We’re all just temporarily abled

It's more accurate to say: we're disabled in various ways because big medicine and pharma gatekeeps useful treatments. Regenokine and anabolic agents like Deca-Durabolin can completely reverse joint damage. But your doctor will not allow you to take them, even if you insist upon it. In fact they will often report you to insurance and classify you as a drug abuser.

I had the same. In my late 30's even kneeling hurt.

That goes away once the muscles gain strength.

I've had a personal trainer for years now and in my early 40s I can squat merrily with no pain. Also my neck and back pain have vanished, along with headaches I used to get that would start around the back of my neck and move over my head.

Strength training really is amazing. My only regret is 20 years as an adult not doing it.

My wife taking every excuse to touch my leg muscles is just an added bonus!

I've read it...at least part of it and skimmed the rest.

From what I have read -- and this article cites the same stat -- roughly 15 to 20 percent of people self-identify as disabled. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. At least one study found that about 60 percent of people would benefit from better accommodation if you ask them if they have difficulties with X without asking them to self-identify as disabled.

Both the officially disabled and people with milder limitations get really cranky about where to draw that line. People with mild limitations often go out of their way to say they are definitely not disabled and merely have a little trouble with these things and officially disabled jealously guard the label because they need it to have any hope of making their lives work at all and don't want people who can make their lives work without that label horning in on any limited benefits available only to them or diluting what the word means.

It's a really thorny topic.

I had a class from SFSU in Homelessness and Public Policy and it has a similar exercise, like "Spend one day pretending you are homeless. Figure out how to go to the bathroom while carrying everything you own. Figure out how you will get around without a car."

And then I spent nearly six years homeless.

There are plenty of people with actual disabilities who are perfectly capable of telling you what they need if you will only listen to them. If you are unable or unwilling to listen to them and take them seriously without trying to "walk a mile in their shoes," well, sure, go ahead and try it out for a week or whatever if you think that will help you.

But sometimes all it takes is one person willing to say it over and over so you keep it in mind when it's time for you to make coding decisions or whatever. And if/when that happens, it probably won't ever get noticed, acknowledged nor appreciated.

It will promptly be forgotten like when programmers of an old, "useless" language fixed Y2K and the world did not have a global financial meltdown on January 1, 2000. We shrugged, acted like "Someone must have been wrong." and moved on to hand-wringing about the newest bad news.

I am probably the only person on the planet who sometimes goes "Thank God we aren't living in the Y2K Post Apocalypse!"

The internet has made my life as a disabled person vastly more workable. Are there things I wish were even betterer? Sure, there are and we certainly shouldn't be dismissing the completely valid complaints of anyone who can't do x because it's not designed with their needs in mind and there is no means whatsoever to get it done.

I certainly do not dismiss such people.

But perhaps it would help to understand that when they complain about, for example, the internet not working for them, part of what they are telling you is that the internet is vital to their lives and has expanded their life beyond what it likely would have been in decades past. So when it doesn't work, it's like taking away their oxygen or sunshine.

It's hard to do anything well. It's often not appreciated at all nor rewarded. Try to not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

But you're still lifting, presumably. That sounds like success to me.

I tried to start lifting multiple times. SL 5x5 is what actually made it click. Now that I know what I'm doing, I could write volumes on its flaws, but what I needed wasn't a technically optimized program, but one which gave me a clear goal for each workout and an easy way to see what the path forward looked like.

As the reddit beginner program correctly notes:

> The primary goal is to be a simple, easy to follow routine that will help beginners get into the gym, start training with the standard barbell lifts, and build a habit of going to the gym consistently. Consistency over time is the biggest point of failure in making progress, and the aim is to lower the barrier as far as possible to starting and staying consistent.

The point of a beginner program really isn't the volume moved or optimizing the particular split, but to give the beginner a structure on which to build routine and learn good habits. It helps no one to crap on Starting Strength, when it has an established history of achieving exactly that goal. Offering things like the reddit program as a potentially superior alternative is fine to the eager newbie, but telling people that Starting Strength is a bad way to start is just counterproductive.

My advice to every new lifter is that the best program for them is the one that gets them going back to the gym consistently, and I'll continue to stand behind that. It's not SS for everyone - and that's fine. But it is SS for a lot of people, and that's also fine.

It's also relative to your body weight. A 150 kg squat for someone who weighs 118 kg (i.e. me) is not that impressive. Whereas an 80 kg squat if you weigh 80 kg is extremely impressive. You should be aiming to lift 1x-1.5x your body weight, over time.