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Wednesday, May 22, 2019

Are you strong? Statistically speaking, probably not.

Ask most people if they are strong and most people will likely say “yes”. If they don’t say it out loud, they still probably believe it to be true. At the very least, most people believe they are strong enough or stronger than average.

It is natural to feel that way because it should be no surprise to learn that being strong is actually very good for you. The bad news is, most people aren’t strong and in general people are getting weaker every year.

Obviously from a survival perspective strength goes beyond opening jars and bottles but doing work, fixing stuff and self defense. But what I find interesting is that being strong, in particular measured in regards to your grip strength, is strongly (wink, wink) lined to your health status.
A higher handgrip strength (HGS) means a lower risk of overall cardiovascular disease mortality, CVD being among the main causes of premature death worldwide. Beyond that a stronger grip is related in the medical community to vitality and better overall health.

https://today.uconn.edu/2011/06/grip-strength-is-good-indicator-of-overall-health/#

But back to the question, the only way of knowing how strong you really are is to properly measure it. It’s a rather simple stat to track so I got myself one of these gadgets. (affiliate link to Amazon below in case you want to give it a go)

It costs just a few bucks and it lets you know how strong you are for real. “Strong” is best, at the very least you want to be on the right side of the “Normal” bracket and you definitely don’t want to be “Weak”. If you are though, you may want to start working out more, increase your general fitness level and keep track of the progress made.
Take care,

FerFAL

Fernando “FerFAL” Aguirre is the author of “The Modern Survival Manual: Surviving the Economic Collapse” and “Bugging Out and Relocating: When Staying is not an Option”

3 comments:

Leonid said...

I don't consider myself strong, certainly not strong enough or healthy enough. I measure my vitality by actually working and playing and then tuning in to how I feel (do I struggle at all getting out of bed in the morning? do my joints hurt under high stress or impact? how positive is my mood and motivation day-to-day?). Listen to your body and don't lie to yourself about things you do that contribute toward weakness (eating junk, sitting at the computer for hours, not challenging yourself physically, mentally, and socially).

Rob said...

Grip strength dynometer https://www.instructables.com/id/Grip-Strength-Meter-Dynometer/

Anonymous said...

This is a topic that I think about a lot. Since I've started lifting I've realized how easy it is to get strong (if you have the time and drive) and how incredibly weak most people are. Even people that seem to be 'fitness' obsessed frequently can't squat their body weight, let alone bench it.

In my experience you don't need a device to measure this, you need 2 questions: Do you have an incredibly physically demanding job, if not, when was the last time you trained according to well-designed program? If the answer is no/never, you're weak.