Strengthening is a Verb: Why Group Fitness Teachers Might be Gaslighting You About Building Strength

We associate effort with strength, but a just because something is difficult doesn’t mean you are getting stronger. Here's what you need to know.

We often associate effort with strength, but a just because something is difficult or there’s a burning sensation doesn’t automatically mean strength is being built.

Your yoga or fitness instructor might be using the word “strengthening” a little…loosely. And if you’re trying to:

Recover from injury
Follow a physical therapy plan
Get stronger on purpose

...that matters.

What is strength?

Strength is a measurable thing. It’s the ability to produce force. The most straightforward way to measure your capacity to produce force is by moving a heavy object through space.

“Strengthening” is a verb, or action that is quantifiable, cumulative and means the ability to produce greater and greater force over time. Strengthening, the gerund, implies a progression toward becoming stronger.

That progression is highly dependent on where you start, how much you challenge your muscles in any given week, and how long you stick it out over a period of months or years.

How quickly can you strengthen?

It’s important to note that strengthening first happens on the level of your nervous system, not your muscles and connective tissue. The phrase that describes this is “neural adaptations.”

Neural adaptations are visible within the first few weeks of a new muscle “stimulus” (for example: a new movement or a new exercise routine) and are not the same thing as measurable muscle growth or stronger connective tissue (like tendons). (See https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3057313)

Just Getting Started

When someone first starts a new workout, thanks to your nervous system adapting to the new movement, you might see rapid results in your ability to produce force.

Some of those rapid changes are due to learning technique and mentally getting comfortable with a new movement.

This concept of neural adaptation explains why, for example, your third SolidCore session is likely to feel much less taxing than your first, even if it has only been 7 days since your first class (which is not enough time for measurable muscle growth).

You might feel stronger quickly after starting a new fitness program or attending group fitness classes.

Ingredients for Strengthening

Neural adaptation is an important factor in discussions about strength because it can obscure the fact that strengthening takes dedication and is an ongoing process.

According to the Cleveland Clinic “It generally takes about four to 12 weeks to see physical improvements in muscle growth, and sometimes, upwards of six months to visibly notice really big gains in muscle mass.”

If you start doing pushups January 1st, by week three you might feel much stronger even if your muscle itself (the “tissue”) hasn’t changed.

Why does this matter?

It’s important to celebrate any exercise that someone actually enjoys, and yet: this distinction around muscle growth and measurable strength particularly matters when there are larger, long term goals that include improving overall tissue fortitude.

Here are some examples:

Recovering from injury
Preventing injury or preventing recurrence of injury
Building up bone density
Overall increase in tissue resilience…

…those tissue changes require a good deal of time (months, if not a lifetime) and a sustainable level of progressively increasing resistance and a regular pace that includes rest time.

Strengthening is Extremely Individual

The act of strengthening is also very individual. No two people will be able to produce the same amount of force in each and every possible movement. We all show up to the mat or the gym at a different starting line, so to speak.

How fast you build muscle depends on so many factors, including:

How often you exercise
How much resistance you use
Reps and sets
Foods you eat (especially protein)
Rest and recovery
Genetics, age and medical history

Infinite individual variability, like why a yoga pose makes one person shake while another casually checks their email. Same pose. Different humans.

It’s also why calling any class or any pose “strengthening” for everyone is… questionable.

Maintaining ≠ Strengthening

Since progressive strengthening relies on:

Consistently training a muscle 2-3 times per week
Gradually increasing the challenge (volume of the stimulus)

Doing this for months or longer

If you attend Level 1 yoga every Monday night, your body will eventually adapt. Once that happens, your body gets used to the demands of that class.

Maintenance is great. But it’s not progress. It’s not strengthening.

How does this relate to “Things Fitness Instructors Say”?

So when your yoga teacher says Warrior II pose is strengthening your quads, that statement may or may not be true for some or all of the students.

To actually prove strengthening, you would need to be able to see changes over time, like:

Holding Warrior II longer
Holding it with added weight
Recovering from it more quickly

Same goes for when a pilates teacher tells their faithful pilates mat attendees that they are strengthening while doing “the Pilates Hundred”.

This exercise does not progress over time. Once your body adapts, doing the same thing over and over stops being a strengthening stimulus.

Nuances Abound

There are nuances to all of this.

You absolutely can gain strength (in addition to general fitness, mobility, etc) from:

Yoga asana
Pilates
Calisthenics
or probably even Zumba

Of course, classes that specifically track strength also exist.

But if strengthening is your goal, or has been recommended to you by a physical therapist, you may need a routine that is tailored to you that includes (but is not limited to) the group fitness classes that you enjoy.

A Personal Note

If this seems obvious to you, a personal note: One of the things that confused me before I became a physical therapist (in my early thirties) is how difficult it seemed to build strength without being injured and exhausted.

The problem was my former paradigm. As a serious student of yoga and teacher of yoga since my early 20s, I thought I could rely on yoga asana, and specifically group yoga (and occasional pilates mat) classes, to strengthen muscle.

I got somewhat stronger through asana. To a point. It was inefficient, far from linear, and I plateaued.

While this outcome might seem obvious to the non-yoga practicing world, young folks -- or anyone without any strength training background -- who fall in love with the welcoming spaces and communities of yoga (or other group fitness) hear and absorb misguided messages all the time. << That was me, and I am not alone in that experience.

Keep Learning

Want to learn more about how movement and exercise can be used to

Recover from or prevent injury,
Help you reach your full capacity
and get back to doing what you love?

Watch our free webinar, Physio Wisdom to Return to Exercise or Yoga after Injury.

(We promise this topic is 100x more interesting than it sounds and can set you up for a lifetime of skillful movement choices!)

Need physical therapy now?

A thoughtful physical therapist can help you to create an enjoyable, sustainable strength training routine tailored to you, your current or past injuries and your overall needs.

We offer easy online booking, clear pricing and even a free 15 minute “Are We a Good Fit?” call. Here’s the link to explore our offerings: https://wellilo.janeapp.com

Categories: : Physical Therapy