Ask HN: What are you doing to improve your health?

5x5 and "Starting Strength" are pretty fucking horrible suggestions for an older guy who has been sitting at his desk for 20 years. If you're a beginner, you WILL damage your joints starting with these programs. 5 sets of 5 reps with heavy weights is very nearly the worst thing you can do. Please do not follow this advice. I learned all of these lessons the hard way, but you don't have to.

* If you want to start strength training, start with 20 reps for at least a year.

* If you can't do 20 reps, the weight is too heavy.

* If your muscles are sore for more than two days, the weights are too heavy.

* If your soreness is anything other than very mildly uncomfortable, reduce the weight, not the reps.

* By very mild soreness, I mean very, very, VERY mild.

* If you have even the slightest joint pain, reduce the weight.

* If you hear popping and snapping of your tendons as you move through an exercise, reduce the weight.

* Never go to failure.

* Never train unless you've broken a mild sweat with your warm-up first. (10 min on a bike, etc...)

* Never train unless you allow time for cool-down afterward. Mild, post workout cardio significantly reduces muscle soreness in my experience. Shoot for 15 min. minimum cool-down.

* Very slowly start increasing weight each week or month. If you have no muscle or joint soreness, it's probably safe to increase a little.

* Be very patient. Body changes over 40 take a lot of time and rushing things just leads to injury now or later.

* On non-workout days, try to stay active. Get out of your chair and get some mild exercise at least once an hour. Keep your blood flowing. This reduces soreness and aids in faster recovery.

* Don't skip workouts

* If you skip workouts and you have been increasing the weight, reduce the weight to less than whatever you were lifting in your last workout.

Have you every heard an old person complain that their muscles are not big enough? Have you every heard an old person complain that their joints are terrible? I've seen plenty of old guys with relatively big muscles that have trouble walking much less doing anything else. Don't ruin your joints with lifting heavy weights too fast. Whatever pleasure you get from strength and big muscles while you are still relatively young is not worth the joint damage you will experience later. Joints are the key to mobility and are far more important than muscles.

Eliminating the friction completely is what will allow you to rise above your current state, as it did for me.

The alternative that finally allowed me to rise above my long-time regular state was at-home, short, but intense exercise. I do pushups. No need to go to the gym. There is nothing to prepare. It's literally an instantaneous start. And it takes very little time out of my schedule.

The problem most people have with exercising is that they decide to change and try it for a bit but the effort is too great and they relapse to the base state. Going to the gym takes time and planning, and if you do get there, you don't do it right. I know I didn't. Half-assed effort at the various machines to hit the major muscle groups, then go home. We all know we should take a notebook to the gym and track progress to force ourselves to push the boundaries, but how many people actually do that? I never brought a notebook to the gym in my life. For a short while, I tried an app instead. Poor design, too much hassle, no good alternatives.

Some of the great things about a pushups-only workout:

- no friction to start (eg: trip to gym, clothing, schedule)

- super short (10 to 20 minutes every other day)

- develops a great-looking upper body and abs

- works a crazy number of muscles (pushups incorporate planking)

- having a notebook to track progress is no hassle since you're at home

- keeps the abs tight, not allowing food extra room to linger in your intestines

In terms of tracking progress, I came across hundredpushups.com. No, they don't try to sell you anything. They just provide an excellent exercise schedule and the goal is to be able to crank out a hundred pushups by the end of the schedule. Sounds ambitious but it's not really. Their schedule forces you to be laser focused on one thing: cranking out some extra pushups every session. The progress that results from such intense focus is amazing. For some numbers: I used to do about 30 pushups at any given point in life before this. My latest max is 85 pushups straight. I can do 200 pushups in about 10 or 12 minutes with 60 second breaks in between. I can get behind a program that involves only 10 minutes every other day with phenomenal results!

While pushups aren't for everyone, try to figure out a workout that:

takes very little time

is intense

doesn't require travel or preparation

Also I started Testosterone Replacement Therapy. This has been amazing! Whereas I had no energy after work and no interest in sex, it changed within a week after my testosterone went from 311 ng/dl to 1100 ng/dl. (And my wife was thrilled!) Furthermore because of the workout routine, I have gained 10 pounds of muscle and lost 5 pounds of fat - and have the DEXA scans to prove it. (This is after the first 3 years of P90X and having lost 45 pounds, so these gains in muscle and loss of fat was a bit of a pleasant surprise.) My strength is greater than it was in highschool. My energy level is higher, but not at the highschool level - but close.

The most astonishing thing for me was the amount of energy I got from it. I used to be quite apathetic during the day, with intense sleepiness in the early afternoons, and now I feel awake during the day. I cannot overstate how beneficial this is