Strong Enough

Hey docs,

You’ve made it clear that you believe that barbell training is something that pretty much everyone should be doing for their overall health and wellness. That being said, at what point would you tell the average person that they’re “strong enough?” Is there a point where there is not much more to be gained healthwise from continuing to seek strength gains? What do the diminishing returns look like in your opinion? I’d imagine as someone gets stronger and lifts heavier weights, the risk to reward ratio becomes less optimal.

I don’t people that I think they’re “strong enough”. Part of it depends on their goals, of course, but it’s important to impress upon people that specifically “training for maintenance” in old age is essentially training for regression. Even if you’re not making gains by leaps and bounds, training to gain as you age is arguably the best way to ultimately maintain as much as possible.

The risk to reward ratio certainly changes over the course of a training career, and is different for a non-competitive lifter vs. a competitor. But the answer to that question also depends on what the programming looks like from a volume, intensity, and frequency standpoint.

I’m a 42 year old male going through SS linear progression. This is the first time in my life I’ve attempted any regular strength training. I had to back off or de-load a couple of times but I’m making gains, and de-load was mostly due to work travel. I do worry about my weight however. I’m 6 feet and 240 lb with a 38 waist. My press is at 135, bench is 165, squat 250 and deadlift 270. I guess my question is: have I gained too much weight for the the little progress I’ve made?

I don’t know, Martin.

I think it’s reasonable to not aggressively gain more weight at this point, however.

Thank you Dr. Baraki. I’ll try not to overthink your however. Back to MyFitnessPal for me. Thanks again, Martin.