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

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

#301

Post by wdewind »

stinos wrote: post #275
wdewind wrote: post #9

Strength training 3x a week. Why strength? Strength is the most generalized adaptation there is. Training to be strong improves every component of fitness: strength (duh), power, agility, balance, flexibility, endurance (all 3 types) and coordination. I would also make the argument that in day to day life strength is the most important attribute of fitness for someone in the western world. The ability to carry a bunc…

Would you say strength in general would be a better (more healthy in the long term) goal than just endurance/condition? Training to be strong improves every component of fitness: ... and coordination Do you mean eye-hand type of coordination? Anyway it sounds a bit odd to me: training coordination (as in a basketball shot, a frisbee throw, a bunnyhop with a bike) to me always seemed to be pretty much seperate from tr…

I think you need both, I don't think it's an either or situation. I think strength is the most important thing for a novice, and then after that you need to add conditioning as appropriate for your goals (ie: are you just trying to be healthy or are you training for a marathon?)

> Sure strength would allow you to throw a ball/disc further or make you jump higher, but not necessarily with better accuracy?

Imagine hitting an incoming baseball pitch. Do you think it's easier to make the bat go exactly where you want it to be when the bat feels heavier or lighter?

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

#302

Post by dpweb »

computerjunkie wrote: post #130

Eat well, sleep enough and walk plenty. Sleep is something which is seriously overlooked in general. From personal experience, getting enough sleep and eating well are requirements that need to be met first before exercise. There is nothing is worse than exercising whilst you are deprived of sleep and mal-nourished. Speaking about exercise, don't get hung up on dogmas and "this is the only way" personality that is co…

Definately agree that walking can make a huge difference. I felt, better results than ADD meds. Of course YMMV but I was shocked the difference a 45-60 min. walk outside every day made.

I would add - eat less food. It's very easy to over eat. Your body is working hard to process all that food you eat and I like the occasional McDonalds - you can indulge more often and still maintain or lose weight so maybe think about not just what you eat but how much - especially those of us who don't like working out.

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

#303

Post by pdiddy »

stinos wrote: post #275
wdewind wrote: post #9

Strength training 3x a week. Why strength? Strength is the most generalized adaptation there is. Training to be strong improves every component of fitness: strength (duh), power, agility, balance, flexibility, endurance (all 3 types) and coordination. I would also make the argument that in day to day life strength is the most important attribute of fitness for someone in the western world. The ability to carry a bunc…

Would you say strength in general would be a better (more healthy in the long term) goal than just endurance/condition? Training to be strong improves every component of fitness: ... and coordination Do you mean eye-hand type of coordination? Anyway it sounds a bit odd to me: training coordination (as in a basketball shot, a frisbee throw, a bunnyhop with a bike) to me always seemed to be pretty much seperate from tr…

>Would you say strength in general would be a better (more healthy in the long term) goal than just endurance/condition?

I would definitely say this when speaking in general terms. Strength training normally focuses on full-body exercises, but endurance training (think cross-country running or cycling--not sprinting) does not. I was just reading an article talking about the importance of strength training for runners which emphasized that most injuries come from muscle imbalances.

Personally, I do both. My goal is to lift three times a week and then do endurance the other days. If I had to choose I would stick with lifting for health reasons.

It also depends what your goals are. Once you get to a certain point, you can't do endurance exercise and expect to hypertrophy.

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

#304

Post by pdiddy »

freehunter wrote: post #228
mertd wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You deadlifted less than a 12 year old girl but squatted 280lbs? Something doesn't add up.

It doesn't take a lot of forearm strength to hold a bar on your shoulders. It takes a LOT of forearm strength to bring up 415 resting on your fingertips.

Avoid putting the barbell high on your shoulders or you risk back pain/injury. Put the bar on your traps and hold it place with your hands. This is what makes it a full-body exercise.

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

#305

Post by Ma8ee »

nether wrote: post #258
Ma8ee wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you confusing SS with something else? It's not at all high-intensity like cross-fit and similar. It is just as heavy weights you can manage (with good technique) for 3 sets of 5 reps for most excercises.

No, I mean SS. I own 2nd and 3rd editions of the book and followed the program for 14 months. I remember the copious warmup sets. It's not the constantly high, frenetic workout like Xfit, but the blow-out effort for the 1x5 deadlifts where your face turns beet red is as far from endurance training as you can get. 10 minutes of warmup sets capped by a few high-intensity sets isn't endurance, 2 hours of running with li…

Of course it is very far from endurance training. I just didn't recognize your description of the program.

I'm trying to do both. I lift 3 days a week and run 3. I'm well aware that the lifting is suboptimal if I want to be a good runner and the running inhibits my gains from lifting, but I'm very happy about the general physique I'm building this way. (If I just could stop eating so much!)

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

#306

Post by shamney »

wdewind wrote: post #297
shamney wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

strength training 3x a week will with no other exercise will leave the average person with extremely poor cardiovascular fitness. if you lack the strength to carry out household tasks you would be better off with basic bodyweight exercises. the average western person is sedentary and does not exercise enough, so it makes little sense to recommend 3 hours a week of training that consists of mainly of recovering betwee…

Let's go point by point: > strength training 3x a week will with no other exercise will leave the average person with extremely poor cardiovascular fitness. This is actually not true. I wont argue it's going to give you the same level of cardiovascular conditioning as running daily, but it absolutely gives you a baseline of cardiovascular conditioning. Since we are talking about basic fitness, I would still hold to m…

starting strength involves perhaps 30 minutes of active exercise in a week with most time in the gym sent recovering between sets. that is simply not enough to develop any sort of cardiovascular fitness unless you have an abnormally strong response to training.

your links in support of the injury prevention and mass building benefits refer to startingstrength.com and Practical Programming. That book is health cult literature, not a reliable scientific resource. The linked article links to evidence that resistance training can aid health (in elderly subjects). This does not support the idea of high intensity barbell training as a magic injury prevention tool.

Everyone who lifts for mass does a lot more higher rep volume than Starting Strength. Lots of guys have strong physiques yet use mostly "inferior" bodyweight exercises and machines. Take a look around you in the gym next time you're there and you might be a little surprised :).

Weight gain is a problem. Most people have no health reason to gain mass rapidly (or at all), yet many trainees struggle to progress without eating a large calorific surplus. This is a pretty good reason why such a training program should not be your default recommendation!

Strength is absolutely not that basis of all fitness. Many extremely fit endurance athletes never lift any weights. Even if this rather bizarre statement was true, it does not explain why powerlifting training of this sort is ideal for everyone. I note that you didn't dispute that it will interfere with other physical activity -- one of the most compelling reasons why the average person should not do Starting Strength and why it is most definitely a powerlifting specific training regime.

You may have had a great experience with Starting Strength. But other people will often have a very different response to training and health goals. Ask yourself also how much real evidence you have for your incredibly strong and dogmatic opinions on training.

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

#307

Post by pdiddy »

jere wrote: post #166
wdewind wrote: post #9

Strength training 3x a week. Why strength? Strength is the most generalized adaptation there is. Training to be strong improves every component of fitness: strength (duh), power, agility, balance, flexibility, endurance (all 3 types) and coordination. I would also make the argument that in day to day life strength is the most important attribute of fitness for someone in the western world. The ability to carry a bunc…

I tried Starting Strength a few years ago. I was really pumped about the program, but I had a lot of trouble with it. I read the how-to sections multiple times, watched Rippetoe videos, and even sought out a trainer at one point. No matter what, the exercises always felt awkward and I never felt like I was doing them correctly. I tried power cleaning a few times I simply didn't get it . It made me feel like a complet…

280 is a massive squat. Based on what you're saying, I feel like your form must have been off and that you're have a misrepresentation of what the standards are.

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

#308

Post by Devthrowaway80 »

When I arrived in California, I weighed a bit over 250lbs (I'm 6'3") and was grossly out of shape. I'm in my early 30s.

Things I've been doing to improve my health:

Improved my diet. This alone caused me to shed about 30lbs.

Stopped drinking alcohol. I'm a recovering alcoholic, so this was a pretty important one. Next week will mark exactly 6 months since what I hope is my last drink ever.

Started weight training 3 times a week. I've only been at this for about 6 weeks, but my strength has gone up a surprising amount. When I started, squatting 90lbs was a huge struggle, I could maybe bench press about the same amount, and I could maybe deadlift 120lbs. I could barely overhead press an empty bar. As things stand now, I can do the following in 3 sets of 5 - squat 180lbs (2x starting), benchpress 135 (1.5x), deadlift 205lbs (1.7x), and OHP 85 (2x).

The weight training has really helped with the little aches and pains that start to pile up as you get older and fatter. My weight has actually been going up slowly as I weight train (220->225) but I've lost about three inches off my waistline.

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

#309

Post by nazgob »

fapjacks wrote: post #288
hdivider wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Never encountered volume training before. Seems like the benefits could go beyond aesthetics. Is medium weights + high repetitions all there is to it, or is there some more theory here? Got any links? :) Can only find references to German volume training - not sure if that's the same.

I can second this from personal experience. People that spend an hour in the gym pumping away at 50% capacity with bicep curls are never going to see the kinds of gains they imagine. You will get the gains you want by pushing yourself to muscle failure within a couple of sets every single time you hit the gym. Short, powerful workouts is how you encourage testosterone production, which is exactly how you get strength…

Hmm, didn't he just said opposite?

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

#310

Post by asavadatti »

timbrah wrote: post #137
totalrobe wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe not expressly forbidden but I've rarely seen bumper plates in these types of gyms, and some do not allow you to drop weights.

If you're doing power cleans correctly you should not be dropping the weight. The movement isn't over until the weight is safely on the ground. If the weight makes a noise loud enough to draw every gym goers attention, you are lifting too much and should deload. Or you just might be that guy ;)

I've never heard of anyone deloading because they were making too much noise. What kind of gym do you go to?
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