RIP Ricky Bruch

Ricky Bruch was a Swedish field athlete who showed great promise, but was tossed off his country's Olympic team for being a loudmouth who argued with his coach. As documented in The Soul is Greater Than the World, after this, he decided to train harder than ever and travel around competing in every throwing meet he could find and do better than any of the Olympic throwers, a goal he achieved - beating the winner by 5 metres.

He was apparently a madman. But he was mad in a way that can inspire us to greater efforts in the gym. 

Consistent effort over time gets results. Consistency is important, but gyms are full of people who come consistently and make little or no effort. Effort is important, but likewise, many people make great efforts... for a short while, and then give up. Ricky Bruch was certainly a madman, but he certainly applied consistent effort over time, and got results. 

Maybe we could all do with a little more madman in our lives. 

Strength standards

Often people will want to know “am I strong?” The answer is “strong for what?” What is “strong” for a soccer player will be a limp dishrag to a competitive powerlifter. I think of strength levels in terms of the person's goals, and how it affects how they look, feel and perform. The chart below lays it out, this is how things look in a community gym, in an athletics club or strength centre they'd look different. This chart applies to adults under 50 years old with no major health issues, medals and certificates are given to my clients when they achieve these levels.

Level		Overhead	DL	HV	PU	weekly	invested	diet/rest
Bronze	everyday	50%	100%	1	20	1-6hr	1-6 months	both okay
Silver	sports	67%	150%	5	40	4-10hr	3-12 months	one good
Gold	strength sports	75%	200%	10	75	8-16hr	6-24 months	both good

Everyday strength is what you need for day-to-day life.

• Looks - unless you were really squishy or puny your physique won't change much, though your posture will improve.
• Feeling - the ordinary aches and pains people get from sitting around at work and the like will tend to disappear, it won't fix actual medical issues but will sometimes mitigate them, your feelings of general vitality will have improved a lot.
• Performance - able to put things on high shelves, turn mattresses over, change tyres, shift refrigerators, participate in recreational sports without fear of straining anything. Friends will know you as “that strong person” and ask you to help them move house.

Sports strength is what you need to do well in serious sports, or for a job requiring serious physical work, like labourer, infantry soldier, fireman, etc. This is about as far as you can go if you also want to run marathons. 

• Looks – nobody will have to ask you if you work out. People will check you out in the gym and notice your lifts.
• Feeling – you will rarely get sick, though in the course of getting this strength you might have pushed too hard or used poor technique and got an injury or two. You will usually feel good physically, and are much less likely to be injured during your sport.
• Performance – everyday physical tasks are easy for you, if you have any sports skills at all you'll be one of the better players on the team, friends will ask you to help them move house or do the landscape gardening and then go and have a coffee while you do it.

Strength sports are those where being strong is a major part, not only powerlifting and weightlifting, but rugby, wrestling and so on.

• Looks – you will stand out as well-built even if dressed, everyone in the gym will know who you are, and newbies will ask your advice, follow it for half a session and then ignore it.
• Feeling – your health and wellbeing will change often, sometimes feeling great, other times being hit with illness and injuries; few people get to a double bodyweight deadlift and stay there or higher for years without getting run down from constant hard training or without hurting something.
• Performance – with sports skills you'll stand out and could turn professional, provided there are enough places in your chosen sport. However this would only be beginning strength for strength-specific sports.

DEFINITIONS

The standards are based on lifts. The overhead is simply getting the weight overhead, whether by a strict press, push press, snatch or whatever. The deadlift a conventional or sumo barbell deadlift. A heave is a chinup, pullup, etc – whatever hand-facing and grip width you care to use is fine, but it must be from dead hang; a pushup is, believe it or not, a pushup.

The standards are minimums, and all four must be achieved for the level to be attained; if you bench more than you deadlift and cannot do a single chinup, then you lack balance in your strength and physique and will be prone to injury and looking silly. As well, we are interested in lasting strength; if someone deadlifts twice their bodyweight once and then never again, they can't be Gold.

Weekly means the total time which must be spent on training each week to achieve these lifts; maintaining them will require 1/3 to 1/2 this time, though in practice people aiming to "just maintain" tend to go backwards instead. This is time training, not time spent wandering around the gym looking at the hot chick on the cross-trainer or the hot guy doing chinups, or sitting reading the paper between sets of lat pulldowns, or chatting to the bros between sets of cheat curls. The overlapping ranges of the times are due to different levels of natural talent, age, diet and so on.

Invested means how many months are required for a dedicated newbie to achieve this level. Most people will never achieve even Bronze level, because they don't apply consistent effort over time, instead doing pointless exercises, constantly changing workouts, not progressing the resistance, and generally buggerising about. But a dedicated person who uses correct technique over a full range of motion and progresses the resistance will take this amount of time to do it.

Diet/Rest refers to how switched-on the person has to be to achieve this. You can get Bronze level with an ordinary diet and rest (though not poor diet and rest), to achieve Silver at least one of the two must be good, for Gold both must be good. Someone with both a poor diet and rest may briefly achieve some of the lifts at a higher level, but won't achieve them all, and their lifts won't be lasting – a year from now they won't be as strong, they'll have fallen back due to inconsistent training or injury.

EXCUSES

“But David Beckham doesn't deadlift twice his bodyweight!”

Are you David Beckham? Spectacular skill makes up for ordinary strength, so that some sportspeople can get away with not being very strong. However, people with ordinary or merely good sports skills need strength to help them. Many sports teams lack a proper strength and conditioning programme; they usually lose matches and have players frequently out due to injuries.

“But I'm small!” “Yeah! And I'm big!”

The three barbell lifts are given in proportion to bodyweight, since that is how people see things in everyday life and sports. Nobody expects a 50kg person to lift as much as a 100kg person, nor will there be many 50kg rugby fullbacks or 100kg soccer midfielders. If you are underweight for your height and frame and so find these lifts difficult, eat and get bigger. If you are overweight and so see these lifts as impossible, eat less, get smaller, then as you drop weight from your frame you can add weight to the bar. 

“But I'm a girl! And I'm old!”

The lifts are in proportion to bodyweight, and women tend to be smaller than men. Of course, men have more lean mass than women which lets them lift more. So we'd expect the men to do more reps of the same weight than could a woman. As for age, age causes surprisingly little decline in current and potential strength. The biggest factor is years of being sedentary, and whether there is consistent effort over time. 


Younger people and men can expect to be on the lower side of the invested time to achieve the lifts, older people and women the higher side. However, individuals vary more than do genders, ages, etc. And the biggest variation is whether people are willing to put in the hours each week, the months of training, of good food and rest. Most aren't.

As personal training clients I have a 49 year old woman with low-grade multiple sclerosis who in six months and 52 sessions has achieved all of Bronze except the heaves, I had a physically healthy 23 year old man who will never achieve any of them; the difference is that she applied consistent effort over time and he would not.

THE MEDALS

When my PT clients achieve the lifts two sessions in a row, I give them a medal and a certificate. One day when I was giving one out, another trainer saw it and said, "but doing a chinup is really hard for a woman!"
"Yes, that's why I give them a medal for it."
"You should lower the standards."
I'm 40, she's 20, we're different generations and have different experiences of receiving recognition for achievements. 
Some from the black iron gym world will scoff at the idea of people getting a tinny medal and certificate for such lifts. I would suggest they take a look around their local mainstream commercial and community gyms and see how many people can achieve them. 

CONCLUSION

That (for example) Gold level requires 8-16 hours a week 6-24 months does not mean that everyone who has gone to the gym for 90 minutes a day six days a week for two years is Gold level. They might have spent two years walking slowly on the treadmill watching Oprah, doing crunches on the Swiss ball, half-squats in the Smith machine or doing six different kinds of curls with their bros.

The strength standards chart gives a reasonable expectation of the results a dedicated person can get in the gym given the time and effort they put into progressive resistance training and improving their diet and rest. It works. Do it. 

Strength is built in the gym, size at the dinner table

Strength and fitness are built in the gym, size at the dinner table.

aka "eat less, move more"

You will not lose or gain weight in the gym. What it comes down to is energy in vs energy out. If energy in is more than energy out, you get overall bigger. If energy in is less than energy out, you get overall smaller. When getting bigger or smaller, you may gain or lose either fat or muscle. Whether you gain or lose muscle depends on whether you do weight training - give your muscles a reason to grow or stick around, and they will, give them no reason to, and they won't. 

There are four different approaches you can take. Two are useful, two are stupid and will kill you. 

• HOMER SIMPSON = energy surplus + sit on couch = gain fat + maintain muscle. You lose some muscle due to doing nothing, but gain a bit more simply because you are heaving increased bulk around, if you don't believe me, carry a 10kg weight plate around all day every day for six months and see what happens. 
• BULKING = energy surplus + lift heavy stuff = gain fat + gain muscle. You give your muscles a reason to grow, and give them material to grow with (food). Extra fat will come along with this, sorry. 
• GWYNETH PALTROW = energy deficit + sit on couch = lose fat + lose muscle. You go hungry and give your muscles no reason to stick around, so they leave. The sight of you excites fashion designers and causes migrants from conflict-ridden lands to hide their babies from you and have painful flashbacks to their time in a dusty refugee camp, congratulations. 
• CUTTING = energy deficit + lift heavy stuff = lose fat + maintain (or lose small amounts of) muscle. You can't grow muscle without an energy surplus, but you can at least hold onto most of it if you give it a reason to be there. 

Most people want to gain muscle and lose fat. This is what "toning" means. Muscles cannot be "toned", they can only get bigger or smaller, and be more or less visible due to bodyfat. In general, you cannot gain muscle and lose fat at the same time, this is because gaining muscle requires an energy surplus and losing fat requires an energy deficit. The exception is when the person is overfat: they can have an energy deficit and lose fat, and the fat they have provides the surplus needed to grow muscles. This will take most men from 25+% bodyfat to around 15%, and women from 35+% to the lows 20s%. (Visual guides to bodyfat percentage are here.)

However, most people in gyms are not overfat, so to gain muscle and lose fat they have to do as bodybuilders do and have a bulking phase and a cutting phase. For example, during the bulk the person puts on 8kg, 4kg muscle and 4kg fat; during the cut they lose 5kg, 1kg of muscle and 3kg of fat. Net result: gain 3kg muscle. Traditionally people want to eat more in winter and their bodies are covered up, and eat less in summer and their bodies are exposed, so they have a winter bulk and summer cut. 

So much for the principles, how about the practice?

Energy in vs energy out

It really does come down to energy in vs energy out. Note that the body doesn't know the difference between a calorie out because of lifting weights, or a calorie out because of running, or a calorie out because of Zumba or cycling or swimming or hot sex. It's all energy out. But most energy out does not come from exercise. 


We begin with a person's "base metabolic rate", which is the energy their body needs just to keep them alive, their liver and lungs and all the rest, even if they just sit on the couch watching Oprah all day. This varies a lot between people, but a typical amount is 1,500kcal and 2,000kcal for medium-sized men and women. They have to take in that amount, or they will eventually die. 

In the gym, people will usually expend 200-300kcal an hour, it doesn't really matter how fit they are or whether they do weights or cross-trainer or treadmill or whatever, most people adjust their effort to those levels and anyway  part of being "fit" is that your body is more efficient, it achieves the same work with less energy. No, the calorie calculation on your treadmill is not accurate. 

So 4 workouts are about 1,000kcal, and 36 workouts are 9,000kcal. There are 9,000kcal in 1kg of fat. Thus, if you want to lose 1kg of fat, and if you change nothing else about your food or your general physical activity, it will take at least 36 workouts to do. At 3 workouts a week, that's 12 weeks to knock off 1kg fat. I would suggest that your weight probably varies up and down by more than 1kg over three months anyway. 

And this will be very easy for you to sabotage with your food. One hour's workout = 250kcal = one Mars bar. Two hours? One large fries from McDs. I don't know about you, but I'd rather just not eat the fries. 

This is why we have programmes like 10,000 steps. Get a step counter, wear it, and just do whatever you normally do for a week, then see how many steps you do each day on average. People who are underweight, healthy weight or overweight may do very few or very many, it varies a lot. But everyone who is obese will be doing under 5,000. Under 2,000 steps a day is common for car owners with desk jobs.  

If you go from 2,000 to 10,000 steps a day, that's an extra hour of cardio every day. Build it up over the next several weeks. Not straight away, you won't keep it up. And you can have slack days and busy days. But the weekly total should go up until it hits 70,000. An extra hour each day, plus the three workouts a week, now it becomes four weeks to knock off 1kg fat. 

Consider your food. Now, I'm a personal trainer not a dietician. You wouldn't ask a dietician how to do a barbell squat, don't ask me for a meal plan. I can do not much better than pass on Dan John's wise words:

Before we get too specific: Eat like an adult!... Honestly, seriously, you don't know what to do about food? Here is an idea: Eat like an adult. Stop eating fast food, stop eating kid's cereal, knock it off with all the sweets and comfort foods whenever your favorite show is not on when you want it on, ease up on the snacking and - don't act like you don't know this - eat vegetables and fruits more. Really, how difficult is this? Stop with the whining. Stop with the excuses. Act like an adult and stop eating like a television commercial. Grow up.  (Mass Made Simple, p. 22)

Think about it, you know what to do. Eat more fresh fruit and vegies, nuts and beans. Have some meat, some fish and some dairy, but don't go crazy on it and stuff yourself. Ease back on the booze and junk food. "Junk food" is any food where the packet is more colourful than the contents. 


As for amounts, don't weigh your food or count calories, that will make you crazy, just steer as you go. If after a month you are overall bigger and wanted to be smaller, eat a little bit less; if smaller and wanted to be bigger, eat more. If bigger, smaller or the same and you wanted that, change nothing. 


As an example, with one less Mars bar each day, the 1kg fat comes off in two weeks. 


So the time to lose 1kg of fat,

• 3 workouts a week, change nothing else = 12 weeks
• 3 workouts a week, increase general physical activity = 4 weeks
• small caloric deficit from eating better food = 2 weeks 

All these figures are illustrative only, the human body is a stupidly complex thing. But they show the point: fat loss won't happen in the gym. Eat less, move more. Not heaps less, just a bit, steer as you go.

Much the same goes for gaining weight, if you have to be a hipster or someone unfortunate like that.

How one of my clients lost 30kg in six months
I'd love to say it was because of the 2-3 workouts a week he did with me, it wouldn't be true though. He just increased his general physical activity and ate better food. He ate less and moved more. 


So what did our workouts do for him? I just helped make him stronger, fitter and more flexible. He did the weight loss himself. Now, obviously the two things help each-other: once you've front squatted 70kg, walking to the shops doesn't seem like a big deal, and once you're regularly walking to the shops, your workouts will be easier. But really the weight loss was all down to him. 


Why go to the gym then?
I was asked in a job interview once, would I ever drop a client?
"If they were unreliable, sure."
"Yeah but what if they weren't doing what you told them?"
"If I fired every client who ignored my advice, I'd have no clients."
"Yeah but say your big guy had ballooned out instead of losing weight, drop him?"
"No. If he's going to be grossly obese, it's better for him to be grossly obese and strong and fit and flexible, than grossly obese and weak and unfit and stiff."
I didn't get the job, but wasn't too sad about it. 


Anyway, the point is that with proper workouts, your strength, cardiovascular fitness and flexibility improve, which improves your quality of life, health, posture and so on. And those are all good things, even if you still have spaghetti arms or a squishy bum. 


Strength is built in the gym, size is built at the dinner table.