The different shades of strength
Jul 28, 2025
Everyone talks about “strength” like it’s some fixed trait. Like eye colour. Or being bad at math. But the truth? Strength is messy. Contextual and flaky.
Producing force isn’t a one-size-fits-all thing. It depends entirely on what you’re trying to do. Lift a fridge? Sprint up stairs? Open that stupid jar? Different force, different flex.
So, let’s call this force-in-action: strength. Strength exists on a spectrum - not that cheesy “we’re all strong in our own way” nonsense - but an actual, measurable range. Nobody shows this better than Popeye - the spinach-fueled sailor who made forearms sexy.
On one end: he’s casually ripping castles apart (that’s maximum strength).
On the other: playing every position in a baseball game like a jacked-up Swiss Army knife (that’s speed).
In the middle? He’s punching Bluto so hard the guy completes a round-the-world trip (power — force, with a boarding pass).
Now, wherever you place your version of “strength” on this spectrum - whether it’s lifting, sprinting, or aggressively typing emails - it’s governed by three consistent rules:
Muscle length matters.
Muscles act like springs - anchored by tendons, stretching across joints. It has mood swings when you ask it to lengthen or shorten. You would have felt this:bottom of a squat = death
at the top = suddenly you feel like a powerlifter
Why? Because muscle force changes with muscle length. Some positions give you leverage, others give you regret.
Muscles are show-offs while lengthening. Going down in a push-up? Easy. Coming back up? Suddenly you’re questioning every life choice. This isn’t just gravity doing you dirty. Muscles actually generate more force when lengthening. It’s called an eccentric contraction. Unfortunately, it’s the part no one claps for.
Muscles have a force-speed trade-off. For a given force, a lighter object can be accelerated more than a heavier object. That’s why you can chuck a tennis ball across the court but throwing a heavy-ass medicine ball feels like hurling a planet. If you want to move fast, don’t expect to move heavy. If you want to move heavy, take your sweet time.
So no, there will never be a neat little definition of “strength.” It’s not some tidy, one-size-fits-all concept you can put in a motivational quote next to a lion.
It morphs based on how and when you’re trying to use it.
You might be strong at one angle, weak at another. Strong when slow, useless when fast. It’s like dating - looks great on paper until you actually test it under stress.
So next time someone asks “how strong are you,” the honest answer is: “It depends. How petty are we being today?”
