Do You Need to Lift Weights?
Mar 30, 2025
Hello friends, I got this really good question on YouTube this week, and I thought I'd share it with you:
Is an external load needed for health, strength, and awesomeness as you age? Is performing calisthenics and Pressing RESET enough, or do you need to pump iron?
The answer is “yes.”
I know, there are really two questions, and they seem at odds with each other. But still, the answer is yes, and I’ll try to explain.
Pressing RESET (breathing the way you were born to breathe, mastering head control, rolling, rocking, crawling) establishes and enhances your reflexive strength. It also gives you access to the natural strength you possess inside your muscles. This is the strength that makes all the wonderful things you want to do better, like strength training.
Strength training, whether through calisthenics or weight training, builds upon the strength you already possess. If you have access to you have a solid foundation of reflexive strength and you have access to your natural strength, deliberate strength training can make you really strong. If you don’t have access to your natural strength, deliberate strength training can make you stronger, but it won’t necessarily help you reach your full strength potential.
Engaging in both Pressing RESET and deliberate strength training is a wonderful combination as it helps build and enhance your reflexive strength and your cognitive strength, building more strength on top of your natural strength.
Don’t get me wrong, you have more natural strength in your body than you’ll likely ever need; you just don’t necessarily have access to it. But you can gain access to it by Pressing RESET regularly (through living in your design to move). But if you don’t engage in life, if you don’t challenge your body through doing hard things, you will likely never be able to express your true strength potential or experience possessing the strength that just makes life easier.
This is where dedicated strength training can have a huge advantage because it is typically choosing to deliberately engage in doing something hard. Regularly doing hard things forces the body to adapt to making those hard things easier; it makes heavy weights lighter through building and strengthening the muscles.
I think the real question is, does a person need to lift weights?
No. They don’t. But weight training is a pretty straightforward way to build strength and size. If a person doesn’t lift weights and wants to be stronger, they need to find ways to challenge their body through doing hard things. Bodyweight movements and calisthenics can build incredible strength until they become easy. Once they are easy, you won’t lose the strength you’ve built, but you will find it hard to gain more strength without finding ways to make the calisthenics harder. With weight training, as you adapt to the challenge, you add more weight to the bar or more reps to the set. With calisthenics, you may need to move slower or find leverage disadvantages that make the movements harder.
So, you don’t NEED to lift weights to get stronger or even bigger, but you do NEED to find a way to challenge your strength through doing hard things that force your body to become stronger or bigger, preferably on top of a solid foundation of reflexive strength.
Then there is the crucial question that isn’t asked: What about nutrition?
If you try to grow in strength and/or size, you really need to think about your nutrition. Under-eating doesn’t build more strength. Maintenance eating doesn’t build more strength. Surplus eating, or increasing your eating, fuels your strength and size efforts.
I mention this because there is a great deal of information out there about eating and training, but much like a child, if you want to grow, you have to eat to grow. Especially if you are lean and don’t have a great deal of excess body weight. But even if you do have excess body weight, you still need to eat in such a way that fuels your efforts. You can use stored fat for energy, but stored fat does not build muscle. Protein builds muscle. You still may need to increase your protein intake to repair and rebuild the muscles and the other supporting tissues that you are tearing down through strength training. Otherwise, you will end up putting a lid on how much strength you can achieve and express. If you are training to grow in strength expression or size, don’t be afraid to eat in a way that feeds your efforts.
I hope this makes sense. You have incredible strength in your body right now. If you want to feel amazing and have access to that strength, you need to live in your design and Press RESET every day. On top of that, if you want to build even more strength or size, you need to deliberately engage in doing hard things on a regular basis, and you also need to fuel your efforts through adequate nutrition. And sleep! You also need to get good sleep!
Sleep is the big RESET that also enhances your strength training efforts. You need it, almost like you need water and food.
Anyway, that’s it for this week.
Here is the takeaway:
Press RESET every day.
Do hard things regularly throughout the week.
Eat enough, as much as you need to repair and build your body.
Make sleep a priority.
Comments (0)
Please login to comment.