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Why Exercise Is a Miracle Drug

derekthompson.org

61–70 of 260 posts

Re: Why Exercise Is a Miracle Drug

#61
>Like someone already said: what if you get an injury going to hard at it?

There's no need to go hard, even steady walking for 20 minutes a day is healthy. And recent studies show that you don't need to jog or run, walking is almost as efficient and less stressful for your joints.

One of the best ways to exercise as long as you aren't a brain in a jar is to use an indoor rowing machine. Rowing will engage about 80% of your muscles.

Re: Why Exercise Is a Miracle Drug

#62

Exercise "simulate the arduous tasks that were once necessary to make it through a life" makes sense, as most of our ancestors were blue-collar workers and farmers. I try to integrate more physical activity in my life, which seemed like labor before, but now feels like life-saving activity. For example, I am intentionally trying to fix/diy things with my house like painting my garage, mowing my lawn instead of hiring…

The human body didn't evolve to do farm work, or mow lawns, or more generally to do "blue collar" work. Also, our ancestors weren't known for their exceptional lifespans.

Re: Why Exercise Is a Miracle Drug

#63
post #40
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…

Ask anyone in the army how all those years of running drills have affected them as they got older. It’s not so rosy. Lots of knee problems in that group. Above average practice of running throughout life also increases likelihood of requiring pacemakers later in life.

I can’t be sure, but my impression is that army drills (1) push uniformly (rather than let you improve at your own pace) and (2) often involve carrying your kit, which is 20-40lbs. Neither of these is similar to the kind of running GP describes, namely unburdened, at a comfortable speed, over ~arbitrary distances.

Re: Why Exercise Is a Miracle Drug

#64
post #40
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…

Ask anyone in the army how all those years of running drills have affected them as they got older. It’s not so rosy. Lots of knee problems in that group. Above average practice of running throughout life also increases likelihood of requiring pacemakers later in life.

Hm, I'm skeptical. I think the data might be a little equivocal on that one.

I'm also part of the barefoot running army and tend to think that the braking forces from shoes have a role to play in knee problems (I personally stopped having them when I started running barefoot so that's where my bias comes from.)

Re: Why Exercise Is a Miracle Drug

#65
post #23

The best way to make a happy, healthy person into an unhappy, unhealthy person is to keep them lonely and keep them still. It should come as no surprise that the inverse also tends to hold true. On a tangent, I think that's part of why volunteering can be so rewarding.

> The best way to make a happy, healthy person into an unhappy, unhealthy person is to keep them lonely and keep them still. So becoming a software developer?

Haha.. ouch.

Re: Why Exercise Is a Miracle Drug

#66
GLP-1 is a rare opportunity for our overweight nation to "get back on the treadmill" in both a literal and figurative way.

If you have been sedentary for a long time and are overweight, you obviously have too much weight for your muscular strength and connective tissues, which have concurrently atrophied with inactivity, in addition to reduced neuro-biomechanic maps in your brain since you haven't used the circuitry.

This all adds up to a high initial injury risk in starting exercise even if you have the mentally focus.

But GLP-1, if it is the miracle it purports, should be able to drop overweight people, even if it is temporarily, to the point where you can being exercise much more safely, and/or with more intensity and duration to get more benefits sooner.

On a macro level a universal health care system that is cheap and effective is really a generation or two away with heavily incentivized exercise, and not without precedent, if I am to understand what Iceland did.

We will live longer, live far better, feel better, look better, be happier, more connected, less anxious, more adventurous, smarter, more productive. These aren't 1-2% improvements at macro levels. 10% improvements, which in pharma land are considered exceptionally effective drugs, and a minimum, and 30-50% miracle drug levels of outcomes are on the table.

But our medical establishment is either drugs or surgery. The extent of insurance company inducements are "silver sneakers".

The perverse accounting involved in extreme obesity may demand a national level program of "Biggest Loser" (although, not to that insanity) for financial inducements to get people to lose weight, because the loss of "caring" for the obese (FORTY PERCENT of Americans are obese and it keeps getting worse each decade).

Re: Why Exercise Is a Miracle Drug

#67
post #40
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…

Ask anyone in the army how all those years of running drills have affected them as they got older. It’s not so rosy. Lots of knee problems in that group. Above average practice of running throughout life also increases likelihood of requiring pacemakers later in life.

Older soccer players, and other professional sport players have physical issues BUT they train at extremes.

Re: Why Exercise Is a Miracle Drug

#68
post #56
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ask anyone in the army how all those years of running drills have affected them as they got older. It’s not so rosy. Lots of knee problems in that group. Above average practice of running throughout life also increases likelihood of requiring pacemakers later in life.

Just because our ancestors did something doesn't mean it's automatically good for your health. After all, prehistoric men weren't known for their long life expectancy.

"After all, prehistoric men weren't known for their long life expectancy."

After surviving early years, people still used to get old. Infant mortality was just way higher bringing the average down. (And that those metrics often compare to poor peasants and our paleo ancestors were not peasants)

Re: Why Exercise Is a Miracle Drug

#69
post #61

>Like someone already said: what if you get an injury going to hard at it? There's no need to go hard, even steady walking for 20 minutes a day is healthy. And recent studies show that you don't need to jog or run, walking is almost as efficient and less stressful for your joints. One of the best ways to exercise as long as you aren't a brain in a jar is to use an indoor rowing machine. Rowing will engage about 80% o…

Any recommendations on a rowing machine?

Re: Why Exercise Is a Miracle Drug

#70

Until you injure something particularly nasty, like a joint, tendon, muscle tear, etc...

Lack of exercise is vastly more likely to cause injury to your body than exercise is. Unless you're an elite athlete pushing your body beyond what is reasonable, but that really doesn't apply to most people.

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