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Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie (2011)

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Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie (2011)

#101

Post by jimbokun »

Anyone swim?

My kids joined a swim team, so I decided to try it as a work out (already had a membership at a gym with a pool).

I never swam as a workout before. I could barely do 500 meters when I started, switching up strokes (mostly free with my sad approximations of breast, fly, and back), having to stop and catch my breath often.

Now I'm at 600, have to stop much less often, and see some upper body development. I feel like swimming fits into the "muscle endurance" column from the article. I had just recently told someone swimming is like "upper body cardio".

So I'm curious if anyone else reading this swims and how you think it compares to other exercise regimens.

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie (2011)

#102

Post by dredmorbius »

malbs wrote: post #51

This is one of the best fitness articles I've read. Of course, that's me suffering from confirmation bias, because in 3 years of being on a health kick, I came to the same conclusions after talking to various people with a similar interest. My progression went:- Cycling -> Running -> Machines -> Body Weight Exercises -> Discovering Rippetoe/SS -> Barbell (Power Rack) The barbell is the king, and the great thing is in…

Not an identical progression, but pretty close.

And while we're talking about cycling, you're familiar with the bone-loss issues (which if you're lifting you're addressing nicely)?

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/feb/16/health/he-cycling16

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie (2011)

#103

Post by analog »

dbecker wrote: post #94
analog wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being 'little-girl weak' after some time following a regime at a commercial gym sort of is evidence. And squatting 40lbs definitely is little-girl weak.

His claim at that point is that raw strength is more useful for general fitness and injury prevention than what he was doing before (which was stability ball training). While his poor squat performance shows that his stability ball workout wasn't building raw strength, it's quite possible that doing squats wouldn't improve his balance. So which has the biggest benefits for injury prevention? The article presents no e…

"he had a gift for building the injury-proof athlete and for reconstructing bodies badly broken on the field of play"

And the article then goes on to mention several elite athletes that have been able to return to competition at the highest levels after using strength training to rebuild their bodies.

Seems pretty solid to me.

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie (2011)

#104

Post by kristianp »

rayiner wrote: post #40

Working with free weights is amazing. After college I decided to get in shape and spent some time doing this: http://stronglifts.com/stronglifts-5x5-beginner-strength-tra... . It's just one of many perfectly good programs you can find on the internet, it just has the advantage of being free and pretty simple to follow. What's really shocking about lifting free weights is how little time it takes to stay "acceptably f…

That "5x5" reminds me of this old article from Tim Ferriss' blog. I followed that back then and certainly improved my strength.

http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2008/12/18/pavel-8020-p...

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie (2011)

#105

Post by vertr »

subwindow wrote: post #66

I 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…

Try getting your clothes tailored if you can afford it.

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie (2011)

#106

Post by adam »

IgorPartola wrote: post #30

I went to a "big box" type gym in January 2012 and hired a staff trainer. I told her that I wanted to lose about 20 lb, get stronger, and start running in mud runs. She started me off with basic body circuit training, working with her once a week and doing 3-5 more workouts the rest of the days. During this period I also watched my calorie intake. By May, I reached my goal on all three accounts, so she switched me to…

I'm curious how often you worked in runs to this workout? Did you ever go to 2-a-days or did you just run on your lifting off days?

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie (2011)

#107

Post by vertr »

gbog wrote: post #57

This article is currently top1 of HN home. It relates with some male's obsessions with their bodies, but has nothing to feed to one's intellectual curiosity. Flagged.

What to Submit On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

The fact that it is on top demonstrates that it is doing the trick.

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie (2011)

#108

Post by dredmorbius »

jimbokun wrote: post #101

Anyone swim? My kids joined a swim team, so I decided to try it as a work out (already had a membership at a gym with a pool). I never swam as a workout before. I could barely do 500 meters when I started, switching up strokes (mostly free with my sad approximations of breast, fly, and back), having to stop and catch my breath often. Now I'm at 600, have to stop much less often, and see some upper body development. I…

Please read the article.

I've swum for several decades. It's a good form of cardiovascular training. It's also very much a skill sport that's difficult to pick up in later life -- your entire workout distance is a small portion of my warm-up routine (workouts run 3k - 6k meters).

The specific part of the article you want to pay attention to is the training goal matrix (http://archive.mensjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/picture-21...). Swimming does not load your muscles at 40-60% of your maximum. For an utterly untrained individual you'll see some development as the result of doing virtually anything, however that progress will max out very quickly.

Any serious competitive swimmer (national / international / Olympic level) is doing a considerable amount of strength training in addition to their pool work. The same goes for athletes in any other field. While there may be adaptations to limit total mass gains for some (long-distance marathoners and cyclists tend to have low bodyweights), there absolutely is strength training.

If you want to gain muscle, lift. If you want to get better at swimming, invest in a stroke clinic and join a masters team.

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie (2011)

#109

Post by malbs »

dredmorbius wrote: post #102
malbs wrote: post #51

This is one of the best fitness articles I've read. Of course, that's me suffering from confirmation bias, because in 3 years of being on a health kick, I came to the same conclusions after talking to various people with a similar interest. My progression went:- Cycling -> Running -> Machines -> Body Weight Exercises -> Discovering Rippetoe/SS -> Barbell (Power Rack) The barbell is the king, and the great thing is in…

Not an identical progression, but pretty close. And while we're talking about cycling, you're familiar with the bone-loss issues (which if you're lifting you're addressing nicely)? http://articles.latimes.com/2009/feb/16/health/he-cycling16

Thanks for the link, good article that I shall pass on to some of my "cycling only" buddies.
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