It's All About Mass, Muscle Mass

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.