Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Association between muscular strength and mortality in men (2008) [pdf]

bmj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 215 posts

Re: Association between muscular strength and mortality in men (2008) [pdf]

#71

Post by nosequel »

MaybiusStrip wrote: post #55
drexel wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The book "Starting Strength" by Mark Rippetoe (book and author pretty much universally lauded by the strength training community) is also a great starting point. Beginners can often become overwhelmed by all the differing viewpoints and training methods presented to them when researching strength training but (besides avoiding injury by maintaining proper form and generally listening to your body to allow sufficient…

Good book for beginners but Mark has no shortage of critics and enemies in the strength community.

Who? In both powerlifting and strongman circles he is regarded pretty highly actually. I'm competed in both NAS (north american strongman) and IPF (international powerlifting federation) and the talk of people who actually compete is how much Ripp has done to bring real knowledge to the masses.

Re: Association between muscular strength and mortality in men (2008) [pdf]

#72

Post by angersock »

MaybiusStrip wrote: post #55
drexel wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The book "Starting Strength" by Mark Rippetoe (book and author pretty much universally lauded by the strength training community) is also a great starting point. Beginners can often become overwhelmed by all the differing viewpoints and training methods presented to them when researching strength training but (besides avoiding injury by maintaining proper form and generally listening to your body to allow sufficient…

Good book for beginners but Mark has no shortage of critics and enemies in the strength community.

Mind expanding on that beyond just "Some people don't like this guy"?

Re: Association between muscular strength and mortality in men (2008) [pdf]

#74

Post by SoftwareMaven »

tokenadult wrote: post #65

The most statistically astute comment posted here so far is the top-level comment by micro_cam https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5493772 pointing out that the study design here doesn't involve random assignment to strength training of any kind, but rather just observation of the study population over time. Sure, it's a good idea to be stronger rather than weaker. Moreover, it is plausible that exercises that tend…

This is the problem with all cohort studies. Since there aren't strong controls, you can't determine causality.

Fundamentally, this is why we know get consistently conflicting advice about nutrition: we take cohort studies as law instead of using them to form hypotheses that are tested with well controlled experiments.

Re: Association between muscular strength and mortality in men (2008) [pdf]

#75

Post by alexvr »

nosequel wrote: post #69
dbruce wrote: post #44

It's likely that healthier people are stronger on average....hence getting stronger by doing strength training will not change things.

So you are saying you didn't read the paper or abstract. They sort of covered that entire topic. This is about strength not "health", they took that into account in the study.

By taking it into account, they probably excluded people with medical issues that would skew the results. The study isn't perfect, so this guy has a point: People with genes that make them naturally strong may have related genes that contribute to their overall health. And the converse may be true for weak people.

Re: Association between muscular strength and mortality in men (2008) [pdf]

#76

Post by div »

archon wrote: post #61
drexel wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The book "Starting Strength" by Mark Rippetoe (book and author pretty much universally lauded by the strength training community) is also a great starting point. Beginners can often become overwhelmed by all the differing viewpoints and training methods presented to them when researching strength training but (besides avoiding injury by maintaining proper form and generally listening to your body to allow sufficient…

> Beginners can often become overwhelmed by all the differing viewpoints Yeah, I'm in this position. I've been using the machines at my gym (more for variety than any other reason) and when I started looking into strength training, I was swamped with competing methods, many of which instantly sent up red flags in my brain reading "SCAM". It's difficult for someone from outside the fitness world (me) to judge whether…

A good source of information for this is fitness.reddit.com

Be sure to read the FAQ there. The TL;DR version is to pick up one of the two programs mentioned above (5x5 or starting strength).

Re: Association between muscular strength and mortality in men (2008) [pdf]

#77

Post by reasonattlm »

kyllo wrote: post #27
reasonattlm wrote: post #15

Hand grip strength. Pretty much all other measures of frailty - such as muscle mass. Time spent jogging. Time spent not sitting. Time spent being active. All of these correlate well with mortality. Causation is harder to prove on these longer timescales. e.g. more likely to be strong and exercising because you are more robust, or more likely to be more robust because you are strong and exercising. Or if both, as is l…

I think the calorie restriction studies deserve scrutiny. Do people who practice calorie restriction live longer compared to otherwise fit, healthy people who do not practice it? Or do they just live longer compared to the average (which includes a significant component of obese and/or diabetic over-eaters)?

Calorie restriction has a far better effect on human health for average, healthy people than any other presently available tool, technique, or medical technology. That's a definitive statement that can be made from results of the existing studies, such as those under the CALERIE program.

http://calerie.dcri.duke.edu/

E.g.:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2829643/

There are no human longevity studies for the obvious reasons. The current consensus is that it won't add more than a few years to life. If it did reliably add to longevity to a significant degree, we'd already know about it for one, and secondly there are a range of evolutionary arguments for why CR produces larger effects on life span in shorter-lived species - since it evolved to adapt to famine (~= weather) conditions, which come and go on a fixed timescale depending on their cause, not one that is relative to species longevity.

Reconciling tremendous proven health benefits versus little extension of life span is one of those interesting sidebars that will fall out of the scientific process at some point.

Re: Association between muscular strength and mortality in men (2008) [pdf]

#79

Post by conradfr »

drexel wrote: post #47
unoti wrote: post #4

I've been doing strength training (the program is called Stronglifts 5x5[1]) with freeweights for about 9 months now. I just turned 44, and I've never felt better, and I'm stronger now than I have ever been. The program I use describes 3 simple exercises to do 3 times a week, and each workout takes me 30-45 minutes. Very little equipment is needed. It's hard to find good information about this on the net that covers…

The book "Starting Strength" by Mark Rippetoe (book and author pretty much universally lauded by the strength training community) is also a great starting point. Beginners can often become overwhelmed by all the differing viewpoints and training methods presented to them when researching strength training but (besides avoiding injury by maintaining proper form and generally listening to your body to allow sufficient…

I've read through Starting Strength (thanks to some HN thread IIRC). Quite motivational (and almost too detailed).

I'm currently looking for a correctly equipped gym near my apartment in Paris, France. Looks like free weights are not fashionable at all here ...

Re: Association between muscular strength and mortality in men (2008) [pdf]

#80

Post by 3327 »

nosequel wrote: post #56
3327 wrote: post #35

here is my 2 cents. Im a coder, developer but I am ripped (sorry for the self love) I work out like crazy and actively surf / kitesurf, rockclimb. So my gym sessions have always had a purpose - to make myself stronger per the requirements of those sports. So my 2 cents - get of the whey protein. don't take it do not touch it. I have no scientific evidence but way too many people are on that and no long term studies.…

Nice job, no scientific evidence, but your "friend" had a heart attack. Just pure amazing post my friend. Oh, so I don't fall into the same trap, here are scientific studies in favor of Whey protein: http://examine.com/supplements/Whey+Protein/#main_clinical_r... TLDR - http://s3.roosterteeth.com/images/Ataxx50e4c5160c877.jpg

Sorry, but this study is a joke. If you think this is a study that validates your belief go ahead. But I will take any seasoned athlete's take on something than a half assed study funded by who knows who. These things take years to prove and large studies over long periods of time. IF you want to justify your own whey protein habits with this thats just you.

> my 2 cents

means my two cents, you take it as you will. Hearing negative stuff is always hard but its the truth. So go looking around the internet for studies that are pro whey, and believe them and justify your habits and don't worry about my friend.

Post reply on HN