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My First 80 Days of VR for Exercise

nathanlippi.com

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Re: My First 80 Days of VR for Exercise

#161

Post by pastage »

zfnmxt wrote: post #155
Kiro wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also build muscles in VR training and I've done a lot of stronglift so I know what progression is like. Pistol Whip is great for building leg muscles. Imagine doing that one more squat you didn't think you had in you when in the squat rack. In Pistol Whip you do that 20 times without noticing. You don't need progressive overload to build muscles. High rep sets should not be underestimated.

The lower body musculature is too large to be effectively stressed by bodyweight exercise in people fostering any decent level of fitness, i.e., bodyweight squats don't make you stronger. Just because an exercise is hard or makes you sore doesn't mean it's effective.

I've only ever done body weight and know that get more muscle when training. I think you are doing premature optimizing. I know nothing about exercise theory but I know what gets me fat and what makes me strong, I do not care about what is optimal since I do fun things for exercise, not for strength.

Do you think this is the difference, the mindset we have in our training.

Re: My First 80 Days of VR for Exercise

#162

Post by Ataraxiaist »

zfnmxt wrote: post #120

VR exercise is a remarkably poor allocation of time (if your interest is physical fitness, efficiently). It also leaves out the most important adaptation of all: strength. Effective training (not exercising) requires a progression model. That is, on some time frame you must exceed your performance at the end of that time frame when compared to the beginning of the time frame. This must be done in some measurable way-…

The fitness industry is an endless string of fashions and fads to get people motivated to workout and convince themselves that this new method is the one they will actually do.

The novelty of VR aerobics will have the shelf life of Tae Bo, Jazzercise, on and on. I have seen more variations on this theme than the Fast & Furious franchise.

At least when you get sick of the workouts you still have the VR headset that can do other things instead of a rowing machine or treadmill that collects dust.

I even have a decent home gym but go to the commercial gym 90% of the time because working out at home is boring and demotivating. You can't replicate the stimulation of the gym at home. The ritual of going, the other people, not to mention the variety of physical stimulus.

Re: My First 80 Days of VR for Exercise

#163

Post by Tade0 »

zfnmxt wrote: post #125
hombre_fatal wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) The best exercise is the one you do. 2) You are too dismissive, hand waving/wringing behind the word “effective”. You don’t need to min/max and obsess over progression and optimization to get good exercise. I’m jacked just doing push-ups, pull-ups, and body weight squats here and there. I don’t count them, I just do some, but I do some every day. Where people fail is the daily consistency and making the lifestyle…

> You don’t need to min/max and obsess over progression and optimization to get good exercise. You're right, but I'm not talking about exercise, I'm talking about training. You do need to "obsess" over progression if you intend to progress. > I’m jacked just doing push-ups, pull-ups, and squats here and there. You almost certainly are not. Having low bodyfat is not the same thing as being "jacked". Weight/height? How…

> My argument is that these things are highly related. That is, lifting effectively makes lifting consistently much easier--if you're seeing continued, measurable progress (every time you lift your numbers go up--how exciting!)

I've found that I don't experience this at all. I went from being extremely weak to benching as much as I weighed, but once the college program that I participated in was done I didn't continue, because for me it was always a chore and remained so.

Nowadays I swim, because it's enjoyable for the sake of it. Also I have a small child now, so most of my daily exercise just sort of happens.

I have friends who enjoy this progress, pushing themselves to do more etc. - I can't relate to this at all.

Bottom line is that there's a chunk of the population that doesn't feel this at all and it's better that they exercise using VR than not at all.

Re: My First 80 Days of VR for Exercise

#164

Post by paperpunk »

Simon_O_Rourke wrote: post #159

> I wake up at 5:30, and do some deep work; at 7:15 an alarm goes off, which reminds me to fire up my Oculus Quest and start my VR workout. Not being bad about it, but if you find a gym that's open at 5:30 it's going to be pretty empty, that's if COVID worries are keeping the OP out of these environments. > I clear out my workout space and make sure my cats aren't in the main play area. No wife and kids huh? I don't…

The author does say they have a wife. But I know what you mean – I took my Quest to my sister's over Christmas and there were many near-misses with a two-year old not understanding the adult is not playing with them. If I had young kids I would probably want to put a lock on the door for when I'm going to use it.

Re: My First 80 Days of VR for Exercise

#165

Post by waterproof »

zfnmxt wrote: post #137
Broken_Hippo wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Continued habits are not formed by discipline, they are formed by finding something you enjoy in the habit; at least some component of the habit itself must become compelling. You keep applying this to exercise, though, and obviously you have gotten enjoyment from it that others don't - but then you are putting down what other people manage to do. I don't care how much I could lift, nor do I think that I need more st…

> but then you are putting down what other people manage to do. This is a bizarre argument to me. If I argue that Rust is better than Pearl am I "putting down" Pearl programmers? There is no personal attack here--I firmly believe the methods I outlined in my post are superior. If you cannot find it in your being to find something enjoyable in that method that's unfortunate and if that means you have to do something e…

> If I argue that Rust is better than Pearl am I "putting down" Pearl programmers?

Only if you come in telling the Perl programmers that they can’t possibly have written useful code. Which is what i hear when zmmmmm says

> I actually started bulking up in my upper arms for the first time in my life.

and you say

> No you didn’t

Or when Kiro says,

> Pistol Whip is great for building leg muscles

and you say

> bodyweight squats don't make you stronger.

To give you the benefit of the doubt, maybe you are using some very specific definition of the word strong. But it’s not the definition that the rest of us are using. Body weight exercise can absolutely help folks reach all kinds of fitness and life goals, which is all we’re trying to say here.

Plus as some folks have pointed out, there’s no reason you can’t wear some weights in VR either.

So yeah, it’s fine to extol the virtues of weight training, but you’re sounding to me like a Rust programmer saying Perl can’t possibly be used to save time or practice your problem solving.

Re: My First 80 Days of VR for Exercise

#166

Post by pastage »

zfnmxt wrote: post #137
Broken_Hippo wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Continued habits are not formed by discipline, they are formed by finding something you enjoy in the habit; at least some component of the habit itself must become compelling. You keep applying this to exercise, though, and obviously you have gotten enjoyment from it that others don't - but then you are putting down what other people manage to do. I don't care how much I could lift, nor do I think that I need more st…

> but then you are putting down what other people manage to do. This is a bizarre argument to me. If I argue that Rust is better than Pearl am I "putting down" Pearl programmers? There is no personal attack here--I firmly believe the methods I outlined in my post are superior. If you cannot find it in your being to find something enjoyable in that method that's unfortunate and if that means you have to do something e…

Yes you are puttning people down, even thick skinned Perl programmers, you do not show perspective. Most people will not care and just ignore you, the ones who argue with will at best have an interest in you explaining what you mean in a meaningfull way.

Responding with "well that's just your opinion man" is tiresome. You need to understand who you are having a discussing with. I know no one who cares about strength outside the training nerds, if that is your argument that strength is important and you need to prioritze it. Then you have to be really humble, and show how that can be. Do not say Perl sucks to make that point.

Re: My First 80 Days of VR for Exercise

#167

Post by multjoy »

zfnmxt wrote: post #155
Kiro wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also build muscles in VR training and I've done a lot of stronglift so I know what progression is like. Pistol Whip is great for building leg muscles. Imagine doing that one more squat you didn't think you had in you when in the squat rack. In Pistol Whip you do that 20 times without noticing. You don't need progressive overload to build muscles. High rep sets should not be underestimated.

The lower body musculature is too large to be effectively stressed by bodyweight exercise in people fostering any decent level of fitness, i.e., bodyweight squats don't make you stronger. Just because an exercise is hard or makes you sore doesn't mean it's effective.

>bodyweight squats don't make you stronger

Complete nonsense.

Re: My First 80 Days of VR for Exercise

#168

Post by zfnmxt »

multjoy wrote: post #167
zfnmxt wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lower body musculature is too large to be effectively stressed by bodyweight exercise in people fostering any decent level of fitness, i.e., bodyweight squats don't make you stronger. Just because an exercise is hard or makes you sore doesn't mean it's effective.

>bodyweight squats don't make you stronger Complete nonsense.

I should've written more explicitly: bodyweight squats don't make people who harbor a decent level of fitness stronger. Like any novel stimulus, they will make you stronger for a short while and then it will stop once you've adapted.

Re: My First 80 Days of VR for Exercise

#169

Post by multjoy »

Ataraxiaist wrote: post #162
zfnmxt wrote: post #120

VR exercise is a remarkably poor allocation of time (if your interest is physical fitness, efficiently). It also leaves out the most important adaptation of all: strength. Effective training (not exercising) requires a progression model. That is, on some time frame you must exceed your performance at the end of that time frame when compared to the beginning of the time frame. This must be done in some measurable way-…

The fitness industry is an endless string of fashions and fads to get people motivated to workout and convince themselves that this new method is the one they will actually do. The novelty of VR aerobics will have the shelf life of Tae Bo, Jazzercise, on and on. I have seen more variations on this theme than the Fast & Furious franchise. At least when you get sick of the workouts you still have the VR headset that ca…

Other people are the reason I don't go to the gym (I'll make an exception for colleagues at the work gym because I can expect them to be respectful). The ritual of going is a pain in the arse because that's time I don't have.

>You can't replicate the stimulation of the gym at home

What works for you doesn't work for other people, which seems to be the one thing in this thread that the typical HN denizen forgets.

Any exercise is good exercise. Cardio, which somehow seems to be a dirty word here, is vital to good health and longevity and is the sort of exercise that leaping around with a VR headset is geared towards (and if you doubt the efficacy of computer based training, there's an entire ecosystem of cyclists that would take issue with that).

Re: My First 80 Days of VR for Exercise

#170

Post by zfnmxt »

pastage wrote: post #161
zfnmxt wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lower body musculature is too large to be effectively stressed by bodyweight exercise in people fostering any decent level of fitness, i.e., bodyweight squats don't make you stronger. Just because an exercise is hard or makes you sore doesn't mean it's effective.

I've only ever done body weight and know that get more muscle when training. I think you are doing premature optimizing. I know nothing about exercise theory but I know what gets me fat and what makes me strong, I do not care about what is optimal since I do fun things for exercise, not for strength. Do you think this is the difference, the mindset we have in our training.

> what makes me strong

How do you know what makes you strong? That is, how do you measure it?

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