Normally I save the scienc-y shit for Thursdays.
I’m sure if you’ve gotten the emails.
And if you are like my wife and my mom, you quickly delete them and then sit on your hands counting down the minutes until these Monday blogs come around.
I get it. Believe me, I do.
I understand why my stories about how I idolized Chuck Berry as a teenager or how horseback riding through the Sedona desert have somehow informed my training style, personal philosophy and the emotional demons I battle may be more your cup of tea.
And who doesn't love a couple of dated Iggy Azalea or "Gangnam Style" references sprinkled in for your reading pleasure?!?
So I apologize in advance that I am going to reference an actual honest-to-goodness study here. But I also promise to bring it on home with some well-placed Dad jokes, pop culture references and honest-to-goodness emotional vulnerability.
OK, back to the study.
For those of you who did open Thursday’s email, I led off with a study that looked at the effect of strength training on adolescents and young adults, a portion of which suffered from symptoms of depression.
With just 8 weeks of strength training the researchers found a “significant, clinically meaningful and large magnitude reduction in depressive symptoms”.
The first thing that you need to understand about this statement is that, typically, researchers are usually very reserved in their conclusions. Most of the time they may observe that a certain drug leads to 30% of their users to grow a third arm and they will summarize with something along the lines of “this is an interesting observation, more research needs to be done”.
So the fact that the authors of the study made such a bold claim of this magnitude is rare. It’s also a real testament to the effects of resistance training on anxiety, depression and mood.
The first thing to note is that this study was done using strength training. Not running. Not cycling. Not barre class. Not whatever it is afflicting my eyes on my Instagram feed these days.
This isn’t to say that those modalities don’t have antidepressive or mood boosting effects. For instance, many runners self-report that going on a long run is great for their mood. For all I know there are also studies confirming as much.
But what it is saying is that, in this case, strength training was used to see these powerful outcomes.
Secondly, if you are struggling with more serious mental health issues it is important that you seek out a trained professional, which I am not.
But that important caveat aside, if you are struggling it does seem like strength training is really worth giving a try. Particularly as it’s readily available and most people can have some level of access to it at a fairly low cost. Particularly when compared to the expense of pharmaceuticals or other therapies.
In the not so distant past, strength training was seen solely as something that boosts performance and aesthetics. It was reserved for athletes, health nuts or egomaniacs.
You trained to get better at throwing a javelin.
Or to build a ‘revenge body’ that you could break out at your 10 year high school reunion so you could show all those kids who haven’t even thought about you for the past decade what’s what.
Or because you love checking out your own muscle-y reflection in the mirror.
But in recent years we’ve seen strength training being embraced by health care professionals and the general population as a keystone modality to mitigate the health and lifestyle risks associated with aging.
And that is remarkably exciting.
But beyond the performance, aesthetic and physical health benefits associated with slinging some barbells around, I think this latest piece of the puzzle - the mental health component - is the most exciting.
Because as I scroll through my aforementioned Instagram feed between posts about Hailey Bieber’s favorite protein shake, a video of zebra’s trying to traverse a crocodile infested river (SPOILER ALERT: at least one of them doesn’t make it) and what the artists at INKED magazine think about the latest tattoo trends (I really need to do an audit of my Instagram feed) it seems like a lot (A LOT!) of people are struggling with their mental health.
The notion that strength training lifts mood and can combat the symptoms of depression is not necessarily a groundbreaking topic. People have reported these types of effects for years and it could just be an example of the science catching up to the practical applications.
But beyond the fact that it is great that people are relating to fitness in a very different way than they did in the 80s when it was all Muscle Beach and leg warmers and Hulk Hogan, it is also obvious that people need avenues that will help their mental wellbeing.
Yet so few people are actually tapping into this resource. In the US, statistics show that 14-19% of the population has a gym or health club membership and about half of them use it 2 or more times per week. That means that, on the high side, less than 10% of the population in the US goes to the gym regularly.
So, the message is clear. If you are someone who struggles to get out of bed or sits in their cars and prays for red lights so they can have a few more minutes before they have to face their job or their relationships or their life, try putting a heavy weight on your back.
It may just change your life.
Oh, wait. I forgot the Dad Joke.
Ok, how’s this: What do you call a dog that can do magic?
A labra-cadabra-doodle.