CHARACTER BUILDING: Exercising for Strength

Welcome back Viphilus*

As promised, here is the completed table. How did you do?

Today I want to discuss exercising for strength. I will look at it from a conceptual angle, beginning with what is collectively understood in the gyms of the world: how to build physical muscles.

Physical Exercising for Strength

Body muscles require fuel (protein), stress (exercise), and de-stress (rest) to grow. Contrary to what most people think, exercising is not when the muscles grow; they actually grow during a period of rest …. when we sleep. I think it is very instructive to learn a little bit about how muscles actually grow because we will see how this carries over to other dimensions.

When we do exercises like cardio workouts (aerobic activity), the help build lung and heart capacity, in part, because those workouts capitalize on oxygen. True strength-training, or muscle building, comes from anaerobic exercises … activities where the muscles are deprived of oxygen. The process results in lactic acid buildup which ultimately causes tiny (microscopic almost) tears in the muscles, making them breakdown. When we sleep, if our sleep is truly restful, the body goes into repair-mode … like putting the car up on the hoist to fix stuff while the owner goes shopping. The protein that we have digested forms the building blocks of muscle and during repair-mode our body essentially spot-welds all the little tears with more muscle material. And as anyone who has seen a good welding job … the weld is stronger than the original material. And muscle grows.

Oh, one more thing … when you are doing anaerobic exercise, you haven’t actually achieved the state where the muscles are breaking down the needed amount until you can feel the burning sensation of the acid being produced. Until you push to the point where you feel the pain, you will never reach a point where you will receive any gains (cue the slogan).

Let’s recap by seeing the four key, yet non-intuitive, things:

1. Muscles grow by first weakening or damaging them a little bit.
2. Muscles grow during times of rest when the body is in repair-mode.
3. All the exercise in the world won’t help if you don’t supply the building materials (protein).
4. Gain requires pain.

I’ll skip all the instructions about the best kinds of exercises for targeting muscle growth or muscle-shaping. I just want to stick to these essentials.

[FYI - One more thing I picked up about 10 years ago from Harley Pasternak (5-Factor Fitness). One of the by-products of anaerobic vs. aerobic exercise is the duration of the benefits in the area of fat-burning. Doing 30 minutes of aerobic exercise (running for example) puts the body into a fat-burning zone. When you stop, the body remains in that zone for another 40 minutes or zone. Excellent return on investment … more than 2:1. BUT …. And this is a HUGE BUT …. During anaerobic exercise for 15 minutes (weight lifting to the point of fatigue and failure) the body also goes into a fat-burning zone. When you stop, the body remains in that zone for an additional 48 hours!!!  (even 3 exclamation marks aren’t enough). That is a ridiculous ROI … almost 200:1. The reason is simple …. Damaging the muscles in anaerobic exercise puts the body in repair mode which mandates that the metabolism run at its peak until the repairs are made. Simple muscle repairs from this kind of exercise usually take about 48 hours … so if you do 15-20 minutes of strength training every 2^nd day, you are literally forcing your body to remain in repair mode … and hence, fat-burning mode … 24/7 until you stop that cycle).]

OK, now what about the other dimensions? How do you exercise for strength mentally? Emotionally? Spiritually?

I want to give you a couple days to ponder this before just tossing out an answer. This is not a dodge for a few days … it’s actually an important part of the lesson I’m trying to get across … that being that we need to struggle a bit with a problem (mental stress) in order to grow in mental strength. People don’t learn by giving them answers … they learned by solving problems. 

So, come back Thursday, Friday and Saturday to continue this thread … and see what you come up with on how to strengthen your mind, emotions and spiritual states.

Blessings Viphilus,

Your friend, Omega Man

OCA Training

* Viphilus means, "lover of life"