21–30 of 31 posts
Do startup "hackers" really need their own fitness regimen? Are they really that set apart from the rest of the population and that similar to one another? Is there a startup person diet as well? This one-size approach doesn't make sense to me; it seems there are probably variations among startup people & their needs similar if not identical to the general population, for whom one work out plan will not fit all. "Fol…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Are they really that set apart from the rest of the population and that similar to one another? Yes. :) Lifestyle is one of the biggest factors into fitness regimen fit. The lifestyle of folks who work in tech/startups, especially with regards to variability, tend to be far different than your average working Joe.
But is it REALLY that different to a lot of office workers? Developers and startup types like to think that they are unique in having work hard for long periods of time, but they really aren't. Junior Lawyers work long hours, apprenticeship labourers work long hours, anyone involved in the creative process for digital agencies work long hours, teachers that are starting out work long hours. It's really no different t…
However, Dick and I spent the last year working 60-80+ hour weeks while our company was stationed out of a pretty big coworking space. I can tell you that in our time there, I only saw a single person out of the (what must be at least several hundreds of other people) peers sharing our space with us at the gym, where as Dick and I went at least 3x a week every week.
I also lost 60lb while working more than I've ever worked in my life (by following Dick's program) and here's the punchline: 20lb of that was the weight I gained from my last start-up job.
I think the issue is the exact mindset Dick wrote about, of having to "pay off your credit card" by going and running hours and hours after eating badly (a mindset that I still default to sometimes and have to try really hard to stop myself from doing) makes it so that people who are already insanely stressed eventually just give up and decide to go into a default instead of "paying off their card", so to speak.
P.S. There's already been some lawyers, creative agency folks, and people from big government funded organizations applying to take part in the course, I think the difference between what they saw on the page versus what you saw on the page is that they (correctly) assumed being "in tech" meant "work really long hours" to the people that wrote the page versus "do you work at a company that has an AngelList page".
I'm not sure I understand the whole "The only exercise people should be doing is strength training" meme that seems to be going around at the moment. Can someone with more knowledge explain it to me? It seems (to me at least) that some exercise is better than no exercise, and that more exercise (at least to an extent) is better than less exercise. It seems to me therefore, that people should find an exercise that the…
Read this article for the answer http://startingstrength.com/articles/barbell_medicine_sulliv... Fitness relativism is not acceptable. It leads people to live unhealthy, and, in some cases, shorter lives.
To take two examples (these two because I am intimately familiar with them): Why should someone stop climbing or doing martial arts and start lifting barbells (by stop I mean assume said person doesn't have enough time to do both and must choose one or the other)? Both of the former seem (to me at least) really good for developing strength and, AFAICT do so in a much more realistic and natural way than lifting barbells.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Read this article for the answer http://startingstrength.com/articles/barbell_medicine_sulliv... Fitness relativism is not acceptable. It leads people to live unhealthy, and, in some cases, shorter lives.
Ok, well that makes sense, but I suppose what I'm really asking (I already kind of assumed that training with barbells was good for you) is what's wrong with every other form of exercise? To take two examples (these two because I am intimately familiar with them): Why should someone stop climbing or doing martial arts and start lifting barbells (by stop I mean assume said person doesn't have enough time to do both an…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Read this article for the answer http://startingstrength.com/articles/barbell_medicine_sulliv... Fitness relativism is not acceptable. It leads people to live unhealthy, and, in some cases, shorter lives.
Ok, well that makes sense, but I suppose what I'm really asking (I already kind of assumed that training with barbells was good for you) is what's wrong with every other form of exercise? To take two examples (these two because I am intimately familiar with them): Why should someone stop climbing or doing martial arts and start lifting barbells (by stop I mean assume said person doesn't have enough time to do both an…
If you read Starting Strength (Riptoe, mentioned many times on this thread) you'll learn about the recovery and response cycles to stress on the body. You should be regularly increasing the amount you're lifting regardless of your bodyweight (which is what you are always lifting in climbing,) in order to actually increase your strength over time.
Barbells also allow you to start with smaller weights at the beginning of the workout, and then move on to heavier sets when you're warm. AFAIK there's no way to do this with climbing.
Re: barbells not "natural" - firstly, more natural than most of the other equipment in the gym, and secondly it depends what you're doing with them. lifting them over and over, slowly is one way to use them (and builds strength), but speeding up your reps and/or performing power cleans will improve your power (literally rate-of-work) which is what is important in sports like martial arts and ball games. You can train for almost any sport with a barbell, with the right lift, rate, set lengths and intra-workout rest period.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ok, well that makes sense, but I suppose what I'm really asking (I already kind of assumed that training with barbells was good for you) is what's wrong with every other form of exercise? To take two examples (these two because I am intimately familiar with them): Why should someone stop climbing or doing martial arts and start lifting barbells (by stop I mean assume said person doesn't have enough time to do both an…
Lifting barbells allows you to control the weight much more than climbing or punching things. If you read Starting Strength (Riptoe, mentioned many times on this thread) you'll learn about the recovery and response cycles to stress on the body. You should be regularly increasing the amount you're lifting regardless of your bodyweight (which is what you are always lifting in climbing,) in order to actually increase yo…
Ok so that makes a lot more sense. Thanks for the explanation.
> Barbells also allow you to start with smaller weights at the beginning of the workout, and then move on to heavier sets when you're warm. AFAIK there's no way to do this with climbing.
So with climbing in general climbing harder problems (smaller holds, further apart, more overhang, etc etc) works muscles more, and the harder you climb, the fitter and stronger you will be.
Not all "cardio" is equal. I generally run 20 to 40 miles per week at 7:30/ mile pace. So my caloric burn is 120 calories per mile x 1 hour (8 miles) = 960 calories. So I could lose 1 pound of fat per 3.5 hours.
Someone walking 3mph (20 minute miles) on a treadmill would burn 300 to 360 calories in contrast. So that means they would lose 1 pound every ~10 hours. This is very doable for most people. This of course assumes they don't eat more.
Then the OP is very hand wavey about the idea that you have more muscle so your metabolic rate is so much higher. It's quite hard to build many pounds of lean muscle too!
An interesting section on individual metabolic rate differences: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basal_metabolic_rate#Causes_of_...
This isn't applicable to people that are exercising just for health, rather than to also lose weight. For naturally skinny "dicks" like me, I find I get the best workout and feel the healthiest when I do a mix of the tread mill with intermittent breaks of lifting and power push-ups when my legs can't take it anymore.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lifting barbells allows you to control the weight much more than climbing or punching things. If you read Starting Strength (Riptoe, mentioned many times on this thread) you'll learn about the recovery and response cycles to stress on the body. You should be regularly increasing the amount you're lifting regardless of your bodyweight (which is what you are always lifting in climbing,) in order to actually increase yo…
> Lifting barbells allows you to control the weight much more than climbing or punching things. Ok so that makes a lot more sense. Thanks for the explanation. > Barbells also allow you to start with smaller weights at the beginning of the workout, and then move on to heavier sets when you're warm. AFAIK there's no way to do this with climbing. So with climbing in general climbing harder problems (smaller holds, furth…
Completely agree, this is very good advice. I wish I had more time to respond but I'm at risk of being late to work. Here's how you put forth the minimum amount of time commitment while deriving the greatest amount of benefit: -If you typically squat less than 270 pounds all the way down to parallel, do Starting Strength until you do [1]. -If you typically squat at least 270 pounds all the way down to parallel, do Ma…