Embrace Struggle, Embrace the Suck! Resistance Training

This essay from Marty Gallagher argues that the body still changes the old-fashioned way: through struggle, stress, and effort that pushes beyond comfort. For athletes using resistance training and cardio training to build lean muscle, increase strength, and reduce body fat, the lesson remains direct: if the work never rises to the edge of current capacity, the body has little reason to adapt.

Embrace Struggle, Embrace the Suck!

To survive and thrive, the organism needs to be stressed; without struggle, the body withers and dies.

The human body was designed to overcome adversity, to struggle and strain, to fight and scrap and to persevere against physical hardship and, above all, to survive and fight another day. In modern life, much of the physical strain and struggle that shaped our evolution has been removed from day-to-day human existence. Modern man might have unbelievably high levels of psychological stress, but modern man is no longer busting ass working in an urban factory or tilling fields from dawn to dusk as a field hand on a rural farm.

Why Modern Life Removes Physical Stress

In primordial times, while humanity was still evolving, all men were hunter-gatherers, nomadic tribes that moved seasonally, following alongside migrating herds of animals. Everyday existence was struggle. With the introduction of agriculture, a mere 5,000 years ago, men could settle down in one locale and grow food. In Gallagher’s framing, the food was inferior. The human body was not designed to run on grains and grain products. Not coincidentally, with the widespread consumption of grain products, including beer and wine, obesity, and nutritionally related health maladies made their first appearance.

Fast forward to the present day and, for the white-collar middle class, much of the physical stress is now self-imposed stress related to fitness endeavors. To replicate the intense physical stresses primordial man encountered on an ongoing daily basis, modern man heads to the gym to perform stressful aerobic activity or engage in progressive resistance training with free weights. Unfortunately for modern man, he often selects the wrong exercises and imposes insufficient levels of stress.

Why 70% Effort Is Not Enough

The gym efforts are insufficiently stressful, insufficiently intense. To be sufficiently stressful, stress levels must equal or exceed momentary capacity. A 70% effort, regardless of the mode, method or tool, is insufficient to trigger the adaptive response.

All our fitness efforts are aimed at achieving two fundamental benefits. We engage in progressive resistance training to add more lean muscle mass. We engage in aerobic training, and diet, to radically decrease body fat. New muscle begets strength increases; reduced body fat dramatically improves stamina and endurance.

• To trigger hypertrophy, muscle growth, we need a 102% training effort in the weight room. Anything less is insufficient.
• To mobilize and oxidize body fat, we need a 102% effort in our cardio. Anything less is insufficient.

Keep in mind that there are many expressions of 102%. Keep in mind that a 102% effort on a bad day is a whole lot less than a 102% effort on a good day. Capacity is a shifting target. The duty of the trainee is to assault the 100% barrier, regardless of whether capacity on that day and time is diminished or amplified. Regardless of whether you are up or down, any workout can be made productive and result-producing by bumping up against some expression of limit.

What 100% Effort Looks Like in Resistance Training

In effective resistance training, a 100% effort is attained when we are unable to perform another rep. If you are bench pressing and push a 150-pound barbell for 8 reps and are unable to push rep 9, you have given 100%. What more could you do? A 102% effort is the degree of struggle involved in trying to add another rep to the current best. That degree of struggle, pushing or pulling past capacity, exemplifies the 102% effort obtainable in every session.

You do not have to attempt a rep that you know you will not make. A man knows when he has nothing left. Do not quit before you reach that point. Give all you have, and a little more. You do not have to fail with a rep to know that it is beyond capacity and should not be attempted. In effective progressive resistance training, the barely completed final rep is the gold standard for gains. Establish exercise benchmarks in all the rep ranges, then seek to exceed them.

What 100% Effort Looks Like in Cardio Training

In steady-state cardiovascular training, 100% effort is attained when you power along at just below the oxygen-debt threshold at an even pace for an extended period. Burst cardio protocol is to sprint all out, recover, then sprint again. Regardless of the aerobic protocol, the trainee needs benchmarks: times, distances, pace targets and repeatable standards. Have cardio benchmarks for the modes you use, then seek to exceed them.

For trainees using cardio equipment, effort can be pushed hard with tools such as an AssaultRunner Pro treadmill, a TrueForm Trainer non-motorized curved treadmill, an AssaultBike Elite, or a Schwinn Fitness IC Classic indoor cycling bike. The machine does not create the adaptation by itself. The effort does.

Equipment Pairings for Honest Hard Training

For home gyms, commercial gyms, performance facilities and tactical training spaces, this kind of honest effort is easier to demand when the setup is simple and durable. Serious strength training equipment, rugged dumbbells, reliable kettlebells, sturdy Olympic weightlifting bars, enough weight plates to load progressively, and durable rubber gym flooring rolls or interlocking rubber gym tiles remove excuses and make hard work easier to repeat. Support pieces such as a leverage bench press or a pec deck/rear delt machine can help extend a serious session without replacing the need for effort.

Where the Gains Hide

Only by reintroducing 100%+ effort into our weight training and cardio training do we successfully replicate, in some useful modern sense, the stresses experienced by our primordial ancestors. Those that do build a hard, lean, muscular body can retain that body with the onset of age, assuming some sort of sensible nutritional game plan is in place and adhered to.

You can undo all the good work in the gym with bad eating. Stuff your face on carbs and drink beer and you will end up very strong, very fit and very fat, like a strong, fit, fat 350-pound NFL offensive guard.

Embrace effort and struggle. Avoid any expert, mode or method that says they have figured out a way to obtain the gains without herculean effort. Without struggle, without stress, without assaulting the barriers of our current limits and capacities, nothing of any transformational consequence can or will occur. How could it? If 70% efforts in the gym provoked gains, we would be a nation full of perfect physiques. Seek out struggle. That is where the gains hide.

FAQ

What does Marty Gallagher mean by 102% effort?

He is describing effort that rises right to the edge of current capacity and then presses against it. In the weight room, that usually means a final rep or near-final rep that is barely completed but still done with intact technique.

Do you have to fail every rep to make resistance training effective?

No. Gallagher’s point is that you do not have to attempt a rep you know you cannot make. The gold standard is the barely completed final rep, not reckless failure for its own sake.

Why does 70% effort not create the same results?

Because the body adapts to meaningful stress. If the effort never approaches momentary capacity, the adaptive response is blunted and muscle growth, strength gains and conditioning improvements are harder to trigger.

Can cardio training work without pushing intensity?

Cardio can improve general activity tolerance at lower intensities, but Gallagher’s argument here is specifically about transformational results. For body fat reduction and serious conditioning, he believes effort has to rise much closer to the limit.

What equipment helps create a productive high-effort training space?

A useful setup starts with free weights, barbells, dumbbells, kettlebells, Olympic bars, enough weight plates to progress, and durable flooring that can handle hard use. The tools support the work, but they never replace the struggle.

About the Author

As an athlete Marty Gallagher is a national and world champion in Olympic lifting and powerlifting. He was a world champion team coach in 1991 and coached Black's Gym to five national team titles. He's also coached some of the strongest men on the planet including Kirk Karwoski when he completed his world record 1,003 lb. squat. Today he teaches the US Secret Service and Tier 1 Spec Ops on how to maximize their strength in minimal time. As a writer since 1978 he’s written for Powerlifting USA, Milo, Flex Magazine, Muscle & Fitness, Prime Fitness, Washington Post, Dragon Door and now IRON COMPANY. He’s also the author of numerous books including Purposeful Primitive, Strong Medicine, Ed Coan’s book “Coan, The Man, the Myth, the Method" and numerous others. Read the Marty Gallagher biography here.