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A personal trainer is the best investment I've made

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Re: A personal trainer is the best investment I've made

#51

Post by doix »

valenterry wrote: post #29
emptyfile wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> If you try to get better endurance most of your training should be aerobic (instead of anaerobic) >It's actually the opposite and interval training (mixed aerobic and anaerobic) seems to be more effective. Wrong and easy to prove that its wrong, just look at a training regiment of any elite runner in any distance. Most coaches agree that 80% percent of your volume should be easy aerobic for any goal. Doing high in…

> Wrong and easy to prove that its wrong, just look at a training regiment of any elite runner in any distance. That's a bad comparison. Elite runners' first priority is to win and get out maximum performance. But for regular people, the goal is to overall improve their body and condition using a small time span. Since the goals are different, the methods are as well. That aside, I believe athletes _do_ use interval…

> That aside, I believe athletes _do_ use interval training (HIIT). But if you have a source, I'd be interested.

Yes, athletes do use interval training for specific purposes. But they don't do it for the majority of their training because it takes a lot to recover from. Since it takes more to recover, it limits how much training you can do. And athletes recover significantly faster than an untrained person. A fascinating read is by the guy who set the recent 10k speed skating record [0], he basically cycled for 7 hours a day.

An untrained person can't do 'HITT' properly, it takes too long for their heart rate to recover to normal. If they do something like 1 minute on, 30 seconds off, their heart rate during the 'resting' interval will still be pretty close to their working heart rate. They won't manage to keep it up for more than say 5 minutes (random number).

Now yes, 5 minutes of HITT is more effective than 10 minutes of LISS. But 1 hour of LISS is more effective than 5 minutes of HITT. And you can do 1 hour of LISS everyday without accumulating a lot of fatigue. Where as if an untrained person did HITT one day, there's a high chance that the next day they won't be able to preform at the same intensity. There's also significantly lower injury chance doing LISS.

[0] https://www.howtoskate.se/

Re: A personal trainer is the best investment I've made

#52

Post by tomxor »

dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #49
tomxor wrote: post #26

> What keeps fit people going to the gym on a regular basis isn't wearing their running shoes to bed at night. It's discipline and accountability. There is an alternative, less resistant path which I believe is more sustainable and better for the soul... find something you love that involves exercise, not much discipline is needed once you do, because you probably wont be able to stop yourself from doing it when it's…

I did this with biking years ago and I don't regret any second of it. It relaxes me in the morning, it does the same in the evening. During warm months it's all pleasure, during colder months it's mostly the way to work and back (or an equivalent in the opposite direction when I WFH). The only drawback is that although the muscles in the lower part of the body seem like made of steel, the upper part is definitely wea…

I also do pushups to balance out climbing, because although climbing works all the muscles fairly well, it over develops the back slightly. Even though I'm pretty anti-gym, i think body weight exercises are great, because you can pretty much do them anywhere at any time and they tend to target a broader range of muscles unlike gym exercises.

The one thing I learned about push-ups recently is how we have a tendency to get tripped up by the measurement fallacy... i mean how else do you measure it other than how many right? The thing is that if you optimise for quantity you will actually end up with bad form and be cheating by using momentum. If you goal is to actually improve your body somehow then you start focusing on form and control, which can be a little bit demoralizing at first because you will no doubt be back squarely in the <10 range, but you will have abs of steel if you keep it up :P

Re: A personal trainer is the best investment I've made

#53

Post by exabrial »

trhoad wrote: post #10

Too much emphasis is put on organised exercise. I think it's an American thing, where nobody seems to walk anywhere. Better advice is to build more functional "exercise" into your day-to-day life. This is where real lifestyle change happens without you really knowing it. Take the stairs, walk to the shops, cycle to work (where possible), household chores that involve getting on your hands and knees and breaking a swe…

The real difference though is American cities blossomed with the same arc automobile came into fruition.

I just recently got back from Germany and the primary thing I noticed about their public transportation infrastructure is that most of it is using right of ways that have been in place for… hundreds of years.

Driving in America is an unfortunate necessity in the vast majority of places (The minority being the oldest coastal cities) and that annoys me greatly, but it’s the reality of it.

I do choose to live downtown so I can walk or bike. But those are my options :/

Re: A personal trainer is the best investment I've made

#54

Post by manholio »

So essentially, the best investment one can make is to be rich, so they can afford having hired help to solve basic day to day problems that regular people must deal with on their own.

That's because if you are a statistically average person paying half their income on housing, another quarter on basic necessities, and saving another 10%, you can't really afford to spend almost your entire disposable income paying 3 hours of wages + taxes for another average employee, every week.

Sort-of like the stereotypical upper-middle-rich-white lamentations that "these days you can no longer find any good babysitter/cook/help/valet", as if living a life of privilege is a birth right.

The tone and content of this thread is quite a trip into the the entitlement culture of contemporary techies.

Re: A personal trainer is the best investment I've made

#55

Post by huijzer »

dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #49
tomxor wrote: post #26

> What keeps fit people going to the gym on a regular basis isn't wearing their running shoes to bed at night. It's discipline and accountability. There is an alternative, less resistant path which I believe is more sustainable and better for the soul... find something you love that involves exercise, not much discipline is needed once you do, because you probably wont be able to stop yourself from doing it when it's…

I did this with biking years ago and I don't regret any second of it. It relaxes me in the morning, it does the same in the evening. During warm months it's all pleasure, during colder months it's mostly the way to work and back (or an equivalent in the opposite direction when I WFH). The only drawback is that although the muscles in the lower part of the body seem like made of steel, the upper part is definitely wea…

Sounds like great progress. Friendly reminder to also train the back side of your body too. Otherwise, the office work and the pull ups will pull your shoulders forward which can cause problems in the long-run. Given that you got so far with the push ups, I’m sure you can also find a way to do some back work

Re: A personal trainer is the best investment I've made

#56

Post by cyri »

We've build a house last year in CH. I've asked the architect if he can dig one part of the cellar just 1.50m deeper. So I have a cellar with a 380cm ceiling height. It is now a fully equipped Crossfit gym. Even better than my local CF "box". Saves so much time. Also following an online programming. But still once a week I hit the local box just to catch up and socialize with others.

Re: A personal trainer is the best investment I've made

#57

Post by gonzo41 »

exabrial wrote: post #38
tomxor wrote: post #26

> What keeps fit people going to the gym on a regular basis isn't wearing their running shoes to bed at night. It's discipline and accountability. There is an alternative, less resistant path which I believe is more sustainable and better for the soul... find something you love that involves exercise, not much discipline is needed once you do, because you probably wont be able to stop yourself from doing it when it's…

For me that’s mountain biking. But I look like a Greek statue on the bottom and a bit of a melting ice cream cone on top.

I have a tip for that, get a road bike to build fitness for the mtb.

Also, on a road bike you'll also go at much faster speeds, which I have found to translate to better confidence bombing down trails on my mtb.

Re: A personal trainer is the best investment I've made

#58

Post by spacebanana7 »

trhoad wrote: post #10

Too much emphasis is put on organised exercise. I think it's an American thing, where nobody seems to walk anywhere. Better advice is to build more functional "exercise" into your day-to-day life. This is where real lifestyle change happens without you really knowing it. Take the stairs, walk to the shops, cycle to work (where possible), household chores that involve getting on your hands and knees and breaking a swe…

I think it's worthwhile to highlight the psychical activity paradox in this discussion.

This paradox describes the contrast between the damaging impact that occupational exercise has on health against the beneficial impact that leisure exercise has on health. This difference is very well documented [1][2][3] (you can easily find dozens more studies with a quick google search).

There's a diversity of opinion about what causes the paradox, but I think it's reasonable to be concerned that spending significant amounts of time on DIY/Gardening/Chores could replicate the hazards of occupational exercise. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find a study which looks at these directly.

[1] https://academic.oup.com/eurheartj/article/42/15/1499/621377... [2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28798040/ [3] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanwpc/article/PIIS2666-6...

Re: A personal trainer is the best investment I've made

#59

Post by valenterry »

doix wrote: post #51
valenterry wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wrong and easy to prove that its wrong, just look at a training regiment of any elite runner in any distance. That's a bad comparison. Elite runners' first priority is to win and get out maximum performance. But for regular people, the goal is to overall improve their body and condition using a small time span. Since the goals are different, the methods are as well. That aside, I believe athletes _do_ use interval…

> That aside, I believe athletes _do_ use interval training (HIIT). But if you have a source, I'd be interested. Yes, athletes do use interval training for specific purposes. But they don't do it for the majority of their training because it takes a lot to recover from. Since it takes more to recover, it limits how much training you can do. And athletes recover significantly faster than an untrained person. A fascina…

So if an untrained person wants to get most of a fixed amount of time, say 1 hour effective training per week (which is not much of course), what would be most effective for them?

Re: A personal trainer is the best investment I've made

#60

Post by valenterry »

emptyfile wrote: post #37
valenterry wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wrong and easy to prove that its wrong, just look at a training regiment of any elite runner in any distance. That's a bad comparison. Elite runners' first priority is to win and get out maximum performance. But for regular people, the goal is to overall improve their body and condition using a small time span. Since the goals are different, the methods are as well. That aside, I believe athletes _do_ use interval…

Sure, you are broadly correct, however. >But for regular people, the goal is to overall improve their body and condition using a small time span No, the poster above you directly specified running endurance. That's what we're talking about NOT just running for general health. And not limiting training to a couple of hours per week. >interval training Interval training in the context is a pace-specific running workout…

> No, the poster above you directly specified running endurance. That's what we're talking about NOT just running for general health. And not limiting training to a couple of hours per week.

Fair enough. I interpreted that differently, but maybe you are right and we were just talking about different goals/contexts.

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