Preferred Indiferents: Strength Training

Epictetus (and I think several other Stoics) often refer to athletes in their metaphors, and they assume that we Stoics will get a moderate amount of exercise. It seems that in their time a trip to the gymnasium and the baths was a daily occurrence. If you have more specific information about daily life in the Roman Empire please do chime in.

So to that end I've been doing circuit training at a gym three times per week. I do five exercises (bench press, lat row, curl, triceps press, power runner) suggested by a trainer. I walked in and told him "I want to be in and out in a half hour." He set me up with this plan and we adjusted the weight so I could do 10 repetitions of each exercise. I've been at it four months and skipped only one day. It's become a habit.

I've asked several gym goers what a good benchmark to shoot for is to achieve a moderate level of fitness. Most have told me that a 200 pound bench press is pretty decent for the casual guy.

This article from Muscle and Fitness confirms it. The author says that if you can bench 200 you are stronger than 90% of men walking the earth.

Now I don't want to "win," but I do want a target to shoot for. According to this calculator with 10 repetitions of 135 pounds my max would be 180 pounds. I'll need to get a spotter to see if that's actually true, but it's kind of cool to know that, in theory, I have 20 pounds to go.

I am the farthest thing from an expert you'll find in the gym, but I can say with authority that the Stoic practice of getting a bit of exercise has been good for me.