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Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

mensjournal.com

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Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

#81
I swear by bodyweight-only resistance / circular strength training. Currently doing TacFit -- despite their ridiculous hard-sell marketing which is uselessly and pointlessly "spec ops" and warrior-themed (I won't link as I'm not affiliated other than a legit happy user). But there are more body-weight approaches than that one. Google circular strength training / CST and much cheaper than buying the TacFit videos would be getting a used paperback copy of "You are your own gym".

It's body-weight only, unlike gyms no machines, unlike crossfit no other weights.

BENEFIT: keep travelling without buying equipment you don't want to carry in your luggage. Don't maintain x gym memberships around the world.

It burns fat (don't really need that too much yet) faster and more efficiently in less time than hours doing aerobic running / swimming / cycling would. Aerobic exercises may be good for heart and lungs, but for calory burning they're laughable.

BENEFIT: muscle building and calory burning in one workout.

(Of course, if you wanna look like The Hulk you'll need to have weights at least kettlebell dumbell or indian clubs, daily protein counting and all the bodybuilding stuff. BUT you will look incredibly impressive with just bodyweight / Tacfit after only 20-30 days of good form, and it only gets better from there -- you even retain a good amount of the goodness after pausing from it up to 2 months afterwards, which a longer hospital attendance may force upon you).

No rep-counting, time-under-tension matters. This matches your bodily clockworks. Your muscles don't count reps either. Time under tension, whether you only get 2 reps under perfect form (important) or 20.

BENEFIT: no counting, just stopwatch.

There are no off-days, you cycle through 4 consecutive days (no intensity day 1: 20 mins, low intensity day 2: 20 mins, moderate intensity day 3: 40 mins, high intensity day 4: 40 mins) all the time. After 4x7 days, it is time to level up, adding sophistication, more challenging movements etc. to keep the body from adapting. TacFit in my view is a pretty unique mix of exercises and movements recombining elements of martial arts, yoga, classical bodyweight exercises and more, that help you on joint mobility, flexibility, core strength, muscle building, posterior improvement and both injury prevention and proofing -- all in a pre-defined package that will last you 9 months in a row without having to customize, modify or tweak the program. Afterwards, add weights, take 5 days off and start from scratch, mix or match, etc.

BENEFIT: minimum time investment gets you results in all areas that matter, including but not limited to mere appearance and looks.

Boy I sound like a marketer but this is really hacker-friendly, entrepreneur-friendly, productive-but-time-pressed-busy-person friendly. It revolves around so much research and experimentation done by the coaches who composed this after decades of experience. They're on Facebook, real people giving sensible advice to everyone and anyone dropping by asking questions. They get 70-80 year old people incredibly fit that couldn't survive neither a gym nor a crossfit session. (But rest assured their exercises are not granny material, they will kick your butt no matter your stage of physical development.) I'm seriously impressed with their stuff. You can browse my past comments here over the last 3 years, I'm not usually writing marketing copy for commercial digital goods around here at all. So this is really simply "everything I need to know about fitness" and I really do think it's the most hacker-suitable option out there.

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

#82

If you really want to get fit, there's one easy thing you can do that actually works: Take up a sport that gets you fit as a side effect. I have two obsessions in life: Rock Climbing and Surfing. I'm pretty good at the first, and borderline hopeless at the other, but I'm committed to the point where I've arranged my life so that I can travel for months at a time to pursue one or the other each year. When I'm working…

It's good that you live in a place that's conducive to significant physical activity and have the means to take advantage, but the gym is the top option for most situations (access + expense).

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

#83

This is a one sided view of fitness. e.g. there is zero focus on cardio. Would be interesting to see one of these guys do a light 5 mile run. Look into real world training: running, hard hiking with a pack, mountain biking, swimming/surfing. These types of exercise have been the most rewarding for me in terms of skeletal, muscle and cardio fitness. The only thing I agree with in the article is that cardio machines in…

I once trained for a 5k race by doing just squats. I beat most of my "cardio" friends. When you start squatting above your BW then you'll be just as out of breath after 8 reps as after a full-on 5k run. Your heart will beat just as fast, and youll be sweating about the same.

Also squats will improve your bone density.

Don't be fooled that suffers like Laird get their physique from surfing. All of them dead lift and squat.

The best thing about squats would be that they "insure" your knees for old age.

Do them right and they are easily the best exercise ever invented IMHO.

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

#84
First, I realized that we all live in a kind of Fitness Fog, a miasma of lies and misinformation that we mistake for common sense, and that makes most of our gym time a complete waste.

The big news here, is that there are many kinds of such mental fog. You can read this article and learn how to get fit more effectively, but there is an even deeper lesson here.

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

#85
post #60

[citation needed] Here's another anecdote: No lifting weights, only running & cycling and lately swimming. Pretty much the opposite of what the article is arguing. Since I started this I'm doing I'm doing fairly well, six pack included. I went to the gym once, and saw bulked up guys getting 5 pull ups. So I tried that and could easily do 30. Lifting weights may make you look like a bodybuilder, but are you really fit…

You do realize that the bulked up guys probably weigh a lot more than you do so the number of achieved pull-ups is not an interesting measure?

The really bulked-up ones most likely train for muscle mass, not for any useful activity.

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

#86

If you really want to get fit, there's one easy thing you can do that actually works: Take up a sport that gets you fit as a side effect. I have two obsessions in life: Rock Climbing and Surfing. I'm pretty good at the first, and borderline hopeless at the other, but I'm committed to the point where I've arranged my life so that I can travel for months at a time to pursue one or the other each year. When I'm working…

Also, don't eat boxed foods or foods that went through multiple stages of processing. In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan spells it out very well, but I'll just give you my simple definition: Eating healthy is as close to eating dirt without actually eating dirt. Produce, grain, cheese, 1/2 pound to a pound of meat a week[1], and whatever else Marion Nestle recommends[1.5]. Just imagine what primitive man would eat.…

"Don't eat what your grandmother wouldn't recognize". is how I've heard it being summarized. :)

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, don't eat boxed foods or foods that went through multiple stages of processing. In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan spells it out very well, but I'll just give you my simple definition: Eating healthy is as close to eating dirt without actually eating dirt. Produce, grain, cheese, 1/2 pound to a pound of meat a week[1], and whatever else Marion Nestle recommends[1.5]. Just imagine what primitive man would eat.…

I'm not going to argue that what you describe isn't good, but 'nature intended us to' isn't a particularly solid argument. You could argue that nature intended us to die from Malaria by the age of 30, I'm very glad that for most of the world that's no longer the case.

The difference here from malaria would be that our bodies evolved, adapting to the nutrients that we were getting. We're more efficient on them -- more capable of living 'natural' lives.

[Of course, whether a 'natural' life is desirable is debatable.]

Malaria, however, we attempted to evolve away from(sickle cell anemia).

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, don't eat boxed foods or foods that went through multiple stages of processing. In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan spells it out very well, but I'll just give you my simple definition: Eating healthy is as close to eating dirt without actually eating dirt. Produce, grain, cheese, 1/2 pound to a pound of meat a week[1], and whatever else Marion Nestle recommends[1.5]. Just imagine what primitive man would eat.…

I'm not going to argue that what you describe isn't good, but 'nature intended us to' isn't a particularly solid argument. You could argue that nature intended us to die from Malaria by the age of 30, I'm very glad that for most of the world that's no longer the case.

That's precisely why the "nature intended us to" argument doesn't really work for me when I hear people trying to convince me to try the Paleo diet. Whatever the benefits might be (besides making the author of those books a good chunk of money), they can be garnered by other means. What I hate even more is when a few devotees of such diets go on a slant about vegetarianism/veganism etc. etc.

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

#89
post #81

I swear by bodyweight-only resistance / circular strength training. Currently doing TacFit -- despite their ridiculous hard-sell marketing which is uselessly and pointlessly "spec ops" and warrior-themed (I won't link as I'm not affiliated other than a legit happy user). But there are more body-weight approaches than that one. Google circular strength training / CST and much cheaper than buying the TacFit videos woul…

For TacFit, what resources do you have (or would recommend)? I found one very shady looking website selling some DVDs and a book...

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

#90

This is a one sided view of fitness. e.g. there is zero focus on cardio. Would be interesting to see one of these guys do a light 5 mile run. Look into real world training: running, hard hiking with a pack, mountain biking, swimming/surfing. These types of exercise have been the most rewarding for me in terms of skeletal, muscle and cardio fitness. The only thing I agree with in the article is that cardio machines in…

The only thing I agree with in the article is that cardio machines in the gym are a waste of time. Not sure this is really true or that it matters. A 5 mile run on the treadmill at an x minute pace is the same as a 5 mile run outside at an x minute pace. Advantages of the treadmill include being able to keep a given pace without making any particular mental effort. Advantages of being outside is that it's not boring.

  5 mile run on the treadmill at an x minute pace is the same as a 5 mile run outside at an x minute pace.
LOL. Go run outside. You have no idea what you're talking about.
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