It's all the rage these days, and rightly so. "Over the hill" is just a state of mind. There is a 92 year-old dude who does weights at my gym. Use it or lose it.
That good old guy must love life to pursue it so vigorously.
The reason for strength conditioning is to build or maintain functionality. That means preventing the muscle and bone loss of inertia and age, strengthening joints, improving posture, improving balance, enhancing nerve-to-muscle reactivity, and building or maintaining power and energy for daily life and for sports and recreation.
Strength training is not the same as "body-building." Normal strength-training by ordinary people like us is not meant to build bulging muscles. However, with each increment of improvement and with proper diet your naked self will look and feel a bit less like a weak slob with flab and sagging things, and that is a nice side benefit.
Should a healthy adult male be able to do a minimum of ten push ups and ten pull-ups? Of course. Sturdy males can do far more.
A comment about time efficiency in strength conditioning - and fitness in general - below the fold -
Most people do not want to spend more than 5 hours/ week on all three aspects of conditioning. In truth, few really want to spend any. No need to do more than 5 if applying max intensity. On the other hand, how many hours/week does the average American waste watching TV or playing video games while shooting farts into the sofa after work? Americans call that mindless and effortless thing "relaxing," and like to pretend it's desirable. In Yankeeland, we still call it Sloth.
For us, the fitness triad consists of 1) Strength Training, 2)
Varied Calisthenics and Isometrics (not for strength-building but to
stress your strength, improve balance and agility, quickness, power, and
endurance - in short, athleticism), and 3) Varied Interval Cardio (for
cardio-pulmonary endurance). If each one of these is pushed to the max,
you'll be in pretty good shape and feel pretty good.
I think you can figure a total of 180 mins/wk (in divided days) for strength, 60 minutes total (divided days) of varied heavy calisthenics, and 60 minutes (2 X/wk of 30 mins) of intense misc. cardio intervals. Mix and match them depending on the day. That's less than five hours per week in total. Everybody without little kids has time for that.
Anyway, I keep wondering how time efficient the strength component of fitness can be. Nobody wants to be a gym rat. I am learning that it can be condensed into a few exercises which involve pretty much all muscle groups, large and small.
However, for most people like me some of these have to be worked up to in other ways to be able to do them with any effectiveness. Thus machines, dumbbells, straps, etc. for a while - months. Sad to say, it is not a quick process if you are over 30.
I think five painful sets of each of these each week, in sequence, always pushing the reps or weight to prevent plateauing, ought to cover the bases for strength for the non-obsessed but diligent person. It won't make you "big" but should get you shipshape over time:
1. Pull ups and Chin ups (often, women can not do enough of these so need machines)
2. Bench press (or push-ups or weighted push-ups)
3. Squats
4. Deadlift (or Cleans with presses if you can do them. Mrs. BD does 'em)
5. Dips
6. Overhead Press
and maybe...
7. Rows
8. Curls (for vanity and confidence - "Curls for the girls")
With appropriate recovery time between sets, that's 2 or 2 1/2 hrs total/week for decent strength conditioning.
What's your opinion?
