Live data from Hacker News

Too much sitting, too little exercise may accelerate biological aging

sciencebulletin.org

291–300 of 321 posts

Re: Too much sitting, too little exercise may accelerate biological aging

#291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard this so many times over the years and while it's beautiful and simple and conceptually right, it's so impractical that it's "wrong". The body digests calories different depending on the source, e.g. eating an orange vs drinking orange juice. Going to the gym for an hour might burn a few hundred calories, which is about a snickers bar. These two combined means that adding the calories of your food vs the ca…

I can help with that. You might be interested in this video which talks about why calorie content in food is not as useful as you might think: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRSeyCZwEUI&t=2s

Great video thanks for sharing.

Re: Too much sitting, too little exercise may accelerate biological aging

#292
post #266
post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If your muscles take weeks to recover you should see a doctor. Are you talking about normal recovery after weightlifting? The OP was talking about muscle strains. I've hurt muscles that then take a month to recover. It seems fundamentally different from tired muscles after a workout.

Exactly, it's not recovery. It's an actual injury. I had been working out consistently 4-5 times a week at a high intensity for at least 5 months straight before this occurred. I know what that kind of muscle soreness feels like.

Yup. And to be clear to anyone who thinks it's only overwork: I've had these injuries while training intensely, and I've had them after rest periods when I start again, or during non-intense training. Muscle injuries can happen in either circumstances, and they take a while to heal properly.

Re: Too much sitting, too little exercise may accelerate biological aging

#293
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

36, same thing. It works, it's not anecdotal. Number one reason for lower back pain, is weak back muscles.

Makes sense, but why pushups then? They target mostly the chest, shoulders, and triceps. http://www.md-health.com/What-Muscles-Do-Push-Ups-Work.html

Developed chest and shoulders give you better posture, which is usually enough to alleviate minor to moderate back pains.

I would add squats to the pushup routine (even unweighted). They will develop the quads and glutes somewhat.

Re: Too much sitting, too little exercise may accelerate biological aging

#294
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, arbitrary. But still doable provided intelligent programming.

sn9 Whats your weight btw? I think these goals are probably easier if you're on the lighter end. I'm 210lbs been working out for years and most of these goals seem unachievable. I feel like these goal would barely be achievable for your average man who is 200 lbs and in his 30's or 40's without a fanatical devotion to weight lifting, a high protein diet, and probably a large supplement intake(creatine). Even then I w…

The deadlift is by far the easiest part of what he said. In fact, it's almost trivial if all you're aiming for is 1 repetition.

I know 5 experienced weight lifters and most of them struggle to do 1 pull-up (yes, ONE). None of them run, so doing a 5k under 20 is definitely out of the question (also a factor of age and height).

Also those goals are definitely not for the majority of people, because they require a MAJOR lifestyle change (3x30min/week won't cut it here). It's achievable, but like he said, not easy.

Re: Too much sitting, too little exercise may accelerate biological aging

#295

The ROI: Spending time with mindless exercise: 1/48 part of a year times 70 years is 1.46 years. If true that's around 8 more years in return for every 1.5 you put in. Nice ROI. :-)

And the ROI on collecting social security as well.

If you were going to die at 80 instead of 70, that's a minimum of 4x increase in SS benefits you can collect.

Re: Too much sitting, too little exercise may accelerate biological aging

#296
post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sn9 Whats your weight btw? I think these goals are probably easier if you're on the lighter end. I'm 210lbs been working out for years and most of these goals seem unachievable. I feel like these goal would barely be achievable for your average man who is 200 lbs and in his 30's or 40's without a fanatical devotion to weight lifting, a high protein diet, and probably a large supplement intake(creatine). Even then I w…

Yeah part of those goals is that it kinda forces you to be lean, since they're more difficult if you're overweight. I'm not certain about the 5k goal at 200+lbs, but I think the pullups should still be achievable on a good program. At any rate, just aiming for them in good faith and with honest effort will provide many health benefits, which was the point of my comment.

I totally agree that running, deadlifts, and pull ups are great exercises.

And while goals can be motivating, un-achievable goals can also be demotivating.

Regarding the comment about exercises forcing you to be lean, you might not familiar with most of the research on exercise and how it affects weight. But the best way to summarize it is "Exercise is a great obesity preventative, it is a completely ineffective cure."

Re: Too much sitting, too little exercise may accelerate biological aging

#297
post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah part of those goals is that it kinda forces you to be lean, since they're more difficult if you're overweight. I'm not certain about the 5k goal at 200+lbs, but I think the pullups should still be achievable on a good program. At any rate, just aiming for them in good faith and with honest effort will provide many health benefits, which was the point of my comment.

I totally agree that running, deadlifts, and pull ups are great exercises. And while goals can be motivating, un-achievable goals can also be demotivating. Regarding the comment about exercises forcing you to be lean, you might not familiar with most of the research on exercise and how it affects weight. But the best way to summarize it is "Exercise is a great obesity preventative, it is a completely ineffective cure…

Yeah how lean you are is more diet.

I meant that getting leaner through some combination of diet and exercise will make those goals all more achievable, which has obvious health benefits and is something I had in mind when deciding on those goals.

Re: Too much sitting, too little exercise may accelerate biological aging

#298
post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You made a pretty big leap there from inactivity to obesity.

It's not a big leap from inactivity to cardiovascular disease, though. Or diabetes. Or a host of other diseases for which exercise is an often recommended preventative measure.

I didn't say inactivity was healthy, just the post you were responding to gave no indication that the poster was overweight, just inactive. And diabetes is related to weight, not activity.

Re: Too much sitting, too little exercise may accelerate biological aging

#299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sn9 Whats your weight btw? I think these goals are probably easier if you're on the lighter end. I'm 210lbs been working out for years and most of these goals seem unachievable. I feel like these goal would barely be achievable for your average man who is 200 lbs and in his 30's or 40's without a fanatical devotion to weight lifting, a high protein diet, and probably a large supplement intake(creatine). Even then I w…

The deadlift is by far the easiest part of what he said. In fact, it's almost trivial if all you're aiming for is 1 repetition. I know 5 experienced weight lifters and most of them struggle to do 1 pull-up (yes, ONE). None of them run, so doing a 5k under 20 is definitely out of the question (also a factor of age and height). Also those goals are definitely not for the majority of people, because they require a MAJOR…

I would say your weight lifter friends are most likely guilty of not using good programs or just not working towards those goals or both.

Plenty of strength athletes can move tremendous weights but don't know how to program pullups effectively. Even fewer spend any time on cardio.

Agreed on 3x30minutes being unlikely to be sufficient, but I wanted to give more of a starting off point. For example, Couch to 5k followed by Bridge to 10k is likely enough volume to get you a large part of the way there. Then increasing your weekly mileage to at least 30 miles per week and you'll be right on your way to sub-20.

Re: Too much sitting, too little exercise may accelerate biological aging

#300

I am fairly young, 22, mostly sitting in front of the computer, even sitting while studying. So it could be said I sit around 10 hours per day. When I was younger, up until the end of high school, I used to do sports, but since I got to college, I simply stopped caring. My body is skinny, really skinny, I weight 61kg, and I had that weight for last 7 years. But one day I thought maybe I should do something, not for t…

Eat and lift.

The program doesn't matter too much; there are many decent ones. Anything with a focus on the main barbell movements (squat/dead/bench/overheadpress) with some basic progression scheme is likely sound. strengtheory.com is a great source for info; Greg is legitimately strong and actually has some basic science understanding, unlike 99% of 'fitness nerds' who claim to.

Changing your diet will likely take as much effort as the training. Feel free to use an unusual diet to 'learn' to eat more calories. Even if you have to use lots of milk, bacon, or whatever is tasty and easy to get down, your body gets used to the calorie intake and transitioning to a reasonable diet will be easier.

The real challenge is in habit formation. Try to make it easy on yourself and use whatever tricks you can to stick with it.

Post reply on HN