This is a guest post by strength & conditioning coach Phil Nourse. Phil is a certified weightlifting coach by both BWLA and USAW. This post follows on neatly from my last post on basic barbell programmes as it introduces a different approach (from Steve Justa) and discusses the use of intensity in the training cycle. Over to Phil…

Renowned American powerlifter Arthur ‘Superman’ Jones once said, “There is a difference between lifting more and actually getting stronger.”

The point Jones was making was that lifting heavy weights in training does not actually mean that our pure strength will increase. Of course in weightlifting and powerlifting our strength is benchmarked by our performance in competition. Russian strength guru Pavel Tstatsouline says of this approach, “train light, compete heavy.”

In my experience of competitive weightlifting in the UK and USA this approach is often overlooked or rejected in favour of an irrational obsession with intensity. Why is this the case?

Perhaps it is a fascination with certain aspects of eastern bloc philosophy including the so-called Bulgarian approach.

It may also be the culture of ‘hard work’ which permeates this sport as well as many other aspects of strength training and sports in general. Right from the teenage wannabe bodybuilder through to competitive track and field athletes one very frequently comes across the attitude that if hard and frequent is good, harder and more frequent will be better. Commendable but, I would argue, possibly naïve.

Lastly, and this will be controversial, I feel that the sport of weightlifting often places itself upon a pedestal and is incredibly introspective, whereas if it were to take a more extrospective view it may learn something from other strength sports, particular the experiences of elite powerlifters. One only has to read works on powerlifting to realise that their sport is very outward looking and open minded to learning from other strength sports; most often, weightlifting.

Examples in powerlifting of success achieved through the “train light, compete heavy” approach are numerous. Andy Bolton (pictured, above) pulled a world record 455kg deadlift having taken no more than 340kg for a triple in the preceeding 8-week training cycle. (Both lifts were suited but suits add little to a deadlift unlike the squat and bench press.)

Another example is the bench press programme of Vladimir Volkov, the European bench press champion and masters world champion in the 220lb class. In the 10-week cycle leading up to the Russian bench press championship of 2005 he trained the bench press an average of 3 1/3 times per week (that is, relatively frequently), never took loads above 88 per cent of his competition maximum and only attempted loads between 81 and 88 per cent in 15 per cent of his workouts and usually only for a single or, infrequently, a double. All other workouts used loads between 59 and 79 per cent. He would take that championship with a bench press of 270kg.

It is this relatively frequent practice with light to moderate loads which Tsatsouline terms “greasing the groove.” He attributes the success of the approach to the improvements in intramuscular coordination which he contends it delivers. Russian powerlifter, Sergey Pavlov adds, “when you are just thinking WHETHER you will lift the bar, you are not thinking about HOW to lift it.” As we said earlier, lifting heavy weights and getting stronger are not the same thing.

Tsatsouline believes that the optimal load for gaining strength is in the 70-80 per cent (of 1 rep max) range which is, he suggests “heavy enough to notice, yet light enough to pay attention to the technique and not need to psyche up.”

It is interesting that the Russian guru proposes this range as it is also recommended by an American natural strongman, Steve Justa. Justa is precisely the type of athlete the weightlifting world would generally, I believe, pay little attention to, yet his works are intelligent and thought provoking.

In his book, Rock, Iron, Steel he details a program which he suggests is “very efficient and will build tremendous strength.” Justa even goes as far as to contend it to be excellent for developing “one lift you would like to practice and excel in and maybe set a world record in.”

In brief the routine involves practicing the chosen lift every day, utilising only singles and always using loads between 70 and 80 per cent of maximum. It is this percentage range which he calls “the target zone” and proposes that “this is the zone you must stay in when training to get stronger the fastest.”

On the first Monday you would perform three singles with 70 per cent, Tuesday would be five singles, Wednesday seven and so on up to fifteen on the Sunday. The following week the load increases to around 73.3 per cent, the next to 76.6 per cent and in the fourth the loads are at 80 per cent. One rep max is then tested and the process repeated.

When I ran this by friends and acquaintances in the weightlifting world their response was practically unanimous: “I don’t think there’s enough intensity”, or words to that effect. The quote from American coach, John Coffee was “I’d be scared to experiment with it out of fear that it wouldn’t work.”

Throughout my two-month experiment on the programme my knees and quads felt fantastic, no aches or pains, I actually looked forward to my squat sessions rather than dreading them, my olympic lifting sessions were better and, much to my delight, my incredibly stubborn squat max improved for the first time in a long time. A scientific experiment? Not at all. Did I care? Definitely not; it worked for me.

In his book Steve Justa relays a hypothetical to explain his thought process. This rings very true with me and also will with many of you:

“Let’s say your max is 500lbs in the deadlift, and you’ve worked up to the point where you’re pulling 450 for reps, say three reps, and you want to do four sets of three reps for your workout. Well this is fine for one workout. Even if you’re tough mentally, as you start lifting and gut your way through the workout, because you’re lifting so close to your max, every rep is hard and every set is hard. If you make it through this workout, when you finally make it, you say to yourself ‘I’m on the verge of lifting too heavy, but I made it and I feel happy, but it will feel lighter next workout – it has to because I don’t know how many more workouts like that last one I can endure.’

It’s at this point your mind’s already giving out on you because you’re questioning yourself if you could work that hard again if you had to. Then, until your next workout, this feeling of dread sticks with you, and if you’re going to use the same weight this time as last, you know you’re in for trouble. You know you’re out of your target zone but you want to push ahead rather than have to take weight off and start all over again.

For some reason, to the ambitious strength athlete, the thought of having to take weight off a lift you’ve already done is a fate worse than death itself. And this is a mentality you must not carry. Never be ashamed or embarrassed or feel let down because you have to take a little weight off a lift to keep training. If it feels too heavy, it probably IS too heavy for you to be training with.

But getting back to the story, you approach your next workout with dread because you know it’s going to be a killer mentally and physically, but you’re expecting it to be a little lighter than last time since you’ve already had one workout with this weight. So you hit the workout and for some reason it feels even heavier to you this time than it did last time. Well, now you’ve really got trouble mentally when this happens, and you really feel frustrated. But no, you think, I’m tough, I can handle it. So you gut your way through another backbreaking workout, carrying a sense of dread and destruction with you the whole time.”

Of course weightlifting and powerlifting are different sports and the style of lifting is also very different. My gut feeling is that the way we get stronger in the explosive lifts may be very physiologically and neurologically different that in the slow, strength lifts.

That said I also believe there is much that the sport of weightlifting can learn from these coaches and athletes who are succeeding in related sports. At the very least we may wish to experiment with such methodologies in our squats, presses and so forth.

More than this, though, any experienced coach can surely see how this discussion relates to that lifter with a preoccupation with intensity, i.e. he/she who continually misses far, far more lifts in training than they catch due to regular use of loads which are too heavy and the associated breakdown in form.

Why would anyone want to practice failure? Why would anyone want to think constantly about whether they will lift the bar and not how to lift it? Both will lead to deterioration and confusion of skill specific intramuscular coordination, mislearning, which in competition – under pressure and with heavy loads – will result in technical breakdown at the very moment it needs to be perfect.

More from gubernatrix

Five secrets of more effective training
Testing your one rep max
Define your training
On not making progress

Yes, even Paula Radcliffe squats – quite heavy as well! A barbell programme is the best way to get strong legs, a strong back, strong upper body and a strong core. The stronger you are, the easier it is to do athletic things.

‘Basic’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘beginner’ or ‘newbie’ either. It means simple and effective. A basic barbell programme could be ideal for, say, a powerlifter who wants to get back to basics for a while, as well as an athlete needing to build strength for their sport in the off season.

Prerequisites

Before I get into the detail of the programmes, it’s important that you have the prerequisites of a basic barbell programme in place, and these are:

Power cage

• Access to a barbell (preferably an Olympic bar)
• Access to weight plates (preferably down to 1.25kg)
• Access to a squat rack or power cage

These are basic requirements but sadly many so-called gyms can’t fulfil them. If you have access to a decent strength and conditioning facility at a sports club or university you will probably be fine, but if you just go to your local high street chain gym, you may struggle.

If your gym doesn’t have barbells and racks, my advice is: leave and never look back. If you are serious about your training, find a gym that takes your training seriously and can provide you with the basic equipment that folks have used for hundreds of years to get strong. Or invest in your own kit for home. It’s that simple.

Introduction to the programmes

The programmes discussed below are:

Starting Strength – beginner
Stronglifts – beginner
Wendler’s 5/3/1 – intermediate or advanced
Madcow intermediate 5×5 – intermediate (there is also an advanced version)
Texas Method – intermediate

As a rule of thumb, beginner means someone who is in their first year of barbell strength training; intermediate is someone with a year or two of barbell training under their belt; advanced is someone who has been training for years.

The main difference between beginner programmes and intermediate or advanced programmes is that beginner programmes assume progression (increase in weight or reps) from session to session. At some stage progression every session will no longer be possible (as you get closer to your strength potential) and you then need a programme that includes progression from week to week, or from cycle to cycle.

If you only train with barbells once a week, or you’ve never done a strength-focussed programme before (as opposed to a bodybuilding programme), then you might be a beginner in strength terms even if you have been training for a couple of years or more.

You’ll notice that all of these programmes feature sets of between 1 and 5 reps. This is the ideal rep range for strength building. 5 rep sets are long enough to get good technique nailed and for strength adaptations to occur. You can also build mass with 5 rep sets. If you’ve not done 1-5 rep sets before, you’ve probably not done a strength programme before.

I’ll come back to this beginner-intermediate distinction at the end, but in the meantime, let’s take a look at the programmes.

Starting Strength – great for beginners and intermediates

Book: Starting Strength 2nd edition by Mark Rippetoe & Lon Kilgore available from startingstrength.com or Amazon
Online resources: Starting Strength Wiki

Starting Strength is an excellent beginner programme – although Stronglifts (discussed below) might suit you better. Starting Strength can also be good for intermediates who are still making progress on a linear programme.

It is good partly because of the structure of the programme and partly because of the wealth of guidance and technical knowledge contained in the book. It allows you to teach yourself good technique and safe, effective training practice.

Likewise, anyone who has been away from training for a while, or has only ever had informal tuition in the barbell lifts learning from people around them, will probably benefit hugely from the technical guidance in Starting Strength. I’ve been training for years and I still refer to it.

What is the programme?
It is a 3 day a week programme featuring the squat, deadlift, bench, military press and power clean. You squat every session and alternate the other lifts.

Sets are 5 reps, but this is not a 5×5 (5 sets of 5 reps) programme; the number of sets changes depending on the lift you are doing. For example, Rippetoe believes that the squat benefits more from ‘sets across’ (several sets at the same weight) than the deadlift, which is better done as one heavy set.

Basic programme:
(note: this and all other programmes quoted below are just the bare bones of the programme to give you an idea of what it looks like; invariably there is much more detail in the books themselves)

Alternating these sessions three days a week means that one week you do Workout A twice and the next week you do Workout B twice.

Why is Starting Strength good?
It does what it says on the tin. It is simple to follow and comes with excellent technique advice in the book. It will potentially last you a long time; you can continue to build strength and/or mass for months or years with this kind of programme.

Any downsides?
You might get bored if you are used to doing lots of different exercises and ‘mixing up’ your programme every six weeks as many PTs like you to do. But if that is the case, you need to change your mindset because getting stronger is all about plugging away at a few key movements. Use the numbers as your motivation and enjoy mastering these big movements.

The power clean is harder to master than the other movements, being a more technical lift. It’s a great lift to learn but if you are not keen to take it on, Stronglifts (below) is a good alternative. Some people also substitute the barbell row for the power clean on Starting Strength.

Getting started
You’ll need the book (a good investment if you are serious about your training), and perhaps the Wiki. The book contains all the technical guidance and the concepts behind the programme but it doesn’t contain an actual template programme. There’s enough information in the book for you to create your own programme if you want, but if you would rather not, you can refer to the Wiki for programmes that Rippetoe and others have written using the Starting Strength concepts.

Stronglifts – accessible beginner programme

Book: Free ebook from Stronglifts.com
Online resources: blog and forum at Stronglifts.com

Stronglifts is very similar to Starting Strength in structure, but packaged differently and aimed at a more looks-conscious crowd. The tagline is ‘build muscle and lose fat’, rather than ‘get strong’, although Stronglifts will get you strong as well, if you’ve not really trained strength before. You might be more motivated by ‘look good naked’ rhetoric than ‘get awesomely strong’ rhetoric. There is also more information on the Stronglifts website about nutrition and losing fat than there is in Starting Strength.

Most of the ebook is written in an FAQ style which is easy to read and gets the information over effectively. The ebook itself doesn’t contain any ‘how to’ information on technique but all of this is available on the website. It’s not as technically comprehensive as Starting Strength – but then, few books are.

What is the programme?
Like Starting Strength it is a 3 day a week programme featuring the squat, deadlift, bench, and various assistance exercises. You squat every session and alternate the other lifts.

Unlike Starting Strength, Stronglifts does not include the power clean as a key lift. The power clean is rather more technical than squat or deadlift and will take longer to master. Stronglifts includes the technically easier movements of inverted row and pull up/chin up.

The set and rep scheme is slightly different from Starting Strength. More of the exercises are 5×5 rather than 3×5, so overall the volume is higher.

Basic programme:

Like Starting Strength, you alternate these workouts over a three day week.

Why is Stronglifts good?
It is written in an accessible way and is easy to follow. There’s an active online community around the programme so you can access support, motivation and feedback.

There are more exercises included in the basic programme than Starting Strength, so if Starting Strength looks a bit boring you might fare better on Stronglifts.

Any downsides?
Many people have said that adding weight every workout gets quite difficult within a few weeks or months. Some people also get a bit tired and/or demotivated on the programme because the volume is quite high. Doing 5×5 squats is much more demanding than doing 3×10 bicep curls!

Getting started
It is quick to get started as everything is online. Download the free ebook from Stronglifts.com, read the blog posts for technique info and sign up to the forum, where you can keep a training log, ask questions and get support.

Wendler’s 5/3/1 – great intermediate or advanced programme

Book: purchase ebook online from EliteFTS.com
Online resources: 5/3/1 FAQ and the original T-Nation article

Jim Wendler is a powerlifter from the infamous Westside Barbell powerlifting gym who underwent a renaissance when he realised that although he had become enormously strong in the competitive power lifts, he was also extremely fat, out of shape and burnt out from lifting.

The eventual result of this change in philosophy was a programme which combines strength with some conditioning, can be done around a normal lifestyle and provides simple progression and regular personal bests.

What is the programme?
You train 3-4 days a week (there are other options too) on a 4-week cycle. One day is devoted to squat, one to deadlift, one to military press and one to bench press. The rep schemes for these lifts are as follows:

The weight you use on the main exercise each week is worked out as a percentage of your max. The programme starts light so that continuous progress can be made.

As well as the main exercises, you add in whatever assistance exercises you want (dips, chins, rows, shrugs, good mornings etc). You also add in conditioning such as hill sprints or prowler pushes.

Why is it good?
It is a classic powerlifting rep scheme, from 5 reps to 3 to 1, but the difference is that you don’t reach your absolute max – instead you try to get more reps at a slightly sub-maximal weight. This means that you get more volume than a traditional powerlifting programme but you still have to work hard at heavy weights, and so you get stronger.

There is also the interesting mental challenge of not knowing how many reps you might get on that last set of 1+. Your personal bests become not your one rep max but a rep PB on a particular weight. This also takes the pressure off going to max too often. In fact you might only go to max on the platform.

Any downsides?
I’ve seen people do this programme and get very high reps on their 1+ day. This is because they haven’t reached anywhere near their strength potential. I’m not convinced that 5/3/1 is the best programme in this situation; although it won’t exactly do you harm either. But Starting Strength or some other linear 3×5 or 5×5 programme is better to build strength first. I would include Crossfitters in this group as many do not do enough strength training in their day to day Crossfitting to be ready for 5/3/1, unless they are coming from a lifting background.

For powerlifters this programme might contain more volume than they are used to; but for beginners the volume on 5/3/1 is less than on the other beginner programmes discussed here.

5/3/1 seems ideal for people who have been plugging away with powerlifting or heavy bodybuilding workouts for years and have just stalled. It could also suit someone who is transitioning from ‘normal’ barbell training into powerlifting training, perhaps working up to their first meet.

Getting started
The book does not contain detailed instruction in the lifts but includes good performance tips if you can already perform a squat, deadlift, bench and military press and are familiar with the assistance exercises.

If you are happy performing the movements, the book is all you need: it even provides Excel templates and worksheets for you to put your programme together. There are formulas for obtaining your one rep max but you might also want to test your one rep max first.

If you’ve done little barbell work before and you are not confident in the main exercises, begin with Starting Strength and save 5/3/1 for when you are at a more advanced level.

Madcow intermediate 5×5 – intermediate

Online resources: Madcow intermediate 5×5

There are many variations of the basic 5×5 programme out there, so I’m not going to go through all of them. This particular programme is useful because it is clearly set out by Madcow, based on an original programme by legendary American strength coach Bill Starr.

The original programme was designed for off season football players, i.e. athletes who need strength and explosive power, and so power cleans and high pulls were included. Madcow presents a version with deadlift instead of high pull and barbell row instead of power clean – more geared to lifters simply focussing on strength and/or mass.

(Note: there is an advanced version which you can also access on Madcow. The main difference is that it is periodised over a four-week cycle)

What is the programme?
5×5 intermediate is a 3 day a week programme based on squat, bench, press, row, deadlift and assistance exercises. You squat every day.

You perform ramping (i.e. increasing) sets of 5×5 on a Monday, 4×5 on a Wednesday and by Friday you are doing a heavy triple, followed by a back off set of 8. That triple becomes your heaviest set of 5 on a Monday.

Basic programme:

Why is it good?
Like the other programmes, it is simple and easy to follow. It contains the big exercises that will cause the greatest strength adaptation and it has you squatting every session.

There is a lot of volume but most of it isn’t heavy because sets are ramping. This gives the body lots of time to get fit and strong, and for those with less experience at the lifts, more opportunity to practise technique. If you keep rest periods down, the cardio effect of doing 5×5 is significant.

Any downsides?
Many people will find it hard to keep adding weight every week, but if that is the case, simply repeat the session until you make all your reps at the new weight.

If you have no experience with the barbell lifts, this is not the ideal programme. But if you have basic technique in the lifts, this is a good beginner-to-intermediate programme for lifters and athletes.

Getting started
The details of the programme are found online at Madcow intermediate 5×5. For technique on the lifts, pick up a copy of Starting Strength.

Texas Method – intermediate

Book: Practical Programming for Strength Training by Rippetoe & Kilgore from startingstrength.com or Amazon
Online resources: startingstrength.com

The Texas Method is described by Mark Rippetoe in the book Practical Programming for Strength Training and is one of the intermediate programmes following the basic Starting Strength.

What is the programme?
There isn’t a programme so much as a programming method. Monday is the ‘stress’ day of the week, where adaptation takes place. Wednesday is a lighter day as the lifter is still recovering from Monday. Friday is a high intensity-low volume day where personal bests can be attempted.

Using squat as an example:

The exact exercises, sets and reps you choose depend on your goals. For the Friday, for example, you may want to do 1 x 5 one week, 1 x 3 the next week and 1 rep max the week after.

You don’t have to do every exercise every day. In fact, according to Glenn Pendlay, Wednesday is not for ‘light’ weights in the main lifts so much as exercises that are easier to recover from or exercises that the lifter is naturally less good at. For example, a powerlifter could do front squat on the Wednesday, since her front squat is likely to be significantly lighter than her back squat. Likewise overhead press can be used instead of bench press or power clean instead of deadlift.

Some intermediate lifters may fare better doing only one set of 5 on the deadlift on a Monday, rather than 5×5, especially when squatting the same day. The deadlift being such a taxing lift, it tends not to require as much volume as the other lifts.

Why is it good?
It is one of the progressions from Starting Strength, utilising principles similar to other 5×5 variations. The format of heavy/medium/light is a type of periodisation, easier to perform and recover from than a programme that demands progress every session. The method is flexible and easy to customise for your particular needs.

Any downsides?
It’s quite hard to work out exactly what a full Texas Method programme would look like, as Practical Programming only gives examples for one lift at a time. You are expected to interpret the method for yourself, which some people may not be comfortable with.

Practical Programming is an excellent book if you are interested in the general topic of programming, but if all you want is a new programme to start, then getting a book like this is probably not necessary. You might be better off buying Wendler’s 5/3/1 or giving Madcow intermediate a go.

This programme is probably best for people who have done Starting Strength and like the Rippetoe approach, but have stopped making progress and need to alter their programming.

Getting started
You will need the book Practical Programming for Strength Training by Rippetoe & Kilgore. You may also want to check out what other people have done on the Starting Strength forum.

Conclusion

Unless you are a complete beginner, you probably need to decide whether you need a beginner programme or an intermediate programme. This shouldn’t be a decision based on ego. In fact, you want to stay at ‘beginner’ level for as long as possible, since once your progress stalls you have to try all sorts of programming voo-doo to get it going again. The longer you are on a beginner programme making progress, the more likely you are to end up being a beast!

Making a choice between the programmes available will largely come down to packaging and appeal. For example, you might like the Stronglifts approach better than the Starting Strength approach, but both programmes will do what you want them to do.

The purpose of this review was to give you an idea of what the programmes are like and a few of the pros and cons, not to rate them or attempt to say which is best.

The good news is that you won’t go far wrong choosing any of these programmes. Those who learn good technique, train consistently and work hard invariably go on to achieve great things. The most important thing is to find a programme you like the look of and can stick to.

Have you done any of these programmes? Do you have any experiences to share?

More from gubernatrix

Five secrets of more effective training
How to deadlift
How to bench press
Why you should full squat
Assistance exercises

You can convert pounds to kilos in your head

Your warm up is everyone else’s max

You love the sound of barbells and weight plates crashing to the floor

You are always covered in chalk dust

People move out of the squat rack when you walk into the gym

You don’t go out on a Friday night because you have to train Saturday morning

You grunt loudly on your last rep

You have massive glutes

Your friends call you ‘beast’

You are unbelievably bored on rest days

You never do more than five reps of anything

Unless it’s twenty-rep squats

You automatically stop what you are doing and shout encouragement when anyone in the gym is going for a big lift

You enjoy showing off your callouses

When you walk past a mirror you drop into a squat, just to check

You get nervous on heavy days

You have constant scrapes on your shins

Other people tell you their max lifts and watch for your reaction

You think football players are skinny, rugby forwards are normal size and strongmen are ‘big’

Other people think you are ‘big’

You care more about your max squat than your max bench

Your starter is everyone else’s main course

You have torn at least one item of clothing while training

Jackets that are allegedly in your size don’t fit you

You see a tyre and want to flip it

‘Sumo’ is a type of deadlift not a Japanese wrestling sport

You are more impressed by a big back than by a big chest

You always want to put more weight on the bar!

Photo credit: Matthew Nourse

Opportunities for play are never more present than in these long, hot days of summer – of which we in the UK have been enjoying many recently and I hope you are too, wherever you are.

This weekend I went to a garden party featuring a ‘summer olympics’ of mad games including such classics as welly wanging and tug of war, as well as more unusual challenges involving the carrying of objects in weird ways (have you ever tried to run holding a potato between your legs?), lots of wet sponges, cartwheel races and general larking about.

What I noticed (aside from the fact that I am useless at welly wanging and I ached in unusual places the next day) was the way everyone behaved, both adults and children. The kids threw themselves into everything and were full of beans all day. Their energy is astonishing, as anyone who has kids will tell you. It’s inspiring as well.

The adults were torn between being competitive and just having a laugh. As the day went on, the cheating got more outrageous. It became clear, however, that the best time is when people are being competitive in the context of the game without actually minding who wins. In other words, getting involved in the process without worrying about the outcome. That is essential for true play.

The day was a great reminder of two important things: first, to put a bit of play back into training, even if its just getting a few people together and seeing who can throw a kettlebell the furthest (as we did recently at Crossfit Reading‘s open day). The great thing about ‘silly’ games is that you can persuade people to participate who otherwise would be afraid to do something more ‘serious’. But if you are prepared to wang a welly, why not a tire or a kettlebell?

The second is to focus on the process rather than the outcome. At Wimbledon, the most successful tennis players are those who focus not on the outcome (‘I must win’) but on the process, playing each point as it comes. One point at a time, one throw at a time, one lift at a time. Try to make each lift the best lift of the day.

By the way, Bodytribe has a new DVD coming out this summer based on the notion of putting play back into training. Watch a preview here.

All the fabulous photos by Helen Armstrong

Earlier this year I was approached by a young woman called Chantelle who had been lifting weights for a few years, loved it and now wanted to share her passion for lifting heavy things with other women.

Chantelle wanted to set up a series of weight training workshops for women only – and this is why:

“Like many of the women reading this, I train alone and have made very few friends in my weights room in all this time…I could say that my girl friends think I’m insane for lifting weights, or think that it’s not for them; that the guys in my gym think I’m a freak for lifting so don’t talk to me, or stare because I have bad form.  What’s missing from the analysis is what I’m doing and who I’m being….

I learnt almost everything I know from fantastic internet bloggers like Gubernatrix and Stumptuous, but have never passed any of this on, or given anything back.  I think I just worried about ridicule or rejection. Realising this made me decide to turn my passion for weights into action.”

You can read the full story in an article Chantelle wrote for the recent Women’s Strength Symposium called Turning passion into action. As you’ll see from the comments, this idea generated a lot of interest.

In the meantime, Chantelle got right on with organising two workshops and enlisted myself and personal trainer Ade Abudu to develop and teach the sessions.

The workshops are described below and I have also included some of the feedback we received. This is not to make us sound awesome (no, really) but to show that the concept and format really works.

I can safely say that a few of those brave souls who turned up were a bit sceptical, suspicious and otherwise unsure whether this was really what they wanted to be doing on a Sunday morning. But by the end, everyone was smiling!

Philosophy

Right from the start we knew we wanted to hold the workshop in the weights room itself. The idea was to help to demystify this space, break down the barriers (psychological, emotional, physical) preventing women from entering it and train on proper equipment.

Hiding away in a studio lifting plastic bars was not the plan!

We also wanted to hold the workshop in a normal, commercial gym – rather than a weightlifting club or Crossfit box – because we wanted people to be using the kind of equipment that they will find in their own gyms. Our workshops took place in LA Fitness.

We decided to teach the big, compound free weight exercises such as squat, deadlift, bench press and so on. We didn’t want to do ‘girly’ versions or avoid the ‘heavy’ equipment.

“I would never have been brave enough to try barbell lifts without this opportunity, and after this I was emboldened to go down to my local council leisure centre and ask if they have a squat rack.”

We wanted the atmosphere to be positive and enabling. We wanted participants to have fun but also to be pushed further than they would push themselves on their own. What better opportunity to challenge yourself when you have a supportive group of like-minded women around you?

“it was very non-confrontational and I didn’t feel that I was being tested or looked down on which made me more willing to really try things out”

We held two workshops, two weeks apart, and we encouraged people to come to both. In the end, for the second workshop we had a mix of those who had been to the first workshop and some who were newcomers.

Workshop content

In both workshops, we started the session in a studio so that we could all get to know each other and do a warm up together.

We also looked at squat technique to make sure that everyone was comfortable with the movement and had no major issues before we headed to the weights room.

I find that women generally have good movement, balance and better flexibility than a lot of men to start off with, so it is delightfully easy to teach movements like the squat! None of the participants failed to perform a decent bodyweight squat within twenty minutes, which was very impressive.

We then moved into the free weights area where we split up into smaller groups and worked on back and front squats, deadlift, bench and overhead press and inverted rows.

The weights area was being used by normal gym punters as well; we didn’t have the room to ourselves. This was both good and bad – the atmosphere was that of a normal gym day, but we did somewhat hog the equipment! Still, kinda funny when a bunch of women chuck the hapless bicep-curling bloke off the squat rack…

I’ve found in the past that the gym instructors I’ve worked with have been very reluctant to put weight on the bar (or even give me a barbell), even when I’ve clearly been perfectly capable of lifting more. In our workshop, despite the fact that most participants had never squatted with a barbell before, everyone worked up to lifting with a good deal more than just the bar.

At the end of the second workshop, we finished off with a group bench press session where everyone went for a personal best! This was great fun and ideal to try for a best when you have a group cheering you on.

“I really liked the bench press and being encouraged to try heavier weights. That Ade thought I could do more gave me the confidence to push myself harder.”

What particularly pleased me was the fact that people were willing to attempt a lift and fail! I have heard from many women that one of the things they are most nervous about is failing a lift in front of other people – and this used to be a big issue for me as well. In the workshop we made a point of getting people deliberately to ‘fail’ a squat just to feel what it is like (and to see the safety bars on the squat rack in action!). When it came to the bench press, people were so confident and ‘up for it’ that they really didn’t mind going for a heavy weight and not getting it. Knowing that they had pushed themselves to the limit was more rewarding.

It was fun, as you can see from the pictures. We didn’t force people to smile while heaving weights over their head!

Chantelle wanted to give people something to take away both as a reminder of the workshop and also as a spur to further action. So every participant got a free workout journal with a workout programme developed by Ade which covered all the exercises we had learned in the workshop. Chantelle also printed out an exercise technique handout so that participants had something to refer to when trying the movements on their own.

“Great instructors, good content, and great vibe from all participants”

I don’t know how many people went away from the workshop and started lifting immediately. I have been in touch with one or two whom I know are getting into their lifting with enthusiasm, which is fantastic. For others, the experience may work its magic in the background and may have a less tangible but still postive effect.

The aim was not to turn out an army of female powerlifters but to give women a positive experience of proper lifting and introduce an alternative to the ‘cardio bunny’ model that we are used to seeing in the gym.

“It was a really positive experience and I don’t honestly think I know of any way it could be improved, sorry!”

I personally was monumentally stoked to be part of this project. I came away from each workshop absolutely buzzing. It didn’t feel like teaching, it felt like training with a group of friends.

I plan to put on more of these in the near future so watch this space!

Gubernatrix shares her secrets (Photo: Kate Pankhurst)

Okay, they are not really secrets but the more accurate ‘five things that people generally don’t do but probably should’ doesn’t read so well as a blog post title.

There’s plenty of information about workout programmes: how to get a beach body, how to get a bigger chest, how to look like so-and-so actor.

But rarely do people talk about the catalysts that can jump-start progress again. That’s what I’m talking about in this article. There are more than five, of course, but I personally rate these five in particular and have benefitted from all of them.

Speed work

Speed work is training your lifts at lighter weights but moving fast and explosively.

Training your body to lift faster is a bit like fartlek training in running – you want to get used to different paces otherwise your body adapts to lifting at a particular tempo and finds it more difficult to change. For an athlete or all-round fitness trainee, being able to move or lift at a variety of tempos is very functional. For a strength athlete, training the muscles to fire faster will help you to lift heavier weights.

There are two main ways of doing speed work. You can do the official Westside method which is very effective, particularly for powerlifting (read more in this post). But you can also do a more informal style of speed work, where you simply use a lighter weight in the movement you want to train (around 50% of your max) and focus on moving the weight as fast as possible. Keep the reps low, using sets of one, two or three. High rep sets simply result in deterioration of form and general fatigue, which is not the training effect we are looking for in speed work.

Speed work is best applied to the big compound lifts such as squat, deadlift, good morning and so on. Do speed work at the beginning of your workout or in a separate session; you should be fresh, not pre-fatigued to get the best out of it.

More about speed work

Carrying stuff

I’ve written about the benefits of carrying heavy stuff around before and the more I do it, the more I become an advocate for it. I think it is an excellent finisher to any workout (or indeed a workout in itself).

As a strength trainee I find it includes aspects of my fitness that may not be properly covered in the ‘main’ workout – such as sustained cardio effort, grip, balance and core training.

You can carry any object, in front, by your side, overhead – each position has its own challenges. Moving with weight is a great way to cover many things in a short space of time, and very functional too.

More about carrying stuff

Heavy farmers walks (Photo: Emmie Bates)

Deload week

Due to the popularity of Jim Wendler’s 5/3/1 programme, many people are discovering the benefits of the deload week. This is something that experienced powerlifters have been doing for a long time. I have failed to do it in the past – and regretted it!

A deload week is simply a lighter training week, around once every three or four weeks. You do the same key exercises that you would normally do but at lighter weights. ‘Lighter’ depends on the lifter, the programme and the goal, so it can be anything from 50 per cent to 75 per cent of maximum.

Taking a regular deload week helps to guard against the burn out that many of us suffer from, where we work very intensively through perhaps two or three cycles in the run up to an event, burn out afterwards and end up having to take too long off lifting.

It’s worth saying that although Wendler’s 5/3/1 stipulates very strictly that only 40-60 per cent weights should be used, this is a rule of the 5/3/1 programme, not of deload weeks generally. As a rule of thumb, the more advanced a lifter you are, the more you need a frequent deload week. For an experienced powerlifter, cutting right back every fourth week is a wise thing to do. However for someone relatively new to strength training or someone not close to their strength potential, a 50 per cent cut every fourth week is not necessary in my opinion. If you have a four-week cycle where you go up to 90 per cent or above in your third week, your fourth week can drop back to around 70 per cent. You will make progress more quickly while staying fresh.  It may be wise in this situation to take a 50 per cent deload week every eighth week or tenth week, rather than every fourth week.

Of course if you are actually following the 5/3/1 programme then do what the programme says. But if you are simply trying to apply the principles to your own training, be honest about what stage you are at and make choices that are appropriate to you.

Testing

Testing simply means checking to see if your programme is working. It sounds simple but most people simply don’t get round to it and it could save a lot of time.

Testing is particularly useful if you have passed the beginner/novice stage (where progress is pretty much guaranteed almost every session) and need to know whether your programme is working. Sometimes waiting for the final outcome, such as your performance at a particular event, is a bit late to find out!

For olympic lifters and powerlifters testing is easy as you can simply do a one rep max session on the main lifts (see Testing your one rep max).

At a recent workshop at Crossfit London, explaining how I test my squat max (Photo: Kate Pankhurst)

For those training for general strength and fitness a good option is to use a benchmark or regular workout.  Crossfitters often use ‘Fran’ (a full body workout involving squat presses and pull ups). There’s also the British army fitness test, which consists of running and bodyweight exercises so no equipment needed (here’s a version used by British Military Fitness). Or simply pick a favourite workout that you consider works all the aspects of fitness you want.

For those playing a team sport, I recommend deciding what ‘standards’ you think you need to reach for your sport. For example, if you squat as part of your strength regime, how good does your squat need to be? Do you need to be training to lift as much as you possibly can, or do you just need to get to a useful level for an athlete? Read this post for more about athlete fitness testing.

Don’t forget to do a test before you start your programme so that you have something to compare the programme with. And don’t test every week – give the programme a chance to work! Otherwise you are just testing the testing.

Recovery

Maybe its because I’m getting older (I’m now in my mid-thirties) but recovery seems to be as important as the training itself. Signs that your recovery may not be as good as it should be are: getting injuries, picking up colds and bugs, losing weight, feeling demotivated, not being able to fall asleep at night or wake up in the morning.

I’m not going to go through all the different recovery methods – that would be a whole post on its own (perhaps I should write that one too…). My point here is to make sure that you are monitoring your recovery and making space for it in your life. If you ignore it, you will suddenly find yourself not wanting to train and not really knowing why.

One useful tip is to make sure that your workout is something that you can recover from. In other words, design the training around the recovery that you have available. If, for example, you have very little time to sleep you are not going to be able to do a heavy lifting programme successfully.

Light workouts are easier to recover from than heavier workouts, so bodyweight exercises or kettlebells are ideal if time is limited. On the other hand, if you have a nice lazy Sunday available, a heavy deadlift session could be just the ticket as you can have a nice feed and a snooze afterwards!

Summary

Some of you will be jumping on these ideas immediately, to others it might all seem like a lot to think about when you are just getting your head around training at all.

If you are not sure which to prioritise, I would suggest that recovery and testing are the most universally applicable and are great habits to get into from an early stage if you can.

The other three suggestions of speed work, carrying and deloading are useful if you have been strength training for a while and want to broaden the scope of what you can achieve.

Have you tried any of these five ideas? Do you have any of your own?

What needs to change?

I am passionate about strength training and its benefits. I love all aspects of the activity: the competitive sport side, the physical and health improvements, personal empowerment and feeling good about myself.

But still, whenever I go into a gym where free weights are being trained, the clientele is almost entirely male and between the ages of 20 and 60. Because of this, the environment is often geared entirely around the needs of that group – perhaps unconsciously. This makes it harder for anyone who doesn’t belong to that group of people to feel that they belong or even to enter that environment in the first place.

There are some people who like things that way. They don’t want other types of people in the weight room. They don’t want that atmosphere diluted. It’s easy and comfortable for them; any change would be a challenge and they don’t want to have to deal with that.

I’ve been aware of this for years but I had pushed it to the back of my mind. I wanted to get on with my training and I thought that I just needed to accept the status quo and get on with it. There are people who will try to make you feel bad if you don’t do this.

But I have always felt uncomfortable behaving in this way, accepting bad behaviour and perpetuating a status quo that I know isn’t fair. The people who try to maintain these little exclusive enclaves think they are strong and special, but in fact they are weak because they cannot cope with any change, anything challenging, anything that is a bit different from themselves. They make no effort to understand people who are different from them, nor accept that they might actually have the same passions and aspirations.

It is perfectly possible to have an ethos in a gym that is inclusive of all types of people, regardless of age, gender, race, religion, disability, dietary requirements, favourite colour or preferred brand of breakfast cereal. Here are some of the values that I would hope any serious strength training gym held dear:

• Train hard
• Support each other
• Be passionate advocates for strength
• Inspire others

Are these values only available to able males between the ages of 27 and 43? I think not.

Why it is important

This is about busting open the old myth that a particular activity like strength training is only for one segment of the population.

When the consequences of engaging in this activity are so beneficial, it’s important to involve as many people as possible. Everyone should be able to learn how to lift free weights safely and well, everyone should be given the opportunity to build muscle and strength – and take it as far as they want to take it.

Strength training is important for everyone’s health, now and in the long term. We lose up to 10 per cent of our muscle mass every decade after the age of 25 – and this loss noticeably accelerates after the age of 60. Lifespans are increasing, so it is becoming even more important to make sure that we hang onto our muscle and do not spend many decades in a frail state of health. There is an unacknowledged public health issue that our government institutions haven’t yet got to grips with.

As far as sport, including elite sport, is concerned, there’s a huge pool of untapped talent out there. As a Londoner I’m excited about the opportunities that might arise from the 2012 Olympics, where there has been a great emphasis on the Olympic legacy as well as the Games themselves. But in the UK the state of strength sports is parlous. We’re simply not investing in, inspiring and building the talent of the future.

And perhaps the most important aspect of strength training is its effect on you as a person – as an individual, a member of a community and of a global society. Like many people I came to strength training for reasons relating to aesthetics and fitness, but found so much more than that! Inner strength, confidence, fun, healing, reward and a strong desire to help others experience the same. I really do believe that the world will be a better place if more people take up strength training. It’s not the only tool for personal empowerment, but it’s a pretty good one.

But there are still too many barriers, prejudices and misconceptions about strength training at every level of society.

What I’m going to do

Lately I’ve been getting involved in projects and activities designed to support and encourage more women to lift free weights, including the Ladies Who Lift workshop project.

It is something I initially shied away from, not wanting gubernatrix.co.uk to be seen as a website ‘for women’. But having made initial forays into this arena, I am more than ever convinced that there is a great need for support for women to get involved, break down barriers, educate and be educated and be able to empower themselves through strength training. Some pioneering souls are already heavily involved and I would like to join them.

This does not mean that gubernatrix.co.uk is going to become a women’s website. A lot of my women-specific work will be carried out under another title. I have always seen gubernatrix.co.uk as a website for everyone and I want to keep it that way. The future of this website is inclusive.

In acknowledging all of this, I don’t want the website to lose its passion for strength for strength’s sake.  Gubernatrix.co.uk ain’t a fluffy site for people who just want to dabble. It is for people who want to make a commitment to strength training because they see benefits for themselves and those around them. This is something that can bring people together, not split us up into different factions.

Gubernatrix.co.uk was always about putting out good information and raising standards, and we’ll still want to push boundaries and expectations. But the fact is that it is a whole lot easier for some people than others to access appropriate information, facilities and role models. Gubernatrix.co.uk will do its bit to change this, so watch this space.

I hope you guys will continue to read and comment on the site and help to shape it in the future, as you have done already!

Folks, just want to remind you about my newsletter as I’ve just sent out the April edition.

You can see the latest newsletter and all previous newsletters by clicking on the News tab above. You can also, of course, sign up to receive my monthly newsletter, saving you the bother of visiting the website in the first place!!

Either way, the News page is a good way to stay in touch with events, workshops, special offers from the shop and generally interesting stuff related to this website.

It’s funny how competitions, whether local, national or (occasionally) international have quickly become part of my life and my annual schedule. I still get nervous but it seems natural to be competing and, conversely, it feels weird when I haven’t got a meet to train for.

But due to the very low level of female participation in strength sports, I often find myself competing against very few other women – and in local competitions often against no-one. It’s not unique to women either. Juniors or the upper echelons of the Masters categories can also be in this situation with regularity.

I enjoy getting up and lifting at any occasion (I’m available for birthdays, weddings and barmitzvahs), but I used to feel odd about ‘winning’ a medal in situations where the competition was small or non-existent. I suppose I felt like I hadn’t ‘won’ unless I’d defeated a large number of people.

But even if there is no-one else in your category, in order to win a medal at a meet you have to:

• learn the lifts
• do the training
• get your entry form and payment in on time
• turn up on the day
• make your weight class
• wear the right kit
• get out there on the platform in front of a crowd
• put in at least one good attempt on each lift

There are many points of failure in that list, and over the year or two I have been competing – in other words, not very long – I have seen people fail at every single stage.

At competitions, I have seen people bomb (not get a single good lift) or not be allowed to lift because they haven’t got the correct kit. Plenty of people don’t make their weight – remember the young UK boxer Frankie Gavin who had to go home from the 2008 Olympics without competing because he didn’t make weight?

I’ve known many people who have entered competitions and not managed to turn up on the day. Then there are those who train but get injured and have to pull out. Or those who sit around saying they’d like to do it – but somehow never commit themselves to it.

When I think about all that, I don’t feel so bad about getting a medal in a small field. I trained, I showed up, I lifted. I deserve my medal.

Showing up

My friend Dan John has written recently about showing up. It’s something he talks about often, another example of those simple pieces of wisdom that bear repeating. He wrote on his blog the other day,

“If you want to be a national champion, you really need to get to the stadium on time. If you decide to get married, the ceremony starts at 11. Be there. Showing up is underrated as a life skills success clue.”

He then goes on to say, “Of course, showing up is only step one. Step two is to do something.” He’s right, but in the context of competitions, the fact that you show up on the day, on time, usually indicates that you’ve done a hell of a lot already.

Do you have to be brilliant before you enter your first competition? Of course not. Even the greatest athletes start competing way before they have reached their potential. Competing often helps you to improve overall (although it’s not the only way to improve). Just as you need to practise in the gym to get good at the lifts, you have to practise competing. From controlling your nerves to warming up effectively or getting in the zone, there are circumstances that are unique to the competitive environment and very difficult to reproduce in the gym. So practise them by going to lots of meets and just getting on with it.

Ultimately, who knows what can happen in competition? In the 2002 winter olympics the gold medal in the 1000m short track speed skating was won by the man in last place, Steven Bradbury. Everyone else in the race fell over at the final corner and he was literally the last man standing!

Was he the lame duck who was handed the gold medal on a plate? Or was he the guy who trained hard for years, got selected, showed up, got through to the final and managed to stay on his feet when everyone else fell over?

Being a champion

The other day at the gym, I had abandoned my usual weightlifting training in the snatch and the clean & jerk in order to work on one of the odd lifts. My weightlifting coach, who likes a bit of banter, said, “Wouldn’t you rather get good at something that lots of people do?” I said, “Nah, I want to be champion of being me.”

At the time I meant it as a joke but afterwards I thought that this probably is my overriding aim: to be champion of being me. To be as good as I can be, to ‘win’ over those inner demons and life demands.

If I manage to win at anything else, that’s a bonus.

More from gubernatrix

Scenes from a powerlifting year
Strength revelations: what I’ve learned from strongman

“The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems”
- Mahatma Gandhi

Getting stronger and fitter is an immensely powerful and rewarding process on a personal level. We can take that energy and ability and use it for even greater good and I am keen to explore – with you – ways of doing that.

Transition to what?

We are living in an age of transition, between a wasteful, energy-dependent, over-consumptive age and …well, we don’t quite know yet, but some kind of fall of civilisation is approaching – in fact it is probably already here.

As my favourite crash philosopher Ran Prieur comments, “It won’t be like falling off a cliff, more like rolling down a rocky hill. There won’t be any clear before, during, or after. Most people living during the decline and fall of Rome didn’t even know it.”

But what do we know? That food shortages, energy shortages, extreme weather, financial crises and massive migrations of people are just a few of the challenges we will be facing – are already facing – in the near future.

Those in charge tell us that if the system breaks down we will get anarchy and chaos, but in fact when the system fails us we tend to move closer together, create communities and find innovative ways to meet challenges.

This new society will require us to be more skilful, practical, adaptable and resilient. Physical strength and fitness is an important part of this resilience and the ability to cope with the inevitable changes (or improvements, if you prefer) in our lifestyle.

“…life will change less than the peak oilers are predicting, because we have so much room to cut out waste: to drive less often in more efficient cars, ride bicycles, turn off the heat and air conditioning, take the machines and industrial chemicals out of agriculture, stop flying food around the world. Gradually, more people will grow their own food, raise their own kids, tend their own health, do stuff with their own bodies instead of machines, and turn their attention from the stock market and TV characters to their more real lives. Those who can adjust mentally will recognize this as an improvement.”
- Ran Prieur

The functional fitness model is particularly well suited to a post-peak oil world: there’s no reliance on machines or heavy energy use; tools are homemade, equipment is simple; the movements are applicable to real life tasks; in fact the entire approach is about being strong and healthy, not just looking good.

Functional fitness tends to take place in small scale businesses such as garage gyms, involving local communities. There’s an emphasis on learning new skills, helping others and making progress, not an obsession with things being so easy that you switch off completely or simply follow like an automaton what an instructor tells you to do.

“Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general.”
-    Mark Rippetoe

Functional fitness gives people strength, ability, confidence and independence from large scale systems, all of which are needed to build a new type of society. For me, functional fitness is strength. Strength is more important than endurance in a transitional age. I’d rather have the ability to pick up heavy, awkward objects than trot for ten miles.

I’m not dissing cardio endurance entirely, it all goes into the mix. But I’ve reached the point where the sight of millions of people fruitlessly pounding the pavements, who can’t even carry the equivalent of their own bodyweight across a car park, makes me want to jump up and down and possibly set myself on fire. Why hark back to a distant hunter-gatherer tradition when we don’t even have the ‘dad strength’ or ‘mum strength’ of the second world war generation?

Specialisation in terms of energy systems (long slow distance) is as counter-productive as any other type of specialisation. If you can run, that is fantastic. Now take the logical next step: pick up something heavy and run with that.

New challenges

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
- Dr. Howard Thurman

There is a transition that takes place, from pursuing physical fitness for purely selfish motives to thinking about wider, altruistic motives. Selfish motives are a perfectly good place to start – perhaps it is even necessary to go through a self-centered process in order to get completely comfortable with your physicality (my friends at Bodytribe have examined this issue in the past), but I don’t think that’s where it ends.

Having identified functional fitness, and strength in particular, as being ideal attributes for the new world we are living in, how do we join all these new ideas together? How do we start to make a difference to our communities? If you have a passion for strength and fitness and if you care about what happens in and to our world, why not use the former to help the latter?

It can be as simple as doing a workout in aid of an issue you care about: my friends at Crossfit Reading organised a sponsored workout for Haiti last weekend. Or it can be a longer term project running low cost training sessions for the local community, like Chip Conrad does in Sacramento.

There are a number of issues that have caught my eye over the years and I want to start personally making a difference in these areas.

1. Strength bias

Governments and local authorities think they are making great strides in ‘health and wellbeing’, but from what I can see there is very little emphasis on resistance/strength training and functional fitness, and far too much emphasis on high impact cardio and – for want of a better term – pointless jigging about.

I’m part of FK.UK, an umbrella organisation for functional fitness in the UK and I hope that we can influence the agenda by making sure that sound and trustworthy information about strength training gets to as wide an audience as possible.

2. Strength equality

There’s still a real issue around social inclusion and strength ‘equality’. For anyone who isn’t a policy wonk, that means making sure that people who are disadvantaged or marginalised can still get the benefits of better strength and fitness. The functional fitness world appears to be very much a white middle class male pursuit at the moment – shouldn’t we take active steps to change this?

Strength in particular is a gender equality issue. Women haven’t had the same access to strength training that men have, nor is it nearly as socially acceptable for women to be strong as it is for men – and there’s no good reason why this should be the case. Quite frankly, we need all the strong people we can get!

Fitness professionals and governments alike persist in giving out wrong information to women about strength training. I’ve recently set up the Women’s Strength Training Network on Facebook to help combat this by supporting women who are already strength training and generate new ideas about how to get the messages out to a wider audience.

3. Sustainable food

It is important to link healthy eating with sustainable food and farming. Personally I put ready meals and battery farmed chicken in the same ‘utter crap’ category. I’ve stopped eating meat because I just don’t trust it any more. Even if you are careful only to buy free range chicken at the supermarket, for example, what happens when you go out to a restaurant – do you check the provenance of the meat there? I thought it was easier not to eat it at all.

The food industry is now so global, mechanised and industrialised that it is no longer possible to be a responsible citizen and ignore the politics of food production. Food and farming are a big part of climate change (impact of livestock farming on carbon emissions and potential food shortages due to the effects of climate change being two examples), environmental damage, animal welfare, people welfare (fair trade). Food security is as big a concern as energy security but the solutions are likely to come from communities getting together and deciding to do something about it.

So I want to know what you think about all of this. Do you link your fitness with broader aspirations in your life, and if so, how? Are there particular issues that the strength community can contribute to? How do you shape not just a new person but a new world?