just
among the general public but also among sports coaches, trainers, and
exercise physiologists. Virtually no-one, outside the power or
Olympic lifting scene programs for pure strength. A maxim that
endurance coaches would do well to have branded on their chests is
"there is no endurance without strength."
Doesn't everyone do overhead
squats with their ski pack?
There are as many arcane and
complicated workouts on the interwebs as there are varieties of
donuts at a Timmy Ho's. Novices and experts alike are susceptible to
the allure of esoteric programs featuring dozens of exercises. But,
at the end of the day, programming for strength training is simple.
Perform the four basic human movements: push, pull, hinge and squat.
Throw in some loaded carries for all round utility. Do 15 to 25
repetitions, spread over 3 to 8 sets with a couple of minutes rest
between repetitions and gradually increase the load.
That's it. It's not fancy, it's not
particularly fun. It certainly isn't sexy or even 'gramme worthy but
it works.
