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

Less gym time, same results: Why ‘lowering’ weights is all you need to do

ecu.edu.au

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 219 posts

Re: Less gym time, same results: Why ‘lowering’ weights is all you need to do

#111

Post by davidvarela_us »

freediver wrote: post #52

How effective are push-ups as an average Joe's muscle exercise?

Any exercise is better than no exercise. But in my experience, bodyweight training will not put you anywhere near the ballpark of size/strength that a good weight training program can.

I say this because I see a lot of impressive looking dudes selling calisthenics programs, but I heavily suspect that the lift weights and/or do steroids in addition to bodyweight programs.

I exclusively did bodyweight training during the pandemic and it kept me healthy and my physique definitely improved for the better. Once the gyms opened and I went back to weight training, my size/strength absolutely blew up from what it was before with no changes in diet/sleep/time spent training. I gained about 18 lbs of muscle in a pretty short amount of time and I suspect I can gain a good deal more once I dial in my diet and sleep.

Re: Less gym time, same results: Why ‘lowering’ weights is all you need to do

#112

Post by atchoo »

MichaelDickens wrote: post #100
trentgreene wrote: post #72

Hi, worth mentioning that you should explicitly ignore this advice if you’re lifting heavy deadlifts. Eventually you will get to a point on that exercise where your concentric pull can put up vastly more weight than you can safely lower to the ground in a slow manner. Above 3-4 plates and you probably should be dropping the weight. Maybe even less. Your lumbar will thank you.

> Eventually you will get to a point on that exercise where your concentric pull can put up vastly more weight than you can safely lower to the ground in a slow manner. I'm not particularly qualified to speak on this, but this does not match my experience. I can deadlift 455 lb with great difficulty, but I can lower 455 lb to the ground fairly easily. And I don't see any physiological reason why this would be true—if…

I think I'd agree with the OP, the eccentric is more precarious. Weakness on the pull and the bar slows/stops but there is still control, weakness on a slow lowering and the weight runs away from you breaking your form. When you are at 4+ plates then your strength on the day can be a little unpredictable and your 5 rep max can be lower than it was last week and you don't want to discover that in a precarious position.

It's like comparing driving up a steep hill vs. coasting down a hill with just the brake, a slight bump or misjudgement and things get hairy quick because gravity is compounding your mistakes.

Re: Less gym time, same results: Why ‘lowering’ weights is all you need to do

#113

Post by ehnto »

MichaelDickens wrote: post #100
trentgreene wrote: post #72

Hi, worth mentioning that you should explicitly ignore this advice if you’re lifting heavy deadlifts. Eventually you will get to a point on that exercise where your concentric pull can put up vastly more weight than you can safely lower to the ground in a slow manner. Above 3-4 plates and you probably should be dropping the weight. Maybe even less. Your lumbar will thank you.

> Eventually you will get to a point on that exercise where your concentric pull can put up vastly more weight than you can safely lower to the ground in a slow manner. I'm not particularly qualified to speak on this, but this does not match my experience. I can deadlift 455 lb with great difficulty, but I can lower 455 lb to the ground fairly easily. And I don't see any physiological reason why this would be true—if…

Gravity acts over time, if you are slowly lowering it you could be expriencing the same force practically as on the way up.

The reason you don't do it for powerlifting is because you're more likely to injure yourself after a max effort lift (like a one rep max lift in competition). Since you exerted maximally on the way up and may struggle controlling it on the way down it while exhausted. All the other compound lifts in powerlifting end at the finish of max exertion so don't have that issue.

If you are only training for general reasons you might not run into it, but if you are a powerlifting athlete doing 5, 3 or 1 rep sets for comp then this is good advice.

Re: Less gym time, same results: Why ‘lowering’ weights is all you need to do

#114

Post by nkozyra »

dehrmann wrote: post #108

> Using a dumbbell, Professor Nosaka recommends using two hands to help with the concentric (lifting weight) phase, before using one arm for the eccentric phase (lowering weight)... The two-hand approach just feels like a headache. There's a common trick people do to take advantage of how you can handle more weight in the eccentric phase of the motion. You "cheat" to get it up, then lower it controlled with strict fo…

Cheating used to be super common to focus on eccentric for a lot of exercises but it seems like it fell out of favor since I first started lifting.

There's also chains and other equipment to help in this regard but I've found that going 2x or 3x as slow as concentric increases difficulty a lot.

Re: Less gym time, same results: Why ‘lowering’ weights is all you need to do

#117

Post by davidvarela_us »

anonymouswacker wrote: post #94

Reminds me of the Blood Flow Restriction / Kaatsu method [0], which I've added in my own routine and had great results with lower weights and less pain. I regularly do BFR negatives and see great results, given I spend very little time in the gym. 0 - https://bengreenfieldlife.com/article/fitness-articles/worko...

Thanks for sharing this. I'm a huge nerd when it comes to optimizing training programs.

This seems like it could be as big of a hack as Zone 2 training [0] was when I discovered it. It is amazing how little we know about our bodies given that we all have one!

0: https://www.howardluksmd.com/zone-2-hr-training-live-longer-...

Re: Less gym time, same results: Why ‘lowering’ weights is all you need to do

#118

Post by missingrib »

pcthrowaway wrote: post #90
jakeinspace wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure but anyone who’s heavy would struggle climbing. Even truly athletic and flexible heavy athletes like football or basketball players.

There are professional climbers who are 'heavy'. Finger strength, overall strength, flexibility, coordination, balance, and technique all play a massive role as well. I don't know why the bodybuilders I've climbed with seem to be worse than overweight/obese people I've seen climbing for their first time, but I've had this observation as well.

>There are professional climbers who are 'heavy'.

Who? The heaviest I can honestly think of would be Chris Scharma, Magnus Midtbo, Jimmy Webb and maybe Jan Hojer, but all of them would be considered pretty skinny by normal standards. Scharma and Webb are probably around 6' 160-170 lbs, Jan is around 175 I think but he's 6'3", and Magnus is 5'8" and 158 lbs or so but has incredibly strong fingers.

Climbing is a strength to weight sport, so being heavier will almost always be worse than being lighter no matter what. It's why you don't see as many tall professional climbers as you would expect.

Re: Less gym time, same results: Why ‘lowering’ weights is all you need to do

#119

Post by Fricken »

tuatoru wrote: post #103
Fricken wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of these guys can do pullups all day, but they only train within a strict range of motion and they aren't necessarily any good at doing anything outside of that range. When I started climbing I could do 3 pullups, and now I can do 18 in a set. I don't train pull-ups, just climbing.

For good climbing, I'd have thought you need to be able to do muscle-ups (pullups that end with you balanced over the bar, pushing down to support yourself).

For some styles of climbing powerful muscle-up type dynamic movements are an effective way of solving a problem, especially in competetive indoor bouldering.

Climbing is adaptive, and usually there is more than one way to solve a problem, and one is encouraged to use their body any way they can to get through a section. Climbers learn to be resourceful with the assets they have.

Many elite climbers have distinctive trademark styles and are instantly tecognizeable just by how they move. However, points are not awarded for style.

Jan Hoyer is an outlier who posesses both a freakish abundance of power and span. He trained the muscle up to outrageous extremes.

Jan is the only climber to ever throw a 1-9 on the campus board. He performs many outrageous stupid climber tricks throughout this 8 minute video;

https://youtu.be/Ho_rzpQGrq8

Re: Less gym time, same results: Why ‘lowering’ weights is all you need to do

#120

Post by bavell »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #92
davidvarela_us wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly disagree. Weight training is one of the best gifts you can give your body. It keeps you healthy and event prevents injury if done correctly. What you did wrong was not weight training but following an unbalanced training regimen. No judgement there, I was guilty of the same when I was younger. I think younger/uninformed lifters tend to "ego lift" and focus on size over aspects of physical training. It is e…

AthleanX is a fake-natty idiot who has made a meme out of himself by giving consistently self-conflicting and nonsensical advice (and by using fake weights in his videos lol…). Kneesovertoesguy has great advice for joint health, but nobody should pay any attention to AthleanX.

This is just FUD. I've learned a ton from AthleanX in the past few years and love his no-nonsense approach. Especially great are all the corrective exercises he includes for posture improvement and injury prevention. The worst thing I could criticize him for is his clickbait Youtube titles - the content is solid though so idgaf.
Post reply on HN