[wreath]

Strength is force production. Your muscles twitch and produce force to moves your bones which moves an external mass. Your body adapts to this external resistance by "over-compensating". This time you lift 100lbs, next time you can lift 105lbs because your muscles adapted (provided you slept, ate and rested well enough). Now, if you are not used to strength training, push ups are strength training exercises (your body being the external resistance against gravity). If you already lift, push ups won't improve your strength in any meaningful way. it's probably harder the first time you do it even though you've been barbell training, but the novelty quickly runs out and you're doing endurance now (different energy system in play).

Is this better than sitting on the couch whole day? Yeah probably better. But strength is not size and esthetics. It's force production against an external resistance. big does not equal strong.

[mtalantikite]

For sure, strength is force production and that’s how training and muscle growth works. I agree. But again it depends on what external act you’re doing that defines where in your body that strength needs to be produced. If that is lifting a heavy thing over your head, then yeah working on those movements with weights is a good way to get there. If it’s doing any sort of gymnastic or martial art movement, then weights can help in some circumstances, but they’re not necessary. Mike Tyson never touched weights until his comeback (aside from maybe doing shoulder shrugs) and I’m not sure anyone would say he wasn’t strong or didn’t have strength in the 80s.

Calisthenics are definitely hard to program, but you can build a huge amount of body strength without weights. “Overcoming Gravity” is a great book if you’re ever looking to program body weight movements. This isn’t a knock on lifting weights, weight training is great and everyone should do it. It’s just that strength is in relation to something else, and that something else is what dictates what sort of practice you should be programming. Building an extreme amount of strength doesn’t need to include a weight if you’re clever about it.