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Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

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Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

#181

Post by yummyfajitas »

jacques_chester wrote: post #133
jokull wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an emphasis on improving scores and people get carried away for sure. But in the two boxes I've trained at there's a culture for good form and working on technique. "Honesty in motion, honesty in counting". I believe it's a CrossFit thing.

> I believe it's a CrossFit thing. Based on this claim I assume also that Crossfit invented the barbell, the bumper plate and gravity. The sudden outburst of anecdotes about how your Crossfit gym rooly trooly emphasises form seems to have come after years of sustained criticism by strength coaches and Olympic weightlifting coaches. It's as simple as this: nobody -- not me, not you, not your coach, not the pros -- nob…

I haven't done crossfit, but I am curious - what prevents you from doing 20 proper form clean & jerks if you lower the weight?

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

#182

Post by kenjackson »

astrogirl wrote: post #92
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.

That's because your form stinks. Squats and deads don't hurt you unless you do them incorrectly.

Both are too easy to hurt yourself. This is why, for example, why deadlifts are generally not recommended for professional athletes. For example, notice Kobe doesn't do deadlifts: http://www.nbaplayerworkouts.com/kobe-bryant

The delta in benefit is not worth a back injury.

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

#183

Post by pge »

jimmyk wrote: post #127
pge wrote: post #119

would you take coding advice from someone that couldn't write "hello world" in C? Then don't take fitness advice from someone that, by his own admission, could only squat 40 lbs before he wrote the article...

For your analogy, he couldn't write "hello world" in C before writing the article. Before finishing the article, he was able to write software better than the vast majority of developers. While writing the article, he received training and advice from the person who trained the best developers. I'd sure pay attention.

I have to disagree - your assessment would suggest that at the end he was more fit than the vast majority of people that try to be fit, and that his teacher was the best in the world. My point was simply that he did not have a frame of reference to evaluate the quality of the fitness program he took on relative to other programs with competent instructors (since his lack of fitness demonstrated that he had never had any competent instruction).

To keep the analogy from the original post, do you trust a first year CS student to tell you the best way to learn coding? That student finally had a competent teacher and went from zero to writing a lisp compiler in C. What he doesnt realize is so did every other first year college CS student, and they may have had an entirely different curriculum and experience. And they are all at the beginning of a journey, not the end.

If the article were written by a pro athlete, for example, that had experimented with lots of different fitness regimes over that course of a life in which he was clearly successful in being fit, I would take it a lot more seriously, just as I would be more interested in hearing about the best methods of learning to write commercial applications from long-time practitioners that had trained many teams over the years in production environments.

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

#184

Post by mcdowall »

joshklein wrote: post #163
jasonkester wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Best stop dreaming and start saving then. Book your flight for the end of November. Round trip to Bangkok before the peak will run you $600-$800 from the west coast. Make your way to Tonsai and negotiate yourself a good monthly rate for a bungalow. If you show up before the main tourist season and plan to stay until March, you can usually get them down to around $200/month. Even with all the Beer Chang and Massuman G…

How comfortable would a person who only spoke English be in getting around these areas?

Absolutely fine, English is widely spoken

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

#185

Post by yummyfajitas »

tjogin wrote: post #113
keeptrying wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

Squats, dead lifts, bench presses, those are the Big Three. That's what you absolutely need to do, and if you do them it is where 90% of your results will come from. It's also the only exercises you need to ever do. Having said that, if you "like" some other exercise, like cable chest presses, dumbbell flyes, standing barbell bicep curls, crunches, or whatever, then fine do them (I do), but do so knowing that the Big…

What about pullups? The big three you mention don't seem to hit your upper back, biceps or shoulders much.

(I'm a novice, genuinely curious.)

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

#186

Post by js2 »

jasonkester wrote: post #170
jerf wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time there's an article on exercise or diet, there's a pileon of people promoting their own beliefs, with no apparent sign that they read the original link. How do you address the fact that your point is actively contradicted by the article? Did you even know your point is actively contradicted by the article? I'm not even saying that proves you're wrong; what bothers me is that you just ran off to post your ow…

The author talks about his experience or getting fit by going to a gym and lifting free weights. I countered with my approach, which revolves around setting your life up so that fitness is merely a side effect. I'm not contradicting anything that he says. I used to lift weights in much the manner that he describes, and it'd be difficult to deny that it works. The thing that he misses is motivation. Most people simply…

In my experience, climbing rocks and surfing, while possibly suboptimal as workouts, will absolutely get you into great shape. And they have the added benefit of providing their own motivation.

Eh, I don't find rock climbing at all enjoyable. But I love running marathons. I've even been known to put in 22 miles _on a treadmill_. Different strokes for different folks.

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

#187

Post by [deleted] »

jasonkester wrote: post #170
jerf wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time there's an article on exercise or diet, there's a pileon of people promoting their own beliefs, with no apparent sign that they read the original link. How do you address the fact that your point is actively contradicted by the article? Did you even know your point is actively contradicted by the article? I'm not even saying that proves you're wrong; what bothers me is that you just ran off to post your ow…

The author talks about his experience or getting fit by going to a gym and lifting free weights. I countered with my approach, which revolves around setting your life up so that fitness is merely a side effect. I'm not contradicting anything that he says. I used to lift weights in much the manner that he describes, and it'd be difficult to deny that it works. The thing that he misses is motivation. Most people simply…

[deleted]

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

#188

Post by dualogy »

sandGorgon wrote: post #123
dualogy wrote: 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…

do you know how it compare to Insanity - I'm especially interested in the Tabata interval angle.

No idea, the above-linked forum will probably be happy to discuss that though.

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

#189

Post by btilly »

JoelMcCracken wrote: post #166
jshen wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Humans are no longer subject to natural selection." What? Are you sure? Because we most certainly are subject to natural selection.

Yes. But not to any significant degree that will cause a change as a species.

I'm sorry, but anyone who says this has failed to understand evolution.

Evolution is a slow process. But there is no reason to believe that it is going any slower today than it ever did in the past - we're just being selected for different things than in the past. (For instance carelessness about birth control.)

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

#190

Post by bane »

ilovecomputers wrote: post #46
jasonkester wrote: post #42

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.…

Just imagine what primitive man would eat. He would spend most of his days eating what grew from the ground and when they finally hunted down meat, they would eat their catch as a group

Ugh, I hate this concept. Primitive man also died in their 20s and 30s. No thanks.

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