Most people understand that they can’t expect to get stronger if they go to a gym and lift weights one time, or even for a month.
If you want to get stronger, you must lift weights consistently.
But even that is not enough. Your body adapts to the load you place on it. So if you want to get stronger, then on a regular basis you must increase the load you lift.
Strength also requires adequate nutrition. If you’re not eating the right foods and getting appropriate nutrients, you body won’t have the necessary ingredients to build muscle mass.
But even if you have your workouts and nutrition dialed in, and you’re consistently increasing the load, there’s still one more thing you need to do:
Rest.
This piece seems to contradict the others. If it’s true that to get stronger you need to increase the load you lift, then rest seems to be the opposite of that.
But rest is crucial.
When you lift weights, you tear the muscle fibers. At rest, the body heals those tears. Rest is where we engage in the process of repair. It’s the period in which the strength adaptation happens.
The gym is where you damage the muscle. Rest is where it repairs. It’s in the repair that the strength gains are made.
The Japanese art of Kintsugi follows a similar process. This is the art of repairing broken pottery by gluing it back together and painting the glued parts gold. The gold highlights the strength of the newly fused pieces.
It is the process of repair that makes the pottery stronger.
The same holds true for all parts of life.
When something is broken, we are often tempted to throw it away and start new.
But the process of repair is where we forge strength and resilience.
That applies to muscle fibers, pottery, torn fabric, broken systems, relationships, and anything else that has been frayed by the demands of the loads we lift — whether literal or metaphorical.
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