14 years ago, only a few months before my daughter Ruby died, I started running. And I thank whatever gods are out there that I did. I downloaded the Couch to 5K app to my phone and after a few false starts got cracking. From the very first day (walk 60 seconds, jog 60 seconds, repeat five times) my right knee constantly grumbled because of the seriously excess weight I was carrying. I sought advice from a personal trainer about my options for continuing, I was hoping for some gentle and nuanced wisdom, and he looked me up and down and said "too fat, lose weight, try again". Nice. So I paused the training at week 3, went on a crash diet and did hard cardio at the gym every day (60 minutes of treadmill walking, rowing machine and spin bike) to burn as many calories as possible until I'd lost a few stone- this took only a few weeks as I was simultaneously eating next to nothing. Although this intense approach to weight loss is strongly not recommended for the violent shock my body had to cope with, it worked at lightening the load on my knees and I cautiously started the Couch to 5k again. Some weeks of the training had to be repeated as there were small plateaus here and there but after 3 months I could very slowly manage 5km. My speed hasn't really changed in the last 14 years. Becoming a runner has been one of most joyous discoveries in my life- an exemplar concept of "making things better"- improving my mood, simplifying what really matters in life and keeping my body healthy.
But for all the psychological positives I get from running it may be weight training that is the true exercising secret to coping with grief. I started lifting weights three years ago for one reason only- chronic physical pain. I had tried everything else to reduce sciatic pain that had been disabling me for a year as the discomfort was constant, sometimes mild and sometimes so bad I couldn't get out of bed for a day at a time. But it was there every minute of every day for a year. The pain brought me to tears many times and I was forced to seriously consider the true possibility that I may have mobility issues for the rest of my life, affecting my relationship with my son and wife, work and friends, day to day life may be different, holidays wouldn't be the same.
Some physiotherapy exercises, Pilates and yoga stretching had given me some relief from the sciatica in that it reduced the pain for few hours here and there, enabling me to go for a short jog each week, but it never went away. Medication was just a sticking plaster. Meditation, mindfulness, anxiety-management and muscle-relaxation techniques didn't work. I read some comments online about recovering from back pain at the gym and so in desperation I bought the cheapest second-hand set of weights I could find online and completed some back squats after watching instructional clips on YouTube.
Logically, I assumed, stretching my back and leg muscles should surely open up any trapped nerves and hopefully free me from the daily pain that was pointing me towards insanity. I would try almost anything at this stage.
Miraculously, it worked. Overnight. The next morning, I winced as usual as I swung my legs over the edge of the bed ready to be stabbed in the back from the pain of sitting up, as I had been for a year, but it didn't come. My legs were stiff but mobile, my muscles underused but full of potential and I freely stood and tentatively walked around the bedroom waiting for the pain to kick in but it never came. It has never returned. Never, since that day, have I had a return of the sciatica nor have I experienced any serious back pain and I entirely attribute this to weight training. I have been lifting weights every week since then, my primary motivating factor being the fear of that pain, the worst I ever felt in my life.
My romantic attachment to back squats remains to this day. Although my weight training goals have shifted recently towards using it as a tool for longevity and for more efficient running, I continue to weight train to get stronger and stronger. I have noticed a number of changes in my body and mind over these three years but the continual adding of extra weight to the barbell (so called "progressive overload") has encouraged my body to perform a more and more difficult task. Over the years I've got stronger, of course, but the weight gets heavier too and so it never gets easy, it is a constant challenge, small but consistent, and it is the continual challenge that makes it worthwhile.
The concept of "progressive overload", of adding extra weight to the barbell each week or month, ensures increasing strength because of the way the muscle breaks down due to this new stress and then rebuild itself stronger next time around (other concepts in weight training are also important such as the time the muscle is under tension and also performing each movement using the full range of motion for that muscle but "progressive overload" is a gold standard). It's a concept that can be applied to continual growth in other areas- creativity, mental health, physical improvement. David Bowie said it well when he talked about his creativity, he states it's like wading out to sea until the water is at the level of your chin. That next step you take, into the unknown where your feet cannot touch the seabed, is where his creativity starts, he said. That is the trick- you don't do anything totally new and extraordinary, you simply extrapolate slightly (that is, travel in the same direction as usual) and take one small step further than you've taken before. This, where you overload progressively, is where growth starts.
The same idea is used for some phobia therapy- it is called "graded desensitisation" or "exposure therapy"- but the concept is the same, extrapolate slightly from your current position and overload in an organised and progressive manner (for example, a very gradual introduction to spiders for an arachnophobe- small photos of a spider, then bigger photos, then a small real one a long distance away, bringing it gradually closer, etc). Improvements take time but the key is consistency and deliberate continual change in a specific direction.
With my professional and personal interest in mental health and trauma I have noted continual developments in brain imaging techniques and related research that appears to show how doing difficult things, whether due to deliberate progressive overload challenges (like weight training) or surviving unwanted psychic pain (such as traumatic grief), can increase resilience and help us make more sense of our distress.
To thrive well after a challenge is all about the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and the cognitive triad. The ACC is a part of the brain that is used in motivation, emotional regulation and decision-making and it is placed very near the pre-fontal cortex (relating to executive functions and self-control). It also has connections to the amygdala (threat/fear) and the hippocampus (memory formation) and it is the ACC along with these other three (the cognitive triad are also strongly associated with processing trauma) that is of interest here. The ACC responds actively- it literally changes its neural connections- when we do something challenging. This, in turn, positively affect the cognitive triad and changes how we emotionally regulate (that is, how our central nervous system manages it's electrical activity to an appropriate level and helps modulate the strength of emotions and whether they overwhelm us or not), our sensitivity to perceived threat (past trauma keeps our amygdala firing all the time- it believes there is a threat and keep us constantly, exhaustingly, mentally alert- this is called "hypervigilance") and our formation of memories (traumatic memories have been poorly processed and instead of being neatly stored in a "memory bank" of our brain float around our mind, spontaneously and violently recalled- these are the "flashbacks" and recurring nightmares of PTSD).
In other words, doing hard things may reduce traumatic memories, reduce long-term exhaustive alertness and always "being on", may help to manage difficult emotions and can increase future resilience in times of distress. By doing hard things other hard things feel easier.
In addition to the potential neurological benefits of weight lifting there is also a very basic truth at stake, an honest leveller that is both humbling and rewarding- does the heavy thing get lifted or not? It's as simple as that, the weight either leaves the ground or it doesn't. There are no shortcuts, no cheat code, you can't enlist the help of anyone else, you either get that weight off the ground or it stays there. And if you can't lift it, you practice and practice and get stronger and stronger until you can. With weights, as in life, you do your best and if that is not enough it shouldn't matter as it was beyond your ability to complete. You gave it your best shot and there are few things more honest than that.
Physical strength is an extraordinary feeling. Getting out of bed is easier, so is putting on your socks and tying your shoelaces, shopping bags are lighter, your sphere of capability increases as you become that person friends call to help with moving house or reconfiguring their garage or getting their rubbish to the dump. You become more in tune with your range of motion ("yes, I could climb up there"), your range of strength ("yes, I'll get one end of that washing machine for you") and your limits ("that gap is too far to jump"). And all these movement possibilities of which you are now aware equates to expanded boundaries of your dynamic and static positions in the physical world- you can move in that direction for however long you want, using whichever locomotive force is best, for that amount of time.
You don't get strong when you lift heavy stuff, that happens when you rest. "Rest is recovery" as they say at the gym and it is true. Providing that initial stimulus to a muscle slightly damages it and it then repairs itself to a stronger level to cope with that stimulus again. That repair happens only when we are resting and therefore sleep becomes an essential part of the strength equation. We need sleep to get strong.
Tired muscles need to rest, of course, but I need no extra sleep on days I have completed a long or intense run- this is simply tiredness but broken muscles, ones that have been lifting a weight heavier than we are used to, need reparation. And that repairing takes time, water and nutrients more than simple rest. There are fewer sleeps as deep as the one after a heavy weights session. Restful sleep usually means a healthy sleep pattern (alternating shallow, REM, dream-sleep and the deeper "repair" sleep when our bodies go through various restoring processes to our muscles, central nervous system and brain) and, in turn, improvements in mental health. To dream is to process the days events and thoughts, to dream well is to address serious psychic work that needs taken care of.
When we go through stressful events in life- grief, moving house, relationship issues- we often dream more than usual due to the extra processing work our brain needs to do. Anything we can do to focus on sleeping and dreaming well- having a good evening routine, reducing caffeine, a comfortable sleeping environment, weight training- will help us feel more relaxed and in control the next day as we've less to worry about.
In addition to sleep and plenty of water (muscle repair, like many processes in our bodies, needs water to complete) we also need the right nutrition. One of the many things that suffers when we are depressed or anxious or traumatised is that we don't feel like eating- literally, our appetite goes down- but this necessity for nourishment after weight-lifting can unconsciously encourage us to eat more healthily, it can improve our appetite and give us the extra energy we need for daily activities and motivation. The body needs very specific chemicals to rebuild muscle and we get these from eating a wide variety of foods. After a session at the gym I am always famished- my body is strongly signalling "GIVE ME SUSTENANCE TO REPAIR MYSELF". Food is fuel, to eat is to be energised. This is not only for muscle repair but for growth of many healthy tissues- bones, ligaments, tendons- hence the success of weight-training as the perfect "future-proofing" tool for older people.
I am convinced that three years of weight training has slowly but convincingly increased my ability to bounce back from setbacks. Due to the necessary effort required, I often don't want to go into a weight-training session- it can be complicated and difficult, progress in sometimes imperceivably slow, there's no "runner's high"- but the advantages of reduced physical and mental pain are almost incalculable. It has helped me manage my emotions (for example at job interviews or reducing my social anxiety) and has prevented me ruminating on things that went wrong because those negative memories either haven't been formed or are so well processed and filed away in the memory banks of my brain they play no significant influence on my anxieties. Also, the discipline needed to continue a habit as hard work as lifting weights has serious carry-over into other aspects of my life- consistency produces progress, it increases self-belief in my own capabilities and has taught me that I can adapt well. It is early days for me, a weight training career lasts decades not months, but there have been clear positive changes in my body and mind in the last 3 years and I hope to continue well into old age.
