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Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

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Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

#141

Post by apinstein »

bmelton wrote: post #98
ilovecomputers wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, don't eat boxed foods or foods that went through multiple stages of processing. In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan spells it out very well, but I'll just give you my simple definition: Eating healthy is as close to eating dirt without actually eating dirt. Produce, grain, cheese, 1/2 pound to a pound of meat a week[1], and whatever else Marion Nestle recommends[1.5]. Just imagine what primitive man would eat.…

The flip side to the caveman diet is that 1) it wasn't particularly planned. They eat what they could, when they could, and 2) There was a pretty major exercise component that went along with it, in that if they didn't hunt / fish / forage, they died of starvation. The main issue with obesity is that people can easily afford to be obese and not too significantly impact their lives (aside from all health and social ma…

Actually, people cannot afford to be obese. They are massively subsidized by others in terms of health care expenses. Healthy people and other taxpayers are footing the bill.

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

#142

Post by xiaoma »

gexla wrote: post #132
xiaoma wrote: post #117

The author clearly equates fitness with strength, and some of his claims are way off. Here's one: "...maintaining cardiovascular fitness doesn’t really take much more than breathing uncomfortably hard for about 20 minutes, three times a week" As a former competitive runner, I've read hundreds of studies and abstracts about improving various cardio-vasuclar metrics. 20 minutes, three times a week is barely enough to g…

You should quote the entire paragraph. "Cardio 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…

I completely agree with you (and the article) that free weights are the way to go over machine weights.

However, I completely disagree that weights are more important for general fitness than cardio. This was one of the primary claims of the article, and it wasn't backed up in any meaningful way. The part I quoted was just one illustration of the the author's attitude. His entire focus is on strength, not fitness.

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

#143

Post by ajscherer »

jrockway wrote: post #65
mmaunder wrote: post #43

This is a one sided view of fitness. e.g. there is zero focus on cardio. Would be interesting to see one of these guys do a light 5 mile run. Look into real world training: running, hard hiking with a pack, mountain biking, swimming/surfing. These types of exercise have been the most rewarding for me in terms of skeletal, muscle and cardio fitness. The only thing I agree with in the article is that cardio machines in…

The only thing I agree with in the article is that cardio machines in the gym are a waste of time. Not sure this is really true or that it matters. A 5 mile run on the treadmill at an x minute pace is the same as a 5 mile run outside at an x minute pace. Advantages of the treadmill include being able to keep a given pace without making any particular mental effort. Advantages of being outside is that it's not boring.

No particular mental effort beyond that needed to abstain from committing suicide due to the extreme monotony of a treadmill run.

That said, the treadmill can be a fine tool for training. It allows you to totally ignore weather conditions, and actually for speed workouts it can have the advantage of forcing you to stay on pace. A common rule of thumb is that a 1% incline on the treadmill compensates for the lack of wind resistance.

I can't stand the damn things myself, but there are runners, including some guys I know personally, who train exclusively using the treadmill and still do well in races up to marathon distance (I've never heard of any ultramarathoners who train exclusively on the treadmill).

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

#144

Post by JoelMcCracken »

desigooner wrote: post #88
NickPollard wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not going to argue that what you describe isn't good, but 'nature intended us to' isn't a particularly solid argument. You could argue that nature intended us to die from Malaria by the age of 30, I'm very glad that for most of the world that's no longer the case.

That's precisely why the "nature intended us to" argument doesn't really work for me when I hear people trying to convince me to try the Paleo diet. Whatever the benefits might be (besides making the author of those books a good chunk of money), they can be garnered by other means. What I hate even more is when a few devotees of such diets go on a slant about vegetarianism/veganism etc. etc.

I went from being a vegetarian to the paleo diet (or, actually, the "primal" variant). I thought about making this really long, but instead, realize that primal/paleo people use the primitive human as a model, a "common sense" starting base, and then apply liberal amounts of scientific knowledge to get a working solution.

It has changed my life. When I follow the diet, it has been pretty impossible not to lose weight. That's with eating as many eggs, as much butter, and as much natural, delicious, other whole foods as I can stuff myself with.

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

#145

Post by xiaoma »

scotty79 wrote: post #126
xiaoma wrote: post #117

The author clearly equates fitness with strength, and some of his claims are way off. Here's one: "...maintaining cardiovascular fitness doesn’t really take much more than breathing uncomfortably hard for about 20 minutes, three times a week" As a former competitive runner, I've read hundreds of studies and abstracts about improving various cardio-vasuclar metrics. 20 minutes, three times a week is barely enough to g…

You don't feel fit if you can run 5k but you struggle to move a fridge or feel strain while lifting up you kid or your woman.

Speak for yourself. I'm a bit more evolved than that sort of attitude.

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

#147

Post by jules »

mzl wrote: post #85
jules wrote: post #60

[citation needed] Here's another anecdote: No lifting weights, only running & cycling and lately swimming. Pretty much the opposite of what the article is arguing. Since I started this I'm doing I'm doing fairly well, six pack included. I went to the gym once, and saw bulked up guys getting 5 pull ups. So I tried that and could easily do 30. Lifting weights may make you look like a bodybuilder, but are you really fit…

You do realize that the bulked up guys probably weigh a lot more than you do so the number of achieved pull-ups is not an interesting measure? The really bulked-up ones most likely train for muscle mass, not for any useful activity.

Sure, they do weigh a lot more than I do. Isn't that part of the fair comparison? You don't give a cyclist or runner a backpack with weights in it because it's "unfair" that he weighs less than the other cyclist/runner. These guys were probably training pull ups every week at least, so it's on their home territory. Yet their training is less effective than running & cycling. For the vast majority of activities, performance relative to body weight is the interesting measure, not absolute weight lifted. I'm just saying that if lifting weights is so much better than other forms of training, why weren't they able to do pull ups much better?

My second point is that yes, this is an anecdote. So is the article. Don't take either as a scientific inquiry.

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

#148

Post by tlear »

keeptrying wrote: post #83
mmaunder wrote: post #43

This is a one sided view of fitness. e.g. there is zero focus on cardio. Would be interesting to see one of these guys do a light 5 mile run. Look into real world training: running, hard hiking with a pack, mountain biking, swimming/surfing. These types of exercise have been the most rewarding for me in terms of skeletal, muscle and cardio fitness. The only thing I agree with in the article is that cardio machines in…

I once trained for a 5k race by doing just squats. I beat most of my "cardio" friends. When you start squatting above your BW then you'll be just as out of breath after 8 reps as after a full-on 5k run. Your heart will beat just as fast, and youll be sweating about the same. Also squats will improve your bone density. Don't be fooled that suffers like Laird get their physique from surfing. All of them dead lift and s…

Interestingly enough some former USSR long distance runners used squats as a form of substitute during winter training (if it was too cold to do long outdoor runs).

Thing is that 5k is really really really short distance for a human. I honestly can not be bothered with gym anymore so I just run about 10k a day with longer weekend runs, 5 times a week.

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

#149

Post by jshen »

JoelMcCracken wrote: post #139
xiaoma wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only that, but our "nature" has changed considerably since those times. Evolution has been far faster, likely 100 times faster the past several thousand years than it was before civilization. 15,000 years ago, nobody was lactose tolerant, nobody had blue eyes and who knows what else was different.

That isn't evolution, it is a diversification of our genetics. There are lots of things that many humans are intolerant to which would have probably been a really big weakness in the past. Humans are no longer subject to natural selection. There needs to be significant culling pressure for real evolution to happen.

"Humans are no longer subject to natural selection."

What? Are you sure? Because we most certainly are subject to natural selection.

Re: Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

#150

Post by xiaoma »

JoelMcCracken wrote: post #139
xiaoma wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only that, but our "nature" has changed considerably since those times. Evolution has been far faster, likely 100 times faster the past several thousand years than it was before civilization. 15,000 years ago, nobody was lactose tolerant, nobody had blue eyes and who knows what else was different.

That isn't evolution, it is a diversification of our genetics. There are lots of things that many humans are intolerant to which would have probably been a really big weakness in the past. Humans are no longer subject to natural selection. There needs to be significant culling pressure for real evolution to happen.

It is evolution, and it speeds up with higher populations. As for natural selection, consider that only small changes in allele frequencies add up quickly through the generations. Also, sexual selection is very much a force.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/33322719/Cochran-Gregory-10-000-ye... http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/11/science/11gene.html http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/12/humans-evolving/

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