171–180 of 189 posts
This could get far more mileage with people by saying "activity" instead of "exercise." It is amazing how much people can get out of a simple walk around the house. Make it out and around the neighborhood, and you start getting absurdly good results.
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I'm not over 60, yet, and I feel there are likely many, myself included, who don't know what a "set of full squats" is, exactly.. when you recommend such things could you at least say what that is thanks?
A "set" probably refers to 5 or more repetitions per set, so 3 sets are 3*5+ repetitions of squats. A "full" squat probably means to go so low that your butt goes below your knees.
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I do wonder how many people do not take care of the basics and instead go for anti-depressants and Ozempic. Bear in mind that for many people therapies like SSRIs and weight loss medications (or even counselling/therapy) can get them into the right mental and physical place to start doing more exercise and eat better. It's easy to advise people to eat well and exercise, but it can be a bit like telling a miserable pe…
I've never suffered from a mental illness, so I'm genuinely curious; is exercise not ever used as a prescription for depression? Physical therapy is a thing, so it can be a prescription in some cases, no?
The problem is that in the US no doctor is going to do that because no insurance company will pay for it. In the US even people who have serious injuries and need physical therapy to recover properly from them often can't get their insurance to pay for physical therapy or to pay for enough of it (for example insurance might only cover 3 sessions when they need 12)
Insurance companies would rather have doctors print out a a few sheets of paper that kind of explain several exercises (maybe with a couple black and white pictures if you're lucky) and then expect the patients to figure it all out on their own at home, in the exact same environment they have been in, surrounded by distractions, and with no one to help them which leads to poor compliance and zero data to give back to the doctor.
Insurance companies are criminally stupid in this sense. They'd rather not pay for things that would make people healthier like physical therapy, preventative medicine, medical tests, or even gym memberships, even when by not doing those things it will clearly end up costing them more down the road.
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Agreed. I've always struggled with intense structured exercise. Instead I walk quickly, park at the far end of lots, run up the stairs instead of the elevator, do some jumping jacks while waiting for the microwave, and lots of small things like that and it seems to work. You can get a lot of exercise minutes and increased heart rate out of doing routine activities with gusto. Admittedly, it's not so good for building…
You only need a 20ish pound set of weights to build muscle, oddly. Don't even have to spend a ton of time on it. Can do a basic set of curls/whatever while cooking breakfast. Body weight exercises feel like they should be even easier to do, but realistically are a lot harder. Pushups, are free and can be done anywhere, sure; but are not a place to start at.
Eh, you can do almost anything with anything at a sufficient intensity frequently enough that you'll build muscle, and you definitely should, but I just feel like the more important thing is to find a good feedback cycle. Everyone is a little different, some people end up liking calisthenics or climbing or hiking or a combination of them, some people like the gym or free weights at home, but you gotta engage with it enough to have a serious possibility of either feeling results or other rewards, or lack thereof enough to move onto another idea.
If you don't see or feel results at the gym in the first month, if you set yourself up right you might meet someone to chat with and that may help spur you to keep going regardless.
If you don't feel results hiking after your first time, you've at least had an outdoor adventure. You may still have no motivation, try the other idea, go swimming whatever, but there are at least some other qualities present that help reinforce the desire to do the activity.
Eventually, you might find that your new default mode of operation in every other facet of life becomes activity first rather than something to fit in just during breakfast. At that point, it's harder to not work out or get activity than the reverse. 3 days go by and it feels odd that you've not done anything demanding in a while, and although it takes effort, it becomes easy enough to maintain long term after a certain threshold.
I'm using "you" in the general sense here, and otherwise agree with you, I just think the easiest and most private activities tend to reduce your surface area for discovering other ancillary benefits.
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You only need a 20ish pound set of weights to build muscle, oddly. Don't even have to spend a ton of time on it. Can do a basic set of curls/whatever while cooking breakfast. Body weight exercises feel like they should be even easier to do, but realistically are a lot harder. Pushups, are free and can be done anywhere, sure; but are not a place to start at.
> You only need a 20ish pound set of weights to build muscle, oddly. Don't even have to spend a ton of time on it. Can do a basic set of curls/whatever while cooking breakfast. Eh, you can do almost anything with anything at a sufficient intensity frequently enough that you'll build muscle, and you definitely should, but I just feel like the more important thing is to find a good feedback cycle. Everyone is a little…
This isn't even unique to exercise. Any added friction to doing something decreases the chances of it happening. Is why online shopping goes out of their way to make it easy to buy something. Even if it is something you want.
This could get far more mileage with people by saying "activity" instead of "exercise." It is amazing how much people can get out of a simple walk around the house. Make it out and around the neighborhood, and you start getting absurdly good results.
While I see your point (0 > 1, by definition) I think this sends the wrong message. You need several hours of relatively strenuous exercise per week. Walking around the neighborhood, or your house, or whatever has diminishing returns. You need to steadily increase load to continue to see results. The body is incredibly good at adapting. People will read your statement and walk around their house twice, sit down, and…
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Quite. "5 minutes of exercise a day could raise blood pressure" is equally accurate.
The headline is about a study that showed increased activity was correlated with decreases in blood pressure. So, no, it's not equally accurate to say the opposite is "equally accurate" unless we're playing pedantic games where we ignore the study and pretend it's all just meaningless words.
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While it's true that doing any amount more exercise is beneficial to the average person, they may not necessarily know/feel it. As we so often see super fit people in the media, it's easy to think we need to do hours of exercise daily for any benefit. Easy to then think "what's the point? I'll never be super fit" and do nothing. Recinforcing the narrative (including publication of studies) that no, even a small amoun…
I do wonder how many people do not take care of the basics and instead go for anti-depressants and Ozempic. I get it if you tried everything, but how many do? When I stop compulsively eating and drinking, when I look for every opportunity to do something as an exercise, I snap out of my [self-diagnosed] depression and malaise in a few days, and feel great. The doctors rarely tell you to eat your salads. "Here is a pi…
I have a neighbour who's in his 60s. Blood pressure was of the charts while in his 40s. The guy was cycling to work everyday (and thought that was enough exercise) and was living a stressful family and work life. Doctor never prescribed any drugs but told him that he had to start exercising. Signed up for judo class. He couldn't believe the amount of exercise he got from the warm up alone. Been doing judo 3 days a we…
And here I was, thinking my daily cycling would be enough. It's not. I've been cycling all of my life, cycling daily and I'm still categorised as obese according to all weight to height ratios. My long term avg blood pressure varies with weight. It's lower when I lose weight, higher when I gain weight. I guess generalising health advice isn't necessarily useful. Health advice should be tailored to individuals, instea…
Tabata et al.[1] found in the mid-1990s that just 2-4 minutes of "high-intensity intermittent training may improve both anaerobic and aerobic energy supplying systems significantly." This was popularized as "Tabata training" 20+ years ago. I generally believe that brief bouts of exercise can be very beneficial, especially because they're easier to do consistently over the long-term vs. more time-consuming routines. F…
I think for the average person, looking too carefully at individual studies is failing to see the forest for the trees. Basically any time we do a study which asks "Is doing a bit more exercise better for you?" the answer is yes. Like doing a single walk around the block every week is better than doing none. Even five minutes of exercise is better than zero. But obviously these have much less positive impact than sev…
[0] https://www.barbellmedicine.com/blog/where-should-my-priorit...