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A couple weeks ago I had all four wisdom teeth taken out. The doctor told me no strength training for a week (which wasn't easy to do), and a little over a week after that we packed up and headed to the beach for our family vacation.
I had every intention to pick back up and start lifting again. I just didn't want to. I took another week off and enjoyed the time with my family at the beach.
I usually train 4 to 6 days a week most weeks out of the year. I used to feel bad about taking time off. At this point in my life, I don't.
So I focused on sleep instead and got a couple extra hours every day, since I'm usually up pretty early.
It's been a little over two weeks now since I've touched a weight. I'm getting back to it Monday.
But I haven't been sitting around. I've been lugging umbrellas, coolers, chairs, and all the kids stuff down to the beach early in the morning and hauling it all back later in the day. That's been my workout.
And with three kids under four, I've gotten in my fair share of farmer carries on the trips back and forth.
Muscle isn't a mirror. It's an organ, and it's been doing a job for me all week.
THE DEEP DIVE
If you ran the Engine Check two weeks ago, hold onto those two numbers. We're not leaving the engine behind. We're going to the frame it sits in.
I had a client who loved his yoga, his golf, and his walks. Active guy. Strength training just was never the priority.
I told him what I've told a hundred men since. All of that is good and you should keep doing it. But it's not the meat and potatoes.
Strength training is the meat and potatoes.
Most men hear that and think I'm talking about how they'll look. There's nothing wrong with wanting to look good. I just care a whole lot more about what that muscle is doing for you.
I'm not the only one saying this. Dr. Gabrielle Lyon is a physician who built her entire practice around one idea: skeletal muscle is the organ of longevity.
Her framing is that most of us aren't over-fat. We're under-muscled.
On the gym floor I say it differently. Go muscles and show muscles. I want both. I just don't build the show ones first.
First, muscle is where your food goes.
Every meal you eat turns into sugar in your blood. That sugar has to go somewhere, and the place it mostly goes is your muscle.
Roughly 70–80% of the glucose from a meal is taken up by skeletal muscle under normal conditions. Not your liver. Not your fat. Your muscle.
So a man with more muscle has a bigger place to put his food. A man with less muscle has the same lunch and nowhere to put it, so it sits in his blood longer and his pancreas works harder to clear it.
The largest organ in your body by mass is your skeletal muscle. Researchers describe it as a regulator of glucose.
Every set you do is building a bigger tank.
Then, muscle is what you spend when you can't move.
Here's the part almost nobody tells you.
When a healthy adult is put on true bed rest, measurable muscle loss shows up in the first one to two weeks, and strength drops faster than size. Ordinary time off with normal movement is a different story.
You lose what you don't use. That's not a saying. That's a measurement.
My two weeks was four teeth and a beach trip. I'm fine, and the reason I'm fine is that I had enough built up to spend.
At 78 it's not wisdom teeth. It's a fall, a broken hip, and ten days flat on your back. What you built at 45 is what you have to spend when that happens.
You're not building muscle for your forties. You're building the reserve you'll spend in your seventies.
Then, muscle is the difference between falling and catching yourself.
Most people think the danger is tripping. The danger is not being able to catch yourself.
This week I almost went down hard on a slippery surface, walking out to pick up food for my family. I caught myself. I'm 36, and the way I went into it, that could have been a bad knee. I woke up the next day fine.
That's not how much you can lift. That's how fast you can lift it. And that speed is trained. You build it by lifting.
So lifting is organ maintenance.
You don't train your heart because you want it to look good. You train it because you want it to work in thirty years.
Muscle is the same. It's a working organ that stores your fuel, holds your reserve, and keeps you upright.
When you're 60, 70, 80 and beyond, what you're going to care about is whether you can still do the things you do right now. Play the sport. Stay active. Get down on the floor with your kids and your grandkids and get back up.
Your consistency today is what buys that later. Your biological age doesn't have to match the number on your license, and it's never too late to start.
That's the meat and potatoes. It isn't exciting. Nobody photographs it. It's the thing that feeds you.
Next up in this stretch: how to actually program it, what your grip strength says about you, and the numbers you should be able to hit.
That client I told you about still does his yoga, still golfs, still walks. He lifts now too, and he’ll tell you he enjoys it more than he thought he would.
QUICK HITS
FUEL — Ask for fasting insulin next time you get labs. Most men only get glucose and A1C, and those can look fine for years while your body works harder and harder behind the scenes to keep them there. Fasting insulin shows you that effort. More muscle means less of it.
TRAINING — I haven’t lifted in a little over two weeks and I’m not worried about it. In a trained body, short breaks cost you less than most men think, and strength comes back faster than it was built. I’m back under the bar Monday. I'm not going to try to make up for two weeks in one session. About 70% of my normal volume, the big compounds, and consistent from there.
FAMILY — A client texted me this week: "Remember, it's a memory making trip. Vacations come later in life." That's exactly what this week was. Nobody was sitting on the beach reading a book. Three kids under four, and I wouldn't trade it.
MIND — Don't feel bad about time off. Consistency is what I preach and consistency gets measured over a year, not a week. The guy who can take a week off and get right back to it is the guy who's still training at 70.
ON THE WALL
A client of mine, early sixties, is one of those guys who's always outdoors. Biking, running, skiing, whatever's in season. He sent me this from the coast last week:
Read what he didn't say. He didn't text me about how he looks.
He texted me on day four, still going, at an age when most men have quietly stopped doing the thing they love because their body stopped cooperating.
That's what the push ups and the back work bought him. Not a mirror. Four days of waves.
THIS WEEK'S 1%
Two lifts. That's it.
If you're not strength training at all, this week you do two sessions. Not a program, not an hour. Push something, pull something, pick something up off the floor. Thirty minutes.
If you already lift, look at your week honestly and count the strength sessions. If the answer is one, make it two.
Hit reply and tell me: what's the last thing you carried, lifted, or caught yourself from that you wouldn't have managed ten years ago?
If you know a guy who thinks lifting is about looking good, forward this article to him.
Your body is worth stewarding.
Go become 1% better. 🔧
— Coach Joshua
Educational content, not medical advice — partner with your physician, ideally one who believes in proactive care.