I walk/run every night in order to feel better mentally. I wish I didn't need too, but without exercise everyday I don't feel well mentally. It's been the Only medicine that
has ever worked on my brain. My body still looks like chit, but I don't care anymore.
Fitness Crazed
41–50 of 118 posts
Re: Fitness Crazed
#42Starting Strength works because it's easy to understand, follow, and see results from. By far the primary challenge newer folks face is establishing the discipline and consistency, and that's a lot easier to do when you're motivated by increasing the weight on the bar regularly. My favorite quote from the book is from the very first page (which is probably very relevant to the HN crowd): A weak man is not as happy as…
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Re: Fitness Crazed
#43My fitness regime: Dance class a couple times a week. Yoga a couple times a week as well. Live in a city I can walk around, don't have a car. Right now the dance is pole dance. Which you will probably laugh at - but think how much strength and flexibility you need to climb up a pole, invert yourself, and do splits while slowly twirling back down to the ground.
And yeah, just keep doing the same thing on a regular basis. I have a chin-up bar in my bathroom door. Almost every time I pass that way, I try a few times. I've gone from "can't get off to the ground" to "can easily lift and lower myself". Now I'm trying to work on more reps.
Re: Fitness Crazed
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
As someone who started with Starting Strength about a year ago, and who goes to a gym in Manhattan with lots of trainers around... Nope. The book is far superior to any of the trainers I've encountered. The book has so much detail on each exercise, it will take you weeks to absorb it, but if you read relevant parts before/after each workout, to make sure you're doing everything right, you'll probably wind up with muc…
As someone who started lifting a year ago: you don't know what you're talking about, but don't let that stop you from giving others advice that could hurt them. For the rest of people interested in getting strong: get a competent trainer (one easy evaluation metric is, as I mentioned, their deadlift maxes; greater than 500 pounds makes avoiding injury w/o good form very unlikely; or participation in powerlifting even…
Why does it have to be one or the other? Your main point is that one requires instruction to attain the correct form. That can be achieved by reading the book and properly following it, or seeing a competent trainer, or both.
There are some good trainers who can help, and there are certainly many who are worse than useless.
As for the book, it has hundreds of pages explaining in great technical detail exactly how each exercise is to be performed and some useful photos are also included. There's no reason why you can't get the form down properly using the instructions in the book, and maybe even have a friend record your form so you can check it against the photos.
Re: Fitness Crazed
#45I have trouble understanding the basis for articles like these. As far as it goes, asking which exercises might provide the best real-world gains is a sensible question, but the question of why a 40 yr old man wants to be able to push 235 lbs away from his chest when lying reclined is never even asked.
Does he know why he wants this?
From a biological perspective, a specimen might want to be able to do this to signal to potential mates that he is worthy of reproduction (the reason why we do alot of the things we do that no one ever quite explains). But at age 40, this is a suspect answer... without knowing any details of his personal life it seems unlikely that he's finally looking to settle down and start a family. Besides, if he is a late bloomer, the success of his career and his paycheck matter much more than body fat percentage. A male's ability to provide benefit to a female just doesn't lean much towards the "fighting off sabertooth tigers" anymore, nor even in the western world towards "fighting off other males".
I'm continually surprised how much time, effort, and money people will waste on these activities that seem devised to attract mates when they want few or no children, when they already have mates, and at times even when they have mates superior to any they're likely to acquire in the future. It's almost as if even as the desire to reproduce erodes, their desire to attract reproductive mates increases.
Re: Fitness Crazed
#46I've done Strong Lifts before in the past before and had good results (mainly with legs, squats went from just the bar to 225 lbs in 3 months), and I've tracked it all in a spreadsheet. I've always thought it would be a good idea if we can all publicly aggregate our tracked progress (for just squats, benchpress, deadlift, etc.) and see a collective chart of it so we can visualize how we compare to the average (and if we're doing something wrong). Of course, different body types and diets are factors, so filters may be applied (i.e. mesomorph body type, >3000 calories, etc.). Would anybody be interested in using something like that, in mobile/browser form?
Re: Fitness Crazed
#47I have trouble understanding the basis for articles like these. As far as it goes, asking which exercises might provide the best real-world gains is a sensible question, but the question of why a 40 yr old man wants to be able to push 235 lbs away from his chest when lying reclined is never even asked. Does he know why he wants this? From a biological perspective, a specimen might want to be able to do this to signal…
I started Starting Strength because I didn't want to be sedentary anymore. I thought I would maintain my weights after a few months, but I soon realized that it feels good to move weight and then more weight. The satisfying part is the challenge.
You should try and get a 150lb bench press and then see if you would want a 200lb bench press and then a 235lb bench press. You might be a "male specimen" that sees no logic to strength, but neither should you be dismissive of people that like to be strong. (Some are women, by the way.)
Re: Fitness Crazed
#48I have trouble understanding the basis for articles like these. As far as it goes, asking which exercises might provide the best real-world gains is a sensible question, but the question of why a 40 yr old man wants to be able to push 235 lbs away from his chest when lying reclined is never even asked. Does he know why he wants this? From a biological perspective, a specimen might want to be able to do this to signal…
Seconded. I genuinely don't understand the (seemingly recent) obsession with "getting big."
There are very strong reasons for wanting to lose weight and get fit, based on health reasons. I see absolutely no reason for a person working at a desk job to develop massive muscles which are literally only used in the gym.
Re: Fitness Crazed
#49I have trouble understanding the basis for articles like these. As far as it goes, asking which exercises might provide the best real-world gains is a sensible question, but the question of why a 40 yr old man wants to be able to push 235 lbs away from his chest when lying reclined is never even asked. Does he know why he wants this? From a biological perspective, a specimen might want to be able to do this to signal…
These days I subscribe to training functional strength as described in this article (Rippitoe and stronglifts 5x5 inspired)- mainly for day-to-day injury prevention in normal motions like reaching for high and low cabinets, helping friends move furniture into a house, and general injury prevention for participating in sports like mountain biking - I'm a 35 year old male.
Also I develop software so getting any kind of exercise and workout is important with all the desk-job health problems, so even without a "why bench 235?" I think this kind of strength is still a great value for general quality of life. You don't need a specific reason or goal for this to be good for you.
Looking good/feeling good are nice side-effects as well, and there's no better medicine than diet and exercise (for most people) for long-term better health over a sedentary life style.
That being said this article has been written before: http://www.mensjournal.com/magazine/everything-you-know-abou...
Edit - I should also add I am not trying to get huge, just maintain general strength and flexibility - currently squat 220, bench 175, press 105, row 170, deadlift 265. Body weight 180.
Re: Fitness Crazed
#50I have trouble understanding the basis for articles like these. As far as it goes, asking which exercises might provide the best real-world gains is a sensible question, but the question of why a 40 yr old man wants to be able to push 235 lbs away from his chest when lying reclined is never even asked. Does he know why he wants this? From a biological perspective, a specimen might want to be able to do this to signal…
Here are some papers (stuck behind a paywall, but conclusions are there), which show a correlation between mortality and strength. So regardless of the author's intentions, increasing your strength might actually increase your life expectancy.
http://www.bmj.com/content/337/bmj.a439
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17398228
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10795731
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16456196
PS: Obviously the question of causality remains contested. Are healthier people just stronger or do strong people get healthier?