Why Muscle Matters: Spectator or Participant in Your Own Life?
I recently finished reading Bonnie Tsui’s On Muscle: The Stuff That Moves Us and Why It Matters, and it had me reflecting for a long moment.
The book isn’t just about building bigger biceps or lifting heavier weights. It’s about what muscle represents: capability, the ability to do what matters to you, and to move through the world on your own terms.
One of the threads running through the book is about her father — who he was when she was young, what he could do with his body, and how that changed as he aged.
Reading that felt familiar.
When I think about muscle, I don’t think about the gym. I think about myself, the women I know, and the changes I witness.
I watched my nana lose her leg above the knee from what began as a scratch, combined with diabetes and other illnesses. I was young at the time. I couldn’t help her. So I just watched.
What I remember most is the effort. The determination.
She would drag herself along the floor to the front verandah and use the railings to pull herself up. It wasn’t graceful. It wasn’t easy. But she did it herself.
Looking back, I realise watching what gets taken away from someone you love stays with you. It shapes you.
One of my clients, Kaye, told me she was grateful she had been strength training after her husband’s stroke. Not for appearance. But because she could lift his wheelchair in and out of the car.
She loves gardening. Her husband used to do the heavy lifting. One day she lifted a bag of potting mix into the car herself and told me how proud she felt.
Paul struggles with putting on and taking off his ski boots now. They aren’t easy even when you’re younger. I can get down on the floor and help him.
We took up skiing later in life. I didn’t expect to love it, but the exhilaration reminded me of flying down the hill on my bike as a kid — that feeling of freedom.
Recently my mum bought big pots and potting mix for my twin boys’ birthday. A man asked, “Do you think you can lift this?”
I’d already carried it from the shop.
“I got it to here. I can get it into the car.”
And I did.
Science tells us muscle declines if we don’t use it. More importantly, muscle responds when we challenge it. But what stays with me more than the science is this: what we witness shapes us.
I want to stay strong enough to remain involved — to ski, to garden, to lift what needs lifting, and not sit on the sidelines of my own life.
Building Through Challenge
There’s a philosophy in the book that resonated with me:
Muscle grows when it’s challenged. The fibres experience stress, repair themselves, and return stronger.
This isn’t just exercise science.
It’s life.
You face hard things. You feel stretched. You recover. You return.
If you avoid challenge completely, strength narrows.
Not dramatically.
Gradually.
Tsui also explains how muscles communicate with the brain through chemical signals that influence mood and cognition. She calls it “a love letter from your muscle to your brain.”
When you move, when you challenge yourself, when you build strength, you’re not just training your body. You’re supporting your mind.
Whether they might “bulk up.”
Meanwhile, muscle mass is connected to cardiovascular health, cognitive health, bone density, grip strength, recovery from illness, and overall capability.
Strength training isn’t vanity.
It’s about preserving what matters.
The Confidence Connection
Strength isn’t about how you look.
It’s about potential for action.
There’s something powerful about knowing you’re capable. Not hypothetically. But truly capable.
When you can:
• Get up and down from the floor without help
• Carry your groceries
• Lift your grandchildren
• Stand from a chair without pushing off
• Recover your balance when you stumble
• Handle what life asks of you each day
You move differently.
More steadily.
More confidently.
But when capability starts slipping — when you can’t do things you once could — it affects more than your body.
It affects confidence.
Your sense of self.
The size of your life.
Move Moment
Pick one physical task that has become harder lately.
Maybe it’s carrying groceries.
Maybe it’s getting up and down from the floor.
Maybe it’s maintaining balance on uneven ground.
Ask yourself:
What would it take to rebuild this?
Not someday.
Not when life is quieter.
But steadily.
Maybe it’s two strength sessions a week.
Maybe it’s practising getting up and down from the floor daily.
Maybe it’s carrying slightly heavier things more often.
Small actions. Repeated consistently.
Because muscle isn’t just tissue.
It’s capability.
And capability is one of the ways you stay involved in the life that matters to you.
