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Why Exercise Is a Miracle Drug

derekthompson.org

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Re: Why Exercise Is a Miracle Drug

#161

Post by toss1 »

navane wrote: post #95
raddan wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was struck this past week to the extent that even a mild physical impairment can cause. I overdid it last week on a run and I spent this week nursing a swollen knee. What kind of exercise to do without involving my knee? I lift weights sometimes, but I can’t do that every day, and it also does not give me the mood altering effect that a good run does. I was drawing a blank glumly in an armchair when my wife suggest…

Cycling is really good as it doesn't strain joints, merely gently lubricates it. I broke my knee and was put on the bike real quick, as soon as I had enough mobility to make a full round, for rehabilitation.

Yup, +1 for cycling! For me, it's some ankle cartridge destruction from an old fracture that finally put a halt to my formerly extensive trail & XC running & recreational racing. But cycling is coming back to the core of my exercise program (Mountain/trails: really miss road biking but traffic & drivers' attitudes seem to hazardous now). And not expensive either - plenty of bikes on Craigslist good enough to not give you bad habits and still get good exercise, even decade+ old race bikes.

It is really all about working with what capabilities you still have, and maximizing those. Even that may provide enough healing & fitness to get back to a bit of previously constrained activities.

Re: Why Exercise Is a Miracle Drug

#162

Post by rootusrootus »

aio2 wrote: post #148
datameta wrote: post #26

Walking is exercise. Never forget that. Consistency over sporadic herculean efforts always wins out.

Walking is definitely better than sitting down all day, but that shouldn't be the goal. Weight training and more intense cardio are more important.

I walk every morning and hit 80-80% of my max heart rate for parts of it. Walking can be quite good exercise, unless you live somewhere very flat. My V02 max continues to climb steadily 0.1/week like clockwork, and no running yet. Granted, it's got a ways to go, it's just barely above average, but still, walking is working.

Re: Why Exercise Is a Miracle Drug

#163

Post by star-glider »

kccqzy wrote: post #145
busymom0 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The best way to make a happy, healthy person into an unhappy, unhealthy person is to keep them lonely and keep them still. That's pretty much what was done during the pandemic unfortunately.

There were no restrictions on running or biking in the pandemic. Quite the opposite. Because indoor entertainment venues like bars weren't available, I saw way more people embracing the outdoors.

Beaches, parks, and playgrounds were routinely closed. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/01/nyregion/coronavirus-nyc-... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/01/us/newsom-beach-closing-c...

Re: Why Exercise Is a Miracle Drug

#164

Post by retrac »

samiv wrote: post #103
tomalaci wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steroids. You will be growing muscle while sitting on a couch, even better than someone that naturally trains. However, you very likely will develop asymetries or other weird complications because you didnt properly work out. My point is that, even though we might find even more ways to improve/modify our bodies, they will come with slew of risks that are just not worth it if you can achieve it naturally. On another…

Actually, that's not how steroids work. It's a common misconception that one can take "roids" and just sit on the sofa while munching on potato chips and get shredded and pack on muscle but in reality what the steroids do are to move ones natural limitations further away thus enabling larger muscle mass than naturally. But this still requires one to put in the work, i.e. the stimulus to trigger the muscle growth and…

They do work that way. Lots of studies show gains in muscle mass even with no excercise when people are on steroids. Consider average men who never excercise vs average women who never excercise. The men will have more muscle. That's what testosterone does, among other things.

That's part of why steroids were and sometimes still are used medically for people with cancer and other wasting diseases. It makes them eat more (they're usually strongly appetite inducing) but they also just help develop muscles even if sedentary.

(Of course it would be far more effective to also engage in high intensity resistance training.)

Re: Why Exercise Is a Miracle Drug

#165

Post by rootusrootus »

It's difficult to overstate how much better my life has become after starting tirzepatide, consequently losing weight, and steadily increasing exercise as I've gotten lighter. If I were the richest guy in the world, I'd negotiate with Eli Lilly to make tirzepatide (or maybe the forthcoming orforglipron) basically free for anyone who wants it.

Re: Why Exercise Is a Miracle Drug

#166

Post by toss1 »

begueradj wrote: post #59
bob1029 wrote: post #19

> The author Daniel Lieberman has put it well: Exercise is healthy and rewarding even though it’s something we never evolved to do. We have ostensibly spent much of our evolutionary budget on the ability to run ~indefinitely no matter what. Compared to virtually any other animal, we can vastly outperform them in the most arduous environments. Our bodies are mechanically optimized for running at every level. We have c…

> Compared to virtually any other animal, we can vastly outperform them in the most arduous environments. Our bodies are mechanically optimized for running at every level. I'm not sure from where you got this because any documentary/book/article and simply real life experiences related to this subject states the opposite (take a common animal such as a dog as an example)

This is specifically about long distance running, where basically no animal can keep up.

A key hunan advantage was persistence hunting - track and run after a deer (or similar) prey. Tgey can burst outrun the human, burt hemshe keeps on running, eventually, often after double-digit kilometers, the human can just trot up to the exhausted nimal and kill it. That's what the tendons and evaporative cooling do.

There's a famous Uktramarathon race, iirc, the Western States 100, 100 miles in the Sierra mountains that was a horse race, until some people started running without the horse, and winning.

Re: Why Exercise Is a Miracle Drug

#167

Post by kbutler »

derektank wrote: post #74
Xenoamorphous wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much of that is due to only using two limbs? Which also makes us slower I guess.

There is actually some evidence that, in a sprint, humans might be able to run faster on all 4 limbs than on 2 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27446911/

The article was published in 2016, and the authors extrapolated from 7 data points (!) over about 7 years of progress in the world record. This is obviously insufficient to project 30 years into the future.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27446911/#&gid=article-figur...

That record progressed

  2008 18.58
  2015 15.71
2.87 seconds over 7 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenichi_Ito_(athlete)

If we check in on more recent progress since then, we find the current record is 15.66 set in 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/20241222175947/https://www.guinn...

Another 7 years, for an improvement of 0.05 seconds, or about 850 years of linear improvement to reach Bolt's 9.58 seconds.

Anyone wanting to bet on beating Bolt by 2048?

Re: Why Exercise Is a Miracle Drug

#168

Post by maccard »

chickenzzzzu wrote: post #77
maccard wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exercising wrong is more likely to cause you injury than either of those things. Do a bit, and do it carefully

Such platitudes are legitimately useless as nearly everyone who injured themselves while exercising immediately sees the error in their ways, but that doesn't help them undo the permanent damage they've done

Pretty much the worst thing you can do exercising is an ACL tear or an Achilles tendon rupture. Both of these are absolutely awful injuries to pick up (whoever designed the human body really phoned it in at the knee joint IMO). Both are usually solved with surgery, and will massively impact your life for 9-12 months. But the real fix to those injuries is to get back exercising again. If Tom Brady can play NFL football after an ACL tear and surgery, you can probably go back running with the right advice.

The only way to avoid injury is to not use your body at all but your muscles will atrophy and you’ll end up injured _anyway_ that way.

Re: Why Exercise Is a Miracle Drug

#169

Post by krembo »

ssl-3 wrote: post #143
krembo wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've traveled to some of the poorest parts of the world. I try to donate regularly to the less fortunate. Yet, I've never felt guilt. What does guilt have to do with admitting the world is a cruel place?

The word "faith" is sufficient to describe the discordance here. A person cannot be reasoned out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.

I believe you are misunderstanding empathy. Putting yourself in the shoe of the other and feeling his pain does not necessarily leads to guilt.

Re: Why Exercise Is a Miracle Drug

#170

Post by maxerickson »

pmarreck wrote: post #30
bob1029 wrote: post #19

> The author Daniel Lieberman has put it well: Exercise is healthy and rewarding even though it’s something we never evolved to do. We have ostensibly spent much of our evolutionary budget on the ability to run ~indefinitely no matter what. Compared to virtually any other animal, we can vastly outperform them in the most arduous environments. Our bodies are mechanically optimized for running at every level. We have c…

> Our bodies are mechanically optimized for running at every level My flat feet (and those of my mom, and those of one of her parents, ad infinitum) would beg to differ lol Also, most of the energy our bodies burn to run just turns into heat, it's all very inefficient... even if sweating itself works pretty well, and even if our heat tolerance is high assuming we have a source of fresh water

Most energy used for any work (in the physics sense) ends up as heat, eventually.
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