This exact article has been posted and well received before on HN.
In fact, this article has been submitted to HN 7 times in the last year!
Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie (2011)
131–140 of 343 posts
Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie (2011)
#132Well, actually... Daniel the author neglected to tell Nicole the illustrator that the thumbs on the squatter (first graphic) are in the wrong position -- according to Rippetoe, not me. :-)
Humor aside, lifting heavy works for women, to. Women are afraid to get bulky. I got over the idea that lifting heavy wouldn't _make_ me bulky. This is just the way I am. Might as well make the best of what my DNA doled out. As for gyms, I've been harassed at my gym by a trainer for dropping 250lbs a bit too hard (it ripped the callus on my left hand and fell less than a foot, and gym doesn't allow chalk) when I routinely see/hear male lifters throw 100+ dumbbells to the floor. Can't wait to get a cage in my basement so I can spend less time in that place.
I'll be trying Brown's movements to see if they help with the pain in my knees from derby drills. Thanks for posting this!
Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie (2011)
#133I read this article around the time it was first published, and it has changed my life. I know it sounds corny and cliched, but it's true. This article was the first seed in my head that I needed to change the way I was doing things. It took me about 18 months after reading it to actually buckle down and start lifting, but it's no doubt that the journey started here. I ended up reading "Starting Strength" and started…
I've no doubt at all that you're significantly stronger, but not all of that 40 extra pounds is going to be muscle. You might want to reduce the amount you're eating now so that you don't have to eat at a deficit for so long later.
Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie (2011)
#134Lift a weight so heavy you can lift it only once, you’re building strength (and, oddly, not much mass); lift a weight you can move six to 12 times, you’re building mass (and, oddly, a little less pure strength);
It's interesting how many people don't know that size does not necessarily mean strength. When I was in university, a gym friend, who happened to be a trainer, was an accomplished amateur bodybuilder, and was fairly close to getting his pro card (he might have it now, I'm not sure). This guy was easily twice my size, but to my surprise, I could lift quite a bit more than him. Now, I'm quite sure that I look like I'm in good shape, but I don't think anyone would guess that I'm 195 pounds, and can oly squat 2x my lean body weight. It's been more than once that I've seen someone at the the gym who looks merely "lean" at first glance, but turns out to be quite impressively strong. Just goes to show that it's hard to judge how strong people are just by looking at them, until you see them lift.
Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie (2011)
#135Everything I know is a lie? So, eating huge amounts of fat and sugar, and never exercising is not less healthy than eating some vegetables and going for a run? I doubt it. So can we please stop with such ridiculous headlines?!
Did you read the article? What do you think of the contents of it other than the headline?
> a miasma of lies and misinformation that we mistake for common sense, and that makes most of our gym time a complete waste
Well, it started off with complete bullshit like this. If we could get 10% of people to the gym (instead of their usual home-bound sugar-feast), it would be fucking wonderful. My gym time was never a waste, regardless of my form or which equipment I was using.
The rest of the article, however, I'm pretty in line with with. But it's preaching to the choir for the most part. We could make this article mandatory reading and it wouldn't make a goddamn difference. And that's the problem. Got a solution?
You'd get the Nobel Prize in EVERYTHING if you could figure out an effective way to get masses of people to effect these kinds of changes in their lives. That kind of science spans the realms of pyschology, sociology, medicine, biology, physics, and wizardry.
Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie (2011)
#136I love the way this article dispels misconceptions and ends with practical solutions. Does anyone know of an article that does the same for becoming a great developer rather than continuing to wade in the novice waters of programming?
It is said that Milo of Croton lifted a calf every day, growing stronger as it grew heavier. Perhaps it isn't very insightful, but I learned to program by trying to accomplish increasingly ambitious tasks. You'll succeed at some and fail at others. The failures are the price of your education, so it helps to choose tasks for which the price of failure is low. It also helps to choose tasks for which the reward of success is high, and to revisit your failures when you're ready to succeed. I always thought Steve Jobs' best talent was picking the right tasks to fail at, and learning to not fail at them the next time.
Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie (2011)
#137> I signed a 10-page membership contract at a corporate-franchise gym, hired my first personal trainer, and became yet another sucker for all the half-baked, largely spurious non-advice cobbled together from doctors, newspapers, magazines, infomercials, websites, government health agencies, and, especially, from the organs of our wonderful $19 billion fitness industry, whose real knack lies in helping us to lose weig…
CTA?
Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie (2011)
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
A good gym is a godsend. But what you're looking for isn't going to be one of the plastic-and-chrome palaces but something that's got tons of weights, power cages, chinning bars, adjustable benches, dumbbells in a wide range of weights (200# is a good upper limit, higher isn't bad though you can usually manage with a barbell and landmine), bumper plates and platforms, chalk, glute-ham raise, kettlebells, ergs, foam a…
The problem is very few gyms have bumper plates and platforms. Further, many gyms frown upon the use of chalk.
They exist. Finding them may take work.
Many gyms will allow chalk if you're reasonably discrete and neat about it. A rock-climber's chalk bag and sock can usually pass. If not that, there's always liquid chalk.
Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie (2011)
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are alternatives to cardio machines that are far less expensive. A jump rope or kettlebell can provide ample and safe workouts for most. The advantage of activities (basketball, cycling, Ultimate) is that they're engaging, getting past the "but it's sooooo boring" issue of just grinding out your 20 minutes. And at the high end of the out-of-shape scale, just getting out of the house and walking would be a great…
I agree that walking is a great start, but your body will quickly adapt and unless you're walking up hills you're unlikely to get to aerobic HR levels.
There are plenty of progressions available for walking.
Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie (2011)
#140Cardio machines are innocent enough, as they won’t actually make you any less fit, but maintaining cardiovascular fitness doesn’t really take much more than breathing uncomfortably hard for about 20 minutes, three times a week. And we all know that swimming, hoops, bike riding, and even Ultimate Frisbee can get the job done, and that treadmills or elliptical trainers are a pale substitute. I think the author is overl…
If you're goal is fat loss, not cardiovascular health, then lifting weights works just as well as running or using the elliptical, and it is easier on your body if you learn the correct form.
Strap an HR monitor on your chest when you do your next weight lifting routine, have it estimate your calories burned. Spend the same amount of time doing cardio at > 70% of your age predicted HR max. I think you'll find it's not even close.
Of course you said fat loss, and perhaps you'll quibble about how much of the calories burned comes from fat vs. muscle, but I think more people are trying to get to a healthy weight rather than achieve a single digit body fat percentage.