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Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

mensjournal.com

71–80 of 376 posts

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

#72
post #23

I have lifted weights for 15 years. But now I ditched the gym all together. Got bored with neon lights, the smell of sweat and watching fat people run on a treadmill ;) Now I only sport outdoors and for muscle strength I use kettle-bells: http://www.amazon.com/Kettlebell-Strength-Secret-Soviet-Supe... Just read http://www.amazon.com/Kettlebell-Strength-Secret-Soviet-Supe... and you know enough. No expensive equipment…

[deleted]

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

#75

I sometimes wish we could delete the entire fitness industry from the world and replace it with a few lines of text, something like this: eat right, exercise, get adequate sleep, reduce stress, get variety, use natural motions, breathe deep, get yourself winded intentionally from time to time, when in doubt walk, etc. The vast majority of people probably never need to go near a fancy weight machine or even lift artif…

Forgive my ignorance but how exactly does being winded help somebody become fit. By getting yourself winded do you mean being punched in the stomach hard enough to lose your breath for a moment, or something else?

Why are people downvoting legit questions?

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

#76
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never met a successful person who was an unmotivated lardass. Probably close to 2/3rds of the people who I've worked with that are in the top of their fields are crazy about cycling, marital arts, running, etc. It just takes too much energy to go hard enough to achieve big things, I wouldn't even consider it practical if you don't have some degree of physical fitness.

I guess marital arts do burn a lot of energy.

Some of the best cardio you can get.

Stuff like Muay Thai and Karate's pretty good too.

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

#77
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because I can't downvote you, I'll comment. We do. A lot. Because we're not sitting in our parent's basements eating pizza and chugging mountain dew, we're not hacking the gibson and we're not sweaty, unbathed, pimply losers. We're motivated, we're not planning to die anytime soon, we're concerned with being able to do things, we're social, we're active and we're sick of the stereotypes. I'm going to make a massive a…

Looking at your comment, I can't understand why it got upvoted since you are just replacing one set of stereotypes with another, which may fit better with what society wants you to but is still a stereotype. Now if you want that thats perfectly alright, but I at least only want to spend as little time as possible caring about my body and as little time as possible with normal people since both things are utterly bori…

> Now if you want that thats perfectly alright, but I at least only want to spend as little time as possible caring about my body and as little time as possible with normal people since both things are utterly boring.

You do have a point. Conformity is not the way. But, at the same time, I'm sad you feel those things are boring. Allow me to explain.

I used to be in your shoes, at least in the fitness aspect. I was a bit of a curmudgeon who'd figured life out at age 24 and decided that I'd be happy programming for, well, ever. That worked well until about age 27, when it started to wear thin. Deadlines, feature creep, a billion new technologies...who cares? It was losing its luster quickly. When I turned 28, I came down with carpal tunnel-like symptoms stemming from an overuse injury. I had to leave my job to give my body time to heal. I learned the hard way that I had to respect my body, and respect myself more.

The time I've put in on fitness has enhanced the rest of my life a disproportionate amount. I'm much smarter about what I eat, and I feel better, and I sleep so much better now. Because the sleep is higher quality, I don't need as much of it. I awaken ready to engage the day, rather than slinking through it. The secret of this is that the body was never meant to be disconnected from the mind. The two are engaged in an continual feedback loop whereby one is reinforcing the actions of the others with beliefs/chemicals. You just need to gently prod the two into better habits in order to feel better.

As for people, well, that's what life's all about.

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

#78

I sometimes wish we could delete the entire fitness industry from the world and replace it with a few lines of text, something like this: eat right, exercise, get adequate sleep, reduce stress, get variety, use natural motions, breathe deep, get yourself winded intentionally from time to time, when in doubt walk, etc. The vast majority of people probably never need to go near a fancy weight machine or even lift artif…

The only good thing to have come from the fitness industry, though, is to make gyms much more accessible for those of us who are either not male or not fitness-educated or not hanging around with the right crowd. Before nice shiny gyms came along, there was no way I (a woman) was walking into the garage type place that looks a bit like a minimum security prison yard. However, the problem now is that although gyms are accessible to everyone really, they are shit and the proper weights are still in the darkest mostly-large-males corner where it's still a bit intimidating to go to and bend over or lie down in the middle as the only female.

So there's a silver lining but there's still a cloud.

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

#79
post #5

These links to auto-printing pages are unacceptable. Link me to the normal display article in these cases. I'll take it from there.

and if he linked it normally, chances are someone(maybe even you) would post, bitching that they don't want to read 10 pages of an article and to just link to the print page the next time.

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

#80
post #8

The article's conclusion: Lift big with classic lifts. Gain strength. What I actually do: Take walks and do isometrics on convenient bars, poles, etc. Max power, 5-10 second holds, multiple angles. The better I am about those rules, the more progress I make. More effective than any gym I've ever been in.

I understand what you are saying...isometrics are awesome...I actually do them almost everyday and I swear by them. I also swear by dynamic tension flexing, which brings great results. But don't confuse those results with the results from classic big lifts. Like I said, I do isometrics all the time, but squats, deadlifts, benchpress and pullups are going to develop your musculature in ways isometrics never could. Wha…

+1 for 5x5. I'm currently on the Texas Method and I'm love the volume on the squats and the deadlifts. I eat pre and post workout carbs though, to make sure I got enough energy (bulking phase right now). The fat you gain is easy to lose afterwards!
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