Every time I talk about strength, muscle gaining or power style workouts I’m always asked some variation of this question.

Totally fair. Based on how things 1) feel or are 2) sold it makes sense why our super hard cycling class intervals or yoga or high pulse Pilates FEEL like they fit into this.

An important distinction often missed in fitness messaging is that muscles do more than just get big or strong. They can produce repeated power under fatigue, control themselves, get “more flexible”, and play a role in endurance.

But lifting or power based training with the goal of muscle tissue development or increases strength or power is a specific form of training. That yes can HELP enhance our performance in these other areas.

But things like yoga and Pilates will be limited by your own body. Bands can only progress so much. You’ll never get more strong than your WODs unless you lift outside them. And cycling and sprinting is powerful and hard but not identical.

This does not make any of these useless. And when first starting out honestly may be enough for you to adapt to and get stronger / gain muscle from.

But they are not strength training. They do not end in the same long term adaptations heavy barbell or power style training does because they demand of our muscles is different.

We can’t get mad at physiology. It just IS. We can’t change it because it’s not what we want. But we can choose to do the thing that gives us the result we wish or acknowledge it’s not the same but do what we want to and be okay with it.

If you love all these other things please by all means DO THEM. Using your muscles in any way IS good. Intensity is important even if you do lift. & if you’re just starting out and those feels realistic DO THEM!

But strength/power/lifting are always simply only going to be — how we work on our strength/power/lifting.

And that’s okay 💪🏻🤘🏻👊🏻

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