Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie • Hacker News Board

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

#101

Post by yummyfajitas » Fri, Mar 04, 2011, 1:34 PM UTC

wil2k wrote: post #86

ilovecomputers wrote: post #46

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.…

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

So no Indian/Chinese/Japanese/Mexican food? No avocados? No seafood, unless your grandparents are from the coast?

(Food diversity sucket in our grandparent's era. )

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

#102

Post by lamnk » Fri, Mar 04, 2011, 1:36 PM UTC

neutronicus wrote: post #68

As someone who just tried to start this kind of thing (heavy squat/deadlift every couple of days) and hurt my lower back pretty good, I just don't know about this advice.

Then you did the exercises in bad form. Years ago my fitness condition was like the article described: little-girl weak. My back and my neck ached a lot after coding sessions. Fast-forward until now doing squats, dead lifts, presses three times a week for 3 months I am much stronger, can run 2x longer and the pain has completely gone away.

At first i followed Stronglift 5x5's advice: start with the bar only, concentrate on proper form for at least 2 weeks and increase the load slightly for each workout. I'm also lucky that there are sport students working as tutors at my university gym. They are taught proper (olympic) weight lifting so I asked them to correct my form if I did the exercises wrong. After that it's like riding a bicycle, once learned you will never forget how to ride.

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

#103

Post by brown9-2 » Fri, Mar 04, 2011, 1:47 PM UTC

Mainstream men’s fitness magazines have no larger mission than profitable advertising sales, which means endless pitches for useless (if not outright dangerous) dietary supplements and articles on “Seven Steps to Great Abs,” always omitting the all-important Step Eight: In order to make your six-pack even remotely visible to the naked eye, reduce your total body fat to an inhuman 10 percent.

This describes just about every issue of "Mens Health" magazine, by the way.

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

#104

Post by msy » Fri, Mar 04, 2011, 1:47 PM UTC

freshfey wrote: post #51

msy wrote: post #34

Given he calls Crossfit sadistic it's ironic he's basically describing it. Free weights, core strength, a focus on overall fitness and all aspects thereof over abstract weight numbers. It's not complicated and plenty of people know it. Hyperbolic headlines are intensely irritating.

Not exactly. In Crossfit times and reps matter more than form. Just take a look at some gyms. The exercises and the philosophy behind is awesome, but the practical appliance is far from great.

Every crossfit trainer I've met, trained with or by or read has emphasised form over how many reps, there might be sloppy gyms but that certainly hasn't been my experience.

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

#105

Post by brown9-2 » Fri, Mar 04, 2011, 1:51 PM UTC

[deleted] wrote: post #99

[deleted]

Did you miss the part of the article where the author is in his forties and suffering through knee and back problems attained in adolescence?

I'm not sure how the joke you relay here is suppose to be anything like an argument, data, or reasoning.

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

#106

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Mar 04, 2011, 1:52 PM UTC

brown9-2 wrote: post #103

Mainstream men’s fitness magazines have no larger mission than profitable advertising sales, which means endless pitches for useless (if not outright dangerous) dietary supplements and articles on “Seven Steps to Great Abs,” always omitting the all-important Step Eight: In order to make your six-pack even remotely visible to the naked eye, reduce your total body fat to an inhuman 10 percent. This describes just about…

[deleted]

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

#107

Post by brown9-2 » Fri, Mar 04, 2011, 1:56 PM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #65

mmaunder wrote: post #43

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.

This is in no way true. Running on a treadmill is significantly easier than running the same distance on an outside surface.

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

#108

Post by dpritchett » Fri, Mar 04, 2011, 1:57 PM UTC

phil wrote: post #39

It's funny because this kind of article always ends up recommending a simple, classic free weight program. Then you look at the gyms they refer to, and they've got people doing stuff like this: http://www.mtnathlete.com/page.php?page_ID=2

GPP [1] is the sort of thing people add to their programs when they're already doing basic weight routines all the time and they want to see even more progress. You don't have to start dragging rocks on day 1.

[1] http://www.elitefts.com/documents/gpp.htm

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

#109

Post by neutronicus » Fri, Mar 04, 2011, 2:00 PM UTC

lamnk wrote: post #102

neutronicus wrote: post #68

As someone who just tried to start this kind of thing (heavy squat/deadlift every couple of days) and hurt my lower back pretty good, I just don't know about this advice.

Then you did the exercises in bad form. Years ago my fitness condition was like the article described: little-girl weak. My back and my neck ached a lot after coding sessions. Fast-forward until now doing squats, dead lifts, presses three times a week for 3 months I am much stronger, can run 2x longer and the pain has completely gone away. At first i followed Stronglift 5x5's advice: start with the bar only, concentr…

See, but I had done it before - 3/4 years ago I was squatting 315 for 10 reps, so either my form was fine back then and degraded somehow or it was never good and I just got away with it because I was young and in shape.

Either way, the article completely glosses over the "oh, by the way if you do this wrong you will ruin your shit" aspect of squats and deadlifts, which is a pretty compelling argument for machines in my book.

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

#110

Post by yummyfajitas » Fri, Mar 04, 2011, 2:00 PM UTC

TimeForThis wrote: post #78

mkramlich wrote: post #30

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…

Just go to that dark corner. I'm a skinny guy (less skinny now), I was intimidated by that corner as well.

My observation: the vast majority of those "mostly-large-males" are extremely nice, even if they do sometimes make scary faces while lifting and look like Danny Trejo. If you pick the right gym (typically in lower class neighborhoods), they might even critique your form, which is incredibly valuable.