Why I'm obsessed with strength

I recently came across a Substack post titled "You are the stories you tell yourself", about how you shape the narrative about your life with how you think about or describe yourself, and how you have the power to change that narrative. It was very thought-provoking and relevant to my life the last few years. It may sound woo-woo or at least simplified because life is more complex than that, but the truth remains that how you choose to think about yourself matters.

Recently I've done a heavier program in the gym, with fewer reps and heavier weights. It's not the first time I do this. I've worked with the same personal trainer for 4 years now, and the first time I did this type of program was in 2023, while I was having a stress fracture in the foot (from running, not anything related to the gym). I got modified leg exercises but for upper body we did some heavy stuff. Oh, how my soul needed that! I LOVE these programs. They make me challenge what I think I can do, and massively boost my self-confidence.

Some people express things like "who cares if you do a PB or if you can run at a certain pace", or something in terms of "what, it's just about getting some muscle and lifting some stuff, it doesn't mean anything, it's useless" and sometimes even my trainer hints that maybe I shouldn't care so much about the exact weights I lift.

But you know what? I care. These numbers mean something to me. I care about making progress and making myself strong, and there's way more to it than that. It's about self-confidence, self-respect, getting to know myself (about time after 50 years), taking charge of my life and changing my own story. (And don't get me started on all the health benefits of muscle mass - or do, but not in this post)

I've always been skinny and weak

I've always been skinny and weak, and now I can squat with my own bodyweight on the bar and do 50 kg chest presses. It still feels unreal.

I know, it shouldn't be a surprise. If you train consistently with an effective program, fuel yourself accordingly and get the sleep, you gain muscle and strength. That's normal physiology.

But the thing is that I never believed in myself much enough to expect any big results. When I started strength training in 2022 it was to get some regular exercise, get help with a troublesome shoulder and hopefully build some muscle. (Note the wording "hopefully").

I've always been the smallest and weakest everywhere I've been - in school, teams, church groups and whatever. Being small, thin and weak defined me. The reason to this was chronic malnutrition which continued destroying my health until I was diagnosed coeliac when I was 36. But before I knew that, it was just something that made me feel inferior and self-conscious.

Growing up, I was that girl nobody wanted in their team, the girl people laughed at because she wasn't good at anything that was "cool". In my late teens my dad convinced me to try playing soccer because it interested me and it looked fun. I have no idea how I even had the courage to try, and of course I wasn't fit enough for it. Back then, making myself fit didn't even cross my mind! I did try to do some running to improve my cardio fitness, but got shin splints instead and had to stop. Later in life I tried some strength training but wasn't able to do it consistently for a variety of reasons. After that I told myself I wasn't fit to do any physical activities, accepted that "truth" and stopped trying.

I also stopped trying most other things. With some very few exceptions, I chose the easy route with everything in life to avoid failure and to avoid showing the world I wasn't good at (insert whatever field here).

From music to fitness

But over the years I became interested in things that required more effort. I wanted to see the world, do things I was interested in. I loved languages, started studying Italian and went to Italy as an au-pair. I became passionate about music and later got into photography, coding and design. With most of these interests, eventually you'll need to show up. Sure, you can do all of it for your own enjoyment only, but it's even better if you get out there and share your work.

My interest in music is awkward. I still feel I'd like to be a fly on the wall or at least hide in the background playing chords, but that's not how things turned out.

Music brought me to my husband, and is the main reason why we ended up in Ireland. During the pandemic we invested in music lessons online, he became a very decent mandolin player and I got into flatpick guitar and eventually joined a bluegrass singing class.

Playing the guitar triggered a shoulder problem that was quite severe for some time, but my passion for learning the guitar was too big to quit or even take a break from it. Since in the middle of the pandemic we didn't spend any big money, we used some of it to buy a smaller guitar instead so that I could continue playing. The shoulder issue was also what made me decide to pay for guitar lessons online to learn proper technique - most guitar teachers would have cried if they'd seen how I sat crunched over the guitar for hours on end! But of course we hadn't solved the problem, only worked around it. Later my husband started suffering from tendinitis in a wrist/arm, and when he looked for help he found this therapist & personal trainer, and told me I should go and see him too.

If I'd ever get back to any kind of sport, it was always strength training. It's a one-person sport, you compete against yourself only and it's nobody else's business if you suck at it. So for someone with poor self-esteem it's safe and you can improve at your own pace, in peace and quiet.

Thinking back I don't know how I had the courage to go see a personal trainer! Lifting weights and doing things you're not comfortable with in a small room with somebody watching, and maybe having opinions? I don't know if it was his down-to-earth personality and/or I simply trusted him as a professional but I never hesitated.

Strength training changed everything

From almost the start everything I thought about myself was challenged. I've always been telling myself "I have poor balance", "I'm not good at x", "I'm weak", "I'm not capable" as absolute truths. Much of this comes from gym class in school. I have some awful memories from when I was about10 and we were to walk on the balance beam and it was scary high (as I remember it). There was no mercy or compassion. This wasn't normally an evil teacher and I have no idea what she was thinking here but it shaped the story that I have poor balance, and I started avoiding everything that challenged balance. Did I even have poor balance to begin with? Perhaps I was only scared, especially because the whole class was watching? Or perhaps it was simply that I wasn't particularly strong? Strength and balance are connected.

But my personal trainer wasn't a part of this. He probably saw me as a normal, physically capable person who only needed to build strength and fitness. From very early on he would say things like "stop that sh** going on in your head". And when I mentioned poor balance he would correct it to "... you THINK you have poor balance."

Eventually I started making progress, started pushing myself more and dared to slowly start challenging what I thought I could or couldn't do.

After 6 months of training I started seeing some visual results, subtle signs of some defined muscle that I hadn't noticed before. After training only once a week? I didn't think that would happen so fast. This triggered my passion for fitness and training, I wanted to do more, and the what-ifs came in - what if I continue doing this? What if I push myself harder? How strong can I get? I started working on all the insecurities in the gym and started gaining more self-confidence by seeing I was capable of doing more than I had thought I could. This changed everything.

My biggest hurdles to overcome in the gym are still (obviously) exercises that challenge balance - like Bulgarian split squats and lunges. I still have difficulties with these for no real reason. Recently during the heavier program I was asked to do a Bulgarian squat with some freakish-looking weights on the bar. I said "I think I'm going to chicken out from this". He said "No, you're not." End of discussion.

Some people may dislike this attitude, but I don't. I need someone like that, someone who challenges me to stop my own bullshit and just do things. Nobody gets strong by avoiding the hard things. To be clear, my trainer isn't like that teacher from my childhood. He's a good person so of course he didn't leave it at that - he stood behind me for support and as spotter, and I did that Bulgarian squat. Not with brilliant form, but I did it.

I never had any mental stamina to go outside my comfort zone before in my life and didn't really have any goals either because I never thought I could achieve anything. Most of my life I've kept myself captive by fear of failure. But seeing myself get stronger triggered something in me - perhaps the potential, that I could change the story I had been telling myself since childhood.

What strength training has taught me overall is that I'm able to make a positive change for myself. I've learned to love challenging myself, fuelled by the what-ifs, and seeing myself able to do what I previously thought I couldn't makes me finally respect myself in at least one area of life.

And if this is possible in the gym, in what other areas of life where I'm currently struggling can I use the same mindset? I've made a lot of progress in the gym, but I'm hopelessly behind when it comes to other things in life where I still suffer badly from self-doubt and imposter syndrome (regarding the latter though, I've learned that basically every creative suffers from it). Perhaps by using the same thinking strategies as in the gym, I have the power to change this.

You may still argue that building strength isn't the most important thing in life. Whatever floats your boat, but I'll always disagree, because of all the health reasons but also - what if it changes a person and makes them finally believe in themselves for the first time in their life? To me it isn't just about lifting some stuff, those 65 kg squats are about more than a number, these milestone PBs matter because they tell me I don't have to be stuck in a narrative from my past.

I still have a lot of mental blocks to work on, in and outside the gym. I'm still very much a work in progress and I'm definitely not "there yet". But strength training has been my best tool yet to build some self-respect and confidence.

I'm still unable to label myself as "strong". And that's ok, but I also need to learn to think rationally and at least celebrate the wins and stop the negative self-talk.

One of my strategies is to go to the mirror in our home gym. I call it my version of Goggins' accountability mirror (read his first book if you haven't yet). I use it similarly to Goggins, to be honest with myself about how I'm stopping myself from living a good life, and in what areas I need to make an effort to get my sh** together.

But I also use it to look at myself and say something like "You look insane, woman. Look at all the muscle you've built. And remember that particular Bulgarian split squat. Weak people don't do things like that. Now keep up the good work and enjoy life."