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We’ve all had them. One of those days that you could just scream or break something or start a fight with your significant other just for the sake of having a good reason to scream. Today I was having one of those days. Thankfully, I’m old enough that I knew I was in a bad space, and recognized it for what it was and knew that my husband didn’t deserve that abuse. So I went into the basement (where I have my weight training equipment) turned on the music REALLY loud (I know, my neighbors hate my guts) and lifted. By the time I was done, I felt shaky and there were these bright little sparklies in my vision when I stood up, but I most assuredly didn’t feel like bitching anyone out. Had a little trouble using my hands, mind you, but I was moving into a better place, mentally, and as the afternoon progressed, I got better inside my head.
So I was thinking about that while I was working later on in the day, about the fact that I’ve lifted on and off since I was 29 (in fact at one point taking a very long hiatus of over three years), but still I kept coming back to the Iron (despite getting miserable DOMS when I would stop lifting for at least a month), I keep coming back. I’ll never suit up and strut my stuff on a stage, I don’t have the discipline for competition dieting (and can’t imagine giving up alcohol for that much time) and I have physical limitations that prevent me from achieving anything in the way of power lifting competitions, but after 15 years I have decided that I will not give up the Iron until I’m too old and decrepit to move an empty bar. My achievements are mine, and sometimes those achievements are just actually beginning and completing a workout, and that’s enough.
Certainly there are many incentives to weight train as a woman, not the least of which is aesthetics, but for me Iron has been about love. I love the sound of putting a plate on a bar, I love the feel of calluses on my hand and I love the smell of plates and bars. Most of all, I love pushing or pulling something that I simply couldn’t shift a month or two ago only to discover that now I’m ready to move up in weight, even if it’s only by a pound or two. I love the sense of accomplishment.
If you want to get technical, I don’t actually LOVE working out mind you. Honestly, I have several exercises I do that I mutter curses all the while I do them (it’s a very good thing I work out at home, seriously). I have several things, in fact, I utterly hate doing. I hate how it feels to do them or how they make me want to vomit or cry while I’m doing them (sometimes both, bent over dumbbell rows are one of the banes of my existence, for instance) but I also know they are good for me or I see the benefits in other aspects of my life or training so I dig in and get them done, even if it means hating every minute of it because once it’s done I can look back on it and be proud of the fact I got through it.
And then there’s the euphoria after the workout is done. I know it’s exercise induced endorphins but you know something? I don’t give damn what the physiologic explanation is, the truth is, it keeps MY head screwed on properly. As I said in the beginning, I’ve dropped weight training plenty of times in my life, even as recently as last year going about three months without lifting anything much heavier than the occasional box of cat litter, and I can honestly say I start to spiral down into a truly ugly funk when I get away from weight training for too long. Just pushing or pulling something damned heavy (for me) a couple or three times a week (ideally more than that but honestly, I’m finally getting real with setting the bar pretty farkin’ low in my life. The truth is, I’m stressed out enough as it is) and I’m amazed how it levels out my point of view. I feel better about myself and life itself seems less about stressing and more about moving ahead, having some fun, maybe enjoying the sunset or smelling the roses. Weight training recalibrates my perspective on life.
And then there are the things that weight training has blessed me with as (almost) a side effect. I meant to say, I’ve got strong bones. I took two falls not too long ago, and both were quite bad. On one I missed a step and landed with all my weight just below my hip, the bruise looked like someone had rolled a football that had been coated in dark purple ink over my upper thigh. The other one was both embarrassing and still shocking. You need to know I have hardwood floors throughout my entire house, and I have six cats. I was walking barefoot in an unlit room and hit a pile of cat barf. My right leg shot out from under me faster than I could think about it and I landed with my full body weight directly on the left kneecap. I was sore and hobbled a bit for a day or two, had quite a nice bruise for the next two weeks and the knee was tender for a month or so, but that was all. Let’s hear it for weight training encouraging bone density!!! Remember folks, I'm going to be 45 at my next birthday, in a bit over one month.
Yes, ladies, resistance training is one of the few things in life that ENCOURAGES bone growth, in women, after those vital teenaged years. In fact, it’s been scientifically proven that even geriatrics can regrow bone with weight training:
Bone density sharply enhanced by weight training, even in the elderly
Bones are actually dynamic tissue, you see. They are constantly being remodeled with osteoclasts and osteoblasts according to the needs of the body. If you have a sedentary lifestyle or are petite or lift hardly any weight regularly, you are going to have fragile bones prone to osteoporosis. If you are obese, or lift heavy weights either as exercise or in the course of your day to day life, you are going to have strong bones. Yes, obesity does has one thing in common with a weight training lifestyle: They both build strong bones! If osteoporosis runs in your family you would do better to put your bones under the stress of hauling some heavy Iron a few times a week before your doctor starts prescribing the likes of Fosamax or Boniva.
However, you won’t strengthen your bone density with aerobic activity, in fact, the demands of marathon type aerobic activities actually breaks down bones (seriously). Our bodies, in their infinite wisdom when they perceive that we are participating in sustained, aerobic activities will start to make our bones lighter:
ScienceDirect - International Journal of Fatigue : Simulated effects of marathon training on bone density, remodeling, and microdamage accumulation of the femur
Osteoporosis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(in other words, you need to do a lot of running, you need to weigh less).
So what do you want out of your physical life? Seriously. Personally, as a practicing Wiccan I see the spiritual/physical/emotional as one integrative whole. I need to be right in my body to be able to deal with my personal/social life like a civilized being and I must have my physical and emotional life in balance to be able to approach my spirituality with a balanced mind. But pragmatically, this approach applies to those of all – or no – spirituality. A complete human life encompasses achieving spiritual AND emotional AND physical balance. Even if you’re an atheist, think of spirituality as your psyche and physical life having achieved compatible balance. Your ethos, so to speak, having reached equilibrium with you psyche and your physical modality.
Weight training may be the only true fountain of youth that we can legitimately lay our hands on, if you consider metabolism, bone density and growth hormone:
Strength Training: The Fountain of Youth
So all hail muscle and all hail the god/dess of Iron! You that have pushed me to realms beyond the common wo/man, you that have lifted me to the heights of the gods. You’ve kept me grounded, you’ve kept me sane and you have also given me gifts that no one on this Earth can take from me, a belief in my own fortitude and confidence in my own strength, determination and discipline to name a few.
So I was thinking about that while I was working later on in the day, about the fact that I’ve lifted on and off since I was 29 (in fact at one point taking a very long hiatus of over three years), but still I kept coming back to the Iron (despite getting miserable DOMS when I would stop lifting for at least a month), I keep coming back. I’ll never suit up and strut my stuff on a stage, I don’t have the discipline for competition dieting (and can’t imagine giving up alcohol for that much time) and I have physical limitations that prevent me from achieving anything in the way of power lifting competitions, but after 15 years I have decided that I will not give up the Iron until I’m too old and decrepit to move an empty bar. My achievements are mine, and sometimes those achievements are just actually beginning and completing a workout, and that’s enough.
Certainly there are many incentives to weight train as a woman, not the least of which is aesthetics, but for me Iron has been about love. I love the sound of putting a plate on a bar, I love the feel of calluses on my hand and I love the smell of plates and bars. Most of all, I love pushing or pulling something that I simply couldn’t shift a month or two ago only to discover that now I’m ready to move up in weight, even if it’s only by a pound or two. I love the sense of accomplishment.
If you want to get technical, I don’t actually LOVE working out mind you. Honestly, I have several exercises I do that I mutter curses all the while I do them (it’s a very good thing I work out at home, seriously). I have several things, in fact, I utterly hate doing. I hate how it feels to do them or how they make me want to vomit or cry while I’m doing them (sometimes both, bent over dumbbell rows are one of the banes of my existence, for instance) but I also know they are good for me or I see the benefits in other aspects of my life or training so I dig in and get them done, even if it means hating every minute of it because once it’s done I can look back on it and be proud of the fact I got through it.
And then there’s the euphoria after the workout is done. I know it’s exercise induced endorphins but you know something? I don’t give damn what the physiologic explanation is, the truth is, it keeps MY head screwed on properly. As I said in the beginning, I’ve dropped weight training plenty of times in my life, even as recently as last year going about three months without lifting anything much heavier than the occasional box of cat litter, and I can honestly say I start to spiral down into a truly ugly funk when I get away from weight training for too long. Just pushing or pulling something damned heavy (for me) a couple or three times a week (ideally more than that but honestly, I’m finally getting real with setting the bar pretty farkin’ low in my life. The truth is, I’m stressed out enough as it is) and I’m amazed how it levels out my point of view. I feel better about myself and life itself seems less about stressing and more about moving ahead, having some fun, maybe enjoying the sunset or smelling the roses. Weight training recalibrates my perspective on life.
And then there are the things that weight training has blessed me with as (almost) a side effect. I meant to say, I’ve got strong bones. I took two falls not too long ago, and both were quite bad. On one I missed a step and landed with all my weight just below my hip, the bruise looked like someone had rolled a football that had been coated in dark purple ink over my upper thigh. The other one was both embarrassing and still shocking. You need to know I have hardwood floors throughout my entire house, and I have six cats. I was walking barefoot in an unlit room and hit a pile of cat barf. My right leg shot out from under me faster than I could think about it and I landed with my full body weight directly on the left kneecap. I was sore and hobbled a bit for a day or two, had quite a nice bruise for the next two weeks and the knee was tender for a month or so, but that was all. Let’s hear it for weight training encouraging bone density!!! Remember folks, I'm going to be 45 at my next birthday, in a bit over one month.
Yes, ladies, resistance training is one of the few things in life that ENCOURAGES bone growth, in women, after those vital teenaged years. In fact, it’s been scientifically proven that even geriatrics can regrow bone with weight training:
Bone density sharply enhanced by weight training, even in the elderly
Bones are actually dynamic tissue, you see. They are constantly being remodeled with osteoclasts and osteoblasts according to the needs of the body. If you have a sedentary lifestyle or are petite or lift hardly any weight regularly, you are going to have fragile bones prone to osteoporosis. If you are obese, or lift heavy weights either as exercise or in the course of your day to day life, you are going to have strong bones. Yes, obesity does has one thing in common with a weight training lifestyle: They both build strong bones! If osteoporosis runs in your family you would do better to put your bones under the stress of hauling some heavy Iron a few times a week before your doctor starts prescribing the likes of Fosamax or Boniva.
However, you won’t strengthen your bone density with aerobic activity, in fact, the demands of marathon type aerobic activities actually breaks down bones (seriously). Our bodies, in their infinite wisdom when they perceive that we are participating in sustained, aerobic activities will start to make our bones lighter:
ScienceDirect - International Journal of Fatigue : Simulated effects of marathon training on bone density, remodeling, and microdamage accumulation of the femur
Osteoporosis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(in other words, you need to do a lot of running, you need to weigh less).
So what do you want out of your physical life? Seriously. Personally, as a practicing Wiccan I see the spiritual/physical/emotional as one integrative whole. I need to be right in my body to be able to deal with my personal/social life like a civilized being and I must have my physical and emotional life in balance to be able to approach my spirituality with a balanced mind. But pragmatically, this approach applies to those of all – or no – spirituality. A complete human life encompasses achieving spiritual AND emotional AND physical balance. Even if you’re an atheist, think of spirituality as your psyche and physical life having achieved compatible balance. Your ethos, so to speak, having reached equilibrium with you psyche and your physical modality.
Weight training may be the only true fountain of youth that we can legitimately lay our hands on, if you consider metabolism, bone density and growth hormone:
Strength Training: The Fountain of Youth
So all hail muscle and all hail the god/dess of Iron! You that have pushed me to realms beyond the common wo/man, you that have lifted me to the heights of the gods. You’ve kept me grounded, you’ve kept me sane and you have also given me gifts that no one on this Earth can take from me, a belief in my own fortitude and confidence in my own strength, determination and discipline to name a few.
