Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Weight Lifting for Hackers

littlebitofcode.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 72 posts

Re: Weight Lifting for Hackers

#21

Post by polymath21 »

I wholeheartedly agree with this article. A great blog I recommend is musclehack.com. For each exercise, I do 3 sets of 8-12 reps and increase if I can get to 12 or decrease if I can only do 8.

I think one of the biggest errors I see at the gym are people NOT pushing 110%. No gains will be made unless you push yourself to the max. The way I judge a successful workout is how hard it is to lift my arms up to shampoo my hair in the shower afterward, how much my legs feel like jelly walking down stairs after, etc. I also love feeling sore the next day. It equals muscle fiber recruitment. Diet also has a big impact, but... I won't delve into that here.

I'm also starting to add in a bit of cardio post-lifting so I can get below 10% body fat (post lifting is the best time to run as your body is in the optimum state to burn fat), and just bought a pair of vibram fivefingers in preparation. Excited! Research barefoot running if you haven't heard of it, it is enlightening.

Re: Weight Lifting for Hackers

#22

Post by [deleted] »

philk wrote: post #12
[deleted] wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

Neat book, but I'm still not seeing it. And even including the huge variety of weird gymnastics holds [1] out there I'm not sure how you can compare with a squat or deadlift with 300+lbs of weight. For example, a full squat works the thighs, calves (somewhat), and core very hard. A deadlift works the hamstrings, core, lats and forearms very hard. At the very least the panopoly of push-ups out there will have real tro…

[deleted]

Re: Weight Lifting for Hackers

#23

Post by polymath21 »

polymath21 wrote: post #21

I wholeheartedly agree with this article. A great blog I recommend is musclehack.com. For each exercise, I do 3 sets of 8-12 reps and increase if I can get to 12 or decrease if I can only do 8. I think one of the biggest errors I see at the gym are people NOT pushing 110%. No gains will be made unless you push yourself to the max. The way I judge a successful workout is how hard it is to lift my arms up to shampoo my…

Oh, and I also totally agree about the audiobooks. I have gotten through numerous Malcolm Gladwell books on my drives btwn socal and norcal. I can't get myself to listen to anything at the gym though, as wires annoy me to the max.

Re: Weight Lifting for Hackers

#24

Post by martinp »

polymath21 wrote: post #21

I wholeheartedly agree with this article. A great blog I recommend is musclehack.com. For each exercise, I do 3 sets of 8-12 reps and increase if I can get to 12 or decrease if I can only do 8. I think one of the biggest errors I see at the gym are people NOT pushing 110%. No gains will be made unless you push yourself to the max. The way I judge a successful workout is how hard it is to lift my arms up to shampoo my…

"I think one of the biggest errors I see at the gym are people NOT pushing 110%. No gains will be made unless you push yourself to the max." This is essentialy the most important of working out in my eyes. If you're not pushing yourself to the max, you won't see any results.

Re: Weight Lifting for Hackers

#25

Post by peterwwillis »

nazgulnarsil wrote: post #2

ugh....the large number of reps at low weight meme has spread because people want to believe that they can do an easy workout. if you can do more than 5 reps your weight is too light. there's no such thing as "toned instead of bulk". lifting casually a few times a week is not going to turn you into a hulkish freak. and if you want toned you do CARDIO. treating weightlifting as cardio is stupid. for the average person…

"treating weight lifting as cardio" is intended to build muscle that can perform. take anybody who uses a standard lifting program and they'd die 30 minutes into a p90x/insanity/conditioning program. do the same cardio with weight, or weight with more reps, and your muscles adapt to more continuous strain.

if you just care about looking buff or losing/gaining weight quickly, do few high-weight reps. if you're training to be a fighter or just want to be highly conditioned, do lots of reps.

Re: Weight Lifting for Hackers

#26

Post by tjogin »

enjo wrote: post #13
philk wrote: post #4

Good stuff although the rep scheme isn't optimal. I'd stick to sets of fives. A few additional points: a) Form, particularly on Squats & Deadlifts, is key. If you do them wrong you'll fuck yourself up. The stuff by Mark Rippetoe, particularly Starting Strength, is awesome for this. b) If you want to make progress you'll need to consume a surplus of calories. A good way to do this is to add full fat milk to your diet…

On top of that: If you don't build muscle very easily, then you need to be careful with extraneous physical activity. As an ectomorph, I find that I need ALL of my 4500 daily calories to build muscle. I generally lift 3 times a week with a 4th day of dedicated to cardio at the end of the week. I rotate between 4 week sets of cardio/muscle-building as well. That works well for me. The authors suggestion of doing daily…

It's well established science that cardio has a net negative effect on muscle gain.

Re: Weight Lifting for Hackers

#27

Post by tomjen2 »

Real weight lifting for hackers would be if you found a way to do it in second life, or outsource it (while still getting most of the benefits).

Actually doing it, is something everybody can do.

Re: Weight Lifting for Hackers

#28

Post by tjogin »

greenlblue wrote: post #6

In my experience cardiovascular exercise is way better for almost everything he mentions and for strength training one doesn't really need weights, various push-up routines are more than enough.

The main activity that makes your body gain muscle is to subject it to exceptional amounts of work — that is to say, a lot more work than it is used to (combined with the intake of the necessary fuel to facilitate it).

It should be reasonably simple to understand that using your own bodyweight as resistance is a very inefficient means by which to achieve this.

Not only do you need to use weights to reach a level of efficiency, you need to also continuously push yourself harder all the time, or else your development curve will flatten.

Re: Weight Lifting for Hackers

#29

Post by JesseAldridge »

Or you could keep things simple and just do this: http://www.rosstraining.com/articles/burpeeclip.htm

It's my favorite exercise by far. Except the way I learned it is you bring your knees to your chest when you jump (that forces you to jump high).

I do 1, then 2, then 4, etc, taking about a 30 second break in between. It does both muscles and cardio. It's super-intense. Just go until you collapse. It gives you a solid workout in around five minutes.

Re: Weight Lifting for Hackers

#30

Post by seanos »

"...emphasize the lowering of the weights... This helps strengthen the inverse muscle, your triceps for arm curls, and improves your overall control."

Not true. Lowering the weight works the same muscle as lifting it.

Post reply on HN