How little exercise can you get away with? • Hacker News Board

Re: How little exercise can you get away with?

#51

Post by loeg » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 11:28 PM UTC

ransom1538 wrote: post #34

delis-thumbs-7e wrote: post #11

How about you instead of trying to “get away with” as little exercise as possible you found a way to move your body that you genuinely enjoy? One should not optimise away sleep, nutrition and exercise. Yes we live in a ridiculous fitness and gym boom, but weight training might not actually be a good fit to most people. I love having to psych myself to lift big amounts of steel, I’m ok with bit of pain etc. - mostly p…

"but weight training might not actually be a good fit to most people. I" People will eventually realize it causes cancer. Weight training literally generates inflammation.

> People will eventually realize it causes cancer. Weight training literally generates inflation.

Inflation? I don't think this comment could have better intentionally illustrated how ill-informed it is if you tried.

Re: How little exercise can you get away with?

#52

Post by loeg » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 11:29 PM UTC

benoau wrote: post #45

ransom1538 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"but weight training might not actually be a good fit to most people. I" People will eventually realize it causes cancer. Weight training literally generates inflammation.

I've read before that tall people get more cancer than short people, if it's relative to how many cells you have then an extra 30 kilograms of muscle might make a difference too!

Virtually no one puts on 30 kg of muscle by weight training without steroids. Certainly not by accident. Those are like college-NFL football numbers.

Re: How little exercise can you get away with?

#53

Post by annzabelle » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 11:30 PM UTC

I love to run, and even in winter, in the dark, in the rain, I will get home from work at 6pm, eat a small dinner, and head out for a 40-60 minute jog or interval session a few days a week. I do a aerial circus class once a week, too.

I am single and have no children or care giving obligations yet. I bet that when I (hopefully) have small children one day, it will be much harder for me to fit in 3-4 hours a week of running, especially when sleeping enough to feel rested. It would be nice to know what I can do to keep up my health during that phase of life.

Re: How little exercise can you get away with?

#54

Post by xnx » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 11:30 PM UTC

daseiner1 wrote: post #38

delis-thumbs-7e wrote: post #11

How about you instead of trying to “get away with” as little exercise as possible you found a way to move your body that you genuinely enjoy? One should not optimise away sleep, nutrition and exercise. Yes we live in a ridiculous fitness and gym boom, but weight training might not actually be a good fit to most people. I love having to psych myself to lift big amounts of steel, I’m ok with bit of pain etc. - mostly p…

walking, walking, walking, walking having a well-rounded diet and getting an hour of walking in daily is like 90% of the way there for good health. (actually, proper sleep is the #1 most important thing)

And exercise helps sleep! It's an unbelievable virtuous cycle.

Re: How little exercise can you get away with?

#55

Post by loeg » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 11:31 PM UTC

sublinear wrote: post #48

Lift weights. Do it multiple times a day and chase that pump. Do it for stress relief. Do it to help you fall asleep. Do it to wake up. It's not all about cardio. Your muscles are such a significant part of your metabolism and far too many people avoid strength training. A ton of problems that arise while aging are ultimately hormonal. Even your skin improves. Cardiovascular health begins here. People are literally r…

Lift weights, but like 30-60 minutes 3x a week is plenty. You definitely don't have to do it multiple times a day if that would be inconvenient.

Re: How little exercise can you get away with?

#56

Post by delis-thumbs-7e » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 11:31 PM UTC

daseiner1 wrote: post #39

ransom1538 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"but weight training might not actually be a good fit to most people. I" People will eventually realize it causes cancer. Weight training literally generates inflammation.

just raise interest rates to counteract, then perhaps you meant inflammation resistance training doesn't cause cancer though

I suppose that if your muscles grow rapidly, you could call that inflation of some kind? Connection to cancer still unclear though.

Re: How little exercise can you get away with?

#57

Post by lazyasciiart » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 11:32 PM UTC

RugnirViking wrote: post #8

yoz-y wrote: post #4

Median age of 61… 4.4 minutes of “vigorous” activity. Hard to interpret this as anything else that if you remain being able to be somehow active in your later years you will be better off. I find all of the studies of “how little exercise” is needed sad. Instead we should be focusing on how to restructure modern lifestyle to allow everybody to achieve the minimum of cardiovascular and strength exercises.

I'm confused. You're saddened by people researching the minimum exercise needed, but want society to aim to give people that minimum? How would society know what the minimum is?

Presumably it’s a known amount approximately matching what they do.

Re: How little exercise can you get away with?

#58

Post by gherkinnn » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 11:33 PM UTC

JohnMakin wrote: post #19

delis-thumbs-7e wrote: post #11

How about you instead of trying to “get away with” as little exercise as possible you found a way to move your body that you genuinely enjoy? One should not optimise away sleep, nutrition and exercise. Yes we live in a ridiculous fitness and gym boom, but weight training might not actually be a good fit to most people. I love having to psych myself to lift big amounts of steel, I’m ok with bit of pain etc. - mostly p…

Some people have disabilities or physical limitations.

I do not understand this type of objection. What is the point of shooting down a reasonable recommendation (in this case exercise and having fun doing so) with a handwavy moral plight such as yours?

It truly is a bizarre spin on whataboutism.

Re: How little exercise can you get away with?

#59

Post by shaewest » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 11:35 PM UTC

elictronic wrote: post #35

algoth1 wrote: post #18

It may sound crazy, but a properly installed pull up bar on your room doorway is a fun way to apply Pavel Tsatsouline ‘grease the groove’ principle. And it’s both easy and fun. You can do pull ups, and train your abdomen several times a day without getting psychological resistance (from google overview: "Grease the Groove" (GtG) is a strength training method popularized by fitness expert Pavel Tsatsouline. It involve…

Less than 5% of the population can do a pull-up. I can after having climbed for a bit and worked towards doing it, but you might be surprised to learn how few this would actually benefit.

This is where calisthenics comes into play. You can quite easily increase and decrease the leverage on the muscle to workup to the 'main exercise' and even past it. IE, for pull ups, you can hang under a table and do a 'horizontal' pull, you can 'cheat' up the movement (jumping), you can use resistance bands, etc. This is the same for almost every muscle group.

Re: How little exercise can you get away with?

#60

Post by striking » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 11:48 PM UTC

delis-thumbs-7e wrote: post #11

How about you instead of trying to “get away with” as little exercise as possible you found a way to move your body that you genuinely enjoy? One should not optimise away sleep, nutrition and exercise. Yes we live in a ridiculous fitness and gym boom, but weight training might not actually be a good fit to most people. I love having to psych myself to lift big amounts of steel, I’m ok with bit of pain etc. - mostly p…

This might be good advice for people who haven't already had the rest of the living optimized out of their lives. But not everyone is so lucky...

Also, the article kind of agrees with what you're saying, even if you don't realize it. Any exercise, even if it's not organized like a weight lifting regimen might be, might be enough to keep you healthy. I think leaning into that could make exercise more genuinely enjoyable for many more people, instead of just an exercise in optimization.