How Exercise May Help the Memory Grow Stronger | Hacker News Reader

How Exercise May Help the Memory Grow Stronger

nytimes.com

174 pointsmontrose84 comments

For anyone here interested I can’t recommend https://stronglifts.com enough. I sleep much better since starting it (and wake up feeling great rather than groggy) and there is loads of information on how to get started lifting weights. It’s all free apart from some extra features on the app which is a £9.99 one off fee. My mind is much clearer and it’s very quick to do... it’s much more enjoyable than dragging myself around the park.

I second the sentiment but would also suggest https://startingstrength.com/ :)

Mainly for the wealth of online videos & other training materials I've found to help learn the lifts. I do recommend the book and the app costs a few bucks if you want it.

Both of these are excellent. Even if you don't want to follow these programs exactly at least grab Rippetoe's book "Starting Strength" (3rd edition). It is a great reference for all the big lifts - very well illustrated with detailed explanations. Getting stronger (especially as you get older) is critical to good quality of life.

Once you have hit your limits on those two programs move to Wendler's 5/3/1 :) I've done SS and now 5/3/1 for the last 4-5 years and I'm the strongest I've been in my life in my early 40s!

EDIT: Also another great thing about Starting Strength or Stronglifts 5x5 is that it doesn't require much of a time commitment. You can easily be in/out of the gym in an hour or less - if you are not goofing off, 40-45 minutes is pretty typical.

I just finished my second week of my first cycle of 531 Triumvirate + FSL and I'm loving it. In the next week or two I'll probably start tacking on some conditioning(prowler/ropes/kettlebells) after cause I still feel pretty good.

Great site! I’ll have a good read, this stood out: https://startingstrength.com/article/the_first_three_questio...

Yes, I found as you get older (if you start when you are older at least) it might be a good strategy to bump the weights in lower increments. For example, instead of adding 10lbs to the bar every workout which works well for younger folks add 5lbs instead. This is not a sprint, but a marathon. Slow steady progress is what you want.

What I want before I start lifting again is rock-solid advice on avoiding injury. I have Starting Strength and have trained it before with a trainer who went through Rip's program. Stopped after a couple of injuries in a row. Rip's injury advice is "you're going to get them, train through."

Fuck that. It's just not worth it. Injuries are massive, debilitating events and having even a minor one makes all the previous months useless. Only a pro or someone desperately trying to believe that strength training is the key to being a man or whatever would train past that. Being able to deadlift 325 is in the "nice-to-have" bin of life achievements.

The other thing I want is to be able to do it without making my hands all rough. Eventually I think I'll just build a t-handle kettlebell* and just go super slow on the weight increases.

When I finally get back into it, I plan on doing it for the rest of my life. Without a single injury. I do not think this is possible with barbells. At least not without a lot more study than is currently being done on it.

* http://www.instructables.com/id/T-Handle-Kettlebell/

Either lower the weights or just avoid injury prone exercises. Not much roi is there if you injure yourself. There's countless of ways to exercise specific body parts. If you keep hurting yourself by doing deadlifts for example at some point you have to consider if it's worth it. It's not just about the weight but how you concentrate the muscle and reps.

> The other thing I want is to be able to do it without making my hands all rough

Gloves or go to a gym that has equipment that doesn't make hands rough. Best bet is to look for franchises not UG strength gyms.

I’m in the same boat, I love lifting but I’m hesitant to get back under the bar again after a back injury last year. I’m thinking of going for something like the X3 Bar [0] instead because it looks like the closest thing to it.

[0] https://www.x3bar.com/

It looks like the X3bar (really bands) suffer from the classic problem of mismatch to your strength curve, with the strongest resistance where your lifting is weakest. Nautilus equipment generally solved that problem by the 1980s.

Free PDF of Nautilus Training Principles: Bulletins No. 1-3 http://baye.com/store/nautilus-bulletins/

Summary of research and evidence-based exercise as of 2009: Body by Science https://www.amazon.com/Body-Science-Research-Strength-Traini...

Author Doug McGuff MD has been operating a training facility since 1998, 100-120 client sessions a week, and he reports zero injuries to date. Most injuries come from excess force/acceleration, so pick an exercise protocol with very low acceleration that seriously fatigues the target muscle.

Consider yoga?

The kind of yoga I was doing [1] consisted mainly of stretches and static own-weight exercises. It had the same muscle-building and mood-elevating effect on me as the actual weight-lifting, minus the injuries.

[1] http://shaktivinyasa.com/

Maybe a high-reps, low-weight format such as Les Mills BODYPUMP[1]?

I started, with great hesitation, taking Pump classes about four years ago. The results were nothing short of life-changing[2]. A couple of years later, in love with the format, I became a certified instructor and now teach classes 4 days/week.

Relating back to the OP... every 2–3 weeks I rotate the material I'm teaching. The memorization was extremely difficult at first: an instructor needs to talk (through a personalized script) for nearly an hour straight, while watching and giving feedback to everyone in the room, and while verbally staying about 10 seconds ahead of what's coming, which involves having every movement and every musical track firmly memorized (brain and muscle memory). It used to take me 16+ hours to memorize a "release" (a calendar quarter's material). Now, I can re/memorize, practice, and be ready to teach fresh material in about 3 hours. Something in my brain changed. :-) On top of that, I currently teach 3x Les Mills formats per week (BODYPUMP, GRIT, SPRINT) so nearly triple the amount of bi-monthly memorization effort compared to 2 years ago. I don't find it difficult at this point, but it is a no-shortcuts time commitment, to be sure. I also work full-time as a contract software developer; and, yes, my improved memory has had a big positive impact in that area of my life as well.

[1] https://www.lesmills.com/workouts/fitness-classes/bodypump/

[&] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oix05plG51k

[2] It's important to push oneself with respect to weight selection, after about 3 months of developing proficiency with the movement and timing patterns.

Never heard of bodypump however I would recommend body weight exercises. A lot of injuries come from muscle imbalance which happens abruptly when muscle is gained quickly.

Stretch.

And stretch properly. Not some weak stretch like what you did in high school PE class. I'm talking about a deep stretch that you feel throughout your muscles, and still feel hours afterwards. There's a lot of overlap with yoga here. Anecdotally, I've had back pain that's progressively gotten worse from deadlifts. Doing a very deep pigeon pose stretched out my glutes and my back has gotten significantly better.

Check out ManFlowYoga on YouTube. Some of his videos are excellent, some are somewhat lacking.

I'm not looking for half-baked advice here. "Deep stretch" does not connect mitigation strategy to threat. Like, at all.

Lifting is seriously dangerous. Not ruin-your-life dangerous, but definitely ruin-your-year dangerous. I want some real understanding of what causes soft-tissue injuries. Because even one more is out of the question.

Especially as I start getting older.

Stretching on nonworkout days is great for increasing mobility, done incrementally and carefully, since one of the major proprioceptive mechanisms that protect joints from injury respond to velocity of movement, not just total force applied.

Stretching pre-workout is a well-established mechanism for causing injury.

That advice sounds insanely stupid, unless he means to train through it with modifying.

I think it's important for both the mental and physical momentum to train through, if you're accepting reality, and not just blasting through pain.

Then again, Rip isn't known for his nuance and delicacy.

I think the keys to avoiding injury, in addition to stretching (and hardcore stretching, especially as we age), is not trying to push the progressive overload faster than getting the ideal form.

I've burned myself too many times in this regard, and I agree with you, compensating for old injuries down the road really blows, so avoiding it would be ideal.

Thankfully, in addition to their being a myriad of ways to injure yourself, folks are pretty creative on movements that can adapt to that as well.

And then there's steroids ;)

I don't know that form is the key. Both of my injuries that put me off of lifting the last time were done under the watchful eye of my trainer. There was no cheating.

Something just 'popped', both times. And put me out of commission for weeks. First time was in my legs, the other was in my neck.

Rip does advise shifting to accommodate injury. But that's the extent of his advice.

Since I obviously have very little insight here to your possible situation, but was it perhaps too much weight? Or not enough ancillary training involving the supportive muscles?

And I believe, depending on your goals, there are ways to hit your goals safely, but they tend to take quite a bit longer, since it's a much slower progression and a slower set of actual set work.

It might be worth looking into, if you haven't already :)

I was following the Starting Strength Training program, created by Mark Rippletoe, one of the most respected names in strength training, under a trainer who learned how to train directly from Rip. There's no chance that I wasn't following the program correctly.

The problem is that the program is wrong. Taking your advice, to go for a slower progression, is going against the program. That is definitely something I could do, but why not just throw the whole program out the window? Because it obviously doesn't suit my needs. If I try to go slower, there's no guarantee that I still won't get injured.

To make an analogy here, let's take a woodworker's shop. A table saw is an incredibly dangerous piece of equipment, but the way to keep yourself safe from it is simple and intuitive, keep your hands away from the blade. Every single safety protocol revolves around that, and you can pick and choose just how many safeguards you want to use. Push sticks seem mandatory, a blade guard less so.

But you can understand the danger of a table saw. Nobody says, "well you can take all the precautions in the world against a table saw, but you still might get your thumb taken off anyway." But that's the situation with barbell weightlifting.

I don't think Mark Rippletoe would countenance a program that invariably leads to injury, and would agree that the program needs to be tailored to the individual. If a given individual needs a slower progression to avoid injury, that's the progression they need to follow. In a brief search online, I came across this paragraph:

> "Training is the process of changing an athlete’s physical capacity over time. Its specifics depend on the precise task the athlete will perform, when it will be performed, and how often.... The process must also reflect the current state of physical preparation of the athlete: a freshman in high school doesn’t train like a strong, experienced college senior unless his coach is a fool."

https://startingstrength.com/article/strength_and_prevention...

If you happen to come across something that directly contradicts this, please do share.

There’s no guarantee for perfect prevention of injury, but paying close attention to one’s current state of conditioning and adapting training to fit, you’ve got a much better chance of doing so. Injury sucks. I hope you find a regime that fits for you and helps you reach your fitness goals.

> There’s no guarantee for perfect prevention of injury,

That's the crux of the issue. Without such a guarantee, I will never train with barbells again. It boils down to a difference in priorities. You, and Rip, both seem to think soft tissue injury is an acceptable risk in the quest for strength gains. I do not.

Again, look at a table saw. People can use a table saw their entire lives without introducing a body part to a spinning blade. But you can't train with a barbell, with any amount of good form, with any kind of specialized program, with any kind of expertise at hand, and be 100% positive you will avoid injury.

> "That's the crux of the issue. Without such a guarantee"

I actually meant that very generally. Any physical effort that's going to build muscle has risks: you're applying force somehow and there's a chance for that force to be misapplied and cause injury. The two exceptions I thought of are yoga and swimming (both of which I've also done on occasion).

That said, to each his own. I'm pretty conservative when it comes to the possibility of injuring myself, and I honestly don't think lifting free weights is inherently risky when one pays attention to technique and one's own condition (both in general and during a workout), which is true of any sport or fitness program. But if it doesn't appeal to you or you don't perceive the risks as I do, I'm sure you'll find something that meets your needs.

> I'm pretty conservative when it comes to the possibility of injuring myself, and I honestly don't think lifting free weights is inherently risky when one pays attention to technique and one's own condition (both in general and during a workout), which is true of any sport or fitness program.

I used to think the same way that you do. But I had a trainer. I was not doing the exercises incorrectly. I was not going too fast. I went well above and beyond the standards most people take for safety. And I still got injured. There are no further precautions I could have taken. Ergo, barbell strength training is inherently risky.

Rip is very clear in his book when he says you have to follow the program. He states in very strong language that the program works and if you deviate from it, you're on your own.

I am sure you have had soft tissue injuries that took weeks to months to heal as a matter of course when strength training. You may have looked at those injuries as part and parcel of building athleticism. I don't. I look at them as a sign that you are going past your body's abilities. The domain of elite athletes and competitors. They should have to worry about injuries.

I should be able to train without worry. But I can't. Because it's inherently risky. There's no course of action that you can take in order to train without risk. And it will stay that way until we can come to a full understanding of how soft tissues act under stresses.

Sir, I also have had trainers, as well as others I trained with. Yes, I've have soft tissue injuries. My most severe soft tissue injuries where obtained playing softball. I am particularly cautious with my left knee, as I injured it running, and knees are particularly susceptible to injury in a variety of lifts. Yet, somehow, I've never further injured it lifting (other than taking a day off or two), and that includes squats (ass to grass), deadlifts, cleans, snatches, and bench. By paying attention to how I was lifting, and my condition, and when my form started to become compromised due to exhaustion, I laid off, forgoing the remainder of a workout, perhaps taking a rest day or two, or sometimes even safely dumping during a lift and walking away.

I don't think this is luck: I think this is prudence. Elsewhere you mention you don't think form is key. I know how important it is to keep my knees behind my toes if I'm to properly protect them, and endeavor to always do so. That's form. And it's important. I'm keenly aware of how long it takes to properly heal connective tissue and I'm not willing to unnecessarily risk that. Yet, I lift. And I think I lift safely. My experience has shown that to be the case for me. As for soft-tissue injuries taking weeks or months to heal, no, I've never had such as a result of lifting (and rarely other times). And that's not me working through the pain or whatnot. I'm not that kind of lifter at all. Perhaps I'm not pushing myself hard enough? I'd rather say I'm wisely not pushing myself to injury.

If you find fault with Mark Rippletoe or Starting Strength, fine. Personally, if I find some training regimen that doesn't make sense to me, I don't do it, while recognizing that others might find value in it. I also wouldn't follow a regimen blindly, and, as the quote from Rippletoe I pulled, I have a hard time believing he would think doing so is the only or best way. Regardless, if you want to lift (and I don't think that's the only option), there are other programs out there you might follow, or use as a basis for creating your own.

If you think there are no further precautions you could have taken, fine. I know people are fallible. I'm not perfect, and my trainers haven't been perfect, but together we've been able to train successfully. I know people get injured in all manner of sports, including lifting, for all variety of reasons. Two of the guys I lifted with got injured; one never paid much attention to his form and after he was injured acknowledged his injury was a result of that. Another, while paying attention to form, was always pushing himself, and injured himself lifting heavier than he should have. These are both examples of what happens when you ignore form and your own condition. I suspect you'll take those as examples as lifting being inherently risky. I take them as object lessons of the importance of form and paying attention.

I also know people have all kinds of choices and preferences. You can't even guarantee that you won't badly twist your ankle walking on flat ground, much less down the stairs carrying a load of books, or throwing your back out shoveling snow.

I'm not sure what you've chosen to do in place of lifting, but I certainly hope you find something that you're comfortable with. I find it puzzling that you've throughout this thread (and not only with me) chosen only to find fault with lifting without spending any time describing alternatives you find acceptable, while I (and others) have brought up other choices. I don't think lifting is the end-all be-all, nor is it for everyone. Above you mention you want to lift. People have given you advice on how you might lift safely. If you aren't convinced, I don't think that's skin off of any of our noses. But please don't rail against what others have found useful and enjoyable just because you haven't found success or satisfaction.

As I don't think I've said so explicitly, let me say outright that I'm sorry you've been injured. That sucks. I sincerely hope you find a training regimen that works for you and that you are injury free going forward. Best to you.

Sorry if it seemed as if I were proselytizing any one specific program. I respect Rips knowledge, but not always his approach or even his philosophy. Biology and environment are far too individualized to speak in dogma.

My point wasnt even that you should resume barbell training (they're conveniences after all), but that weight training of any kind, especially those following the major points (progressive overload, proper macros, sufficient rest) will deliver.

But hitting those with an injury is an exercise in creativity :)

The last thing I want in this endeavor is creativity.

When I was deadlifting 300 and benching more than I ever did in high school, my life didn't meaningfully change, like at all. And it was expensive to hire that trainer. Cool, yeah, I'm stronger than the average joe. Who cares? I didn't even look all that much better than I do now. You need careful cutting to reduce your body fat percentage to change your appearance. But that's both a pain in the lifestyle and a potential inhibitor to strength gains.

All I want is to be able to trust a program that someone with more knowledge and ability than myself came up with. The last thing I ever want to do with my life is to devise alternative strength training programs for when I get injured.

I'd just rather not train than risk injury.

Startingstrength is very clear about the dangers of lifting to much weight. If your form starts to degrade, or the lift speed slows at the end of the 5 rep set, do not add anymore weight. Stay at that weight, or even decrease the weight until the complete set is done with no slow down and perfect form. If you blindly add five to ten pounds to your lift every session you will get injured, the book warns about this. Progressing slowly is not throwing out the whole program.

I'm in the same boat. I had worked out on my own seeing reasonable progress for a year and decided to work with a trainer to see if I could improve my routine. He had me do some deadlifts and it caused injuries that set me back over 6 months.

I really wish places like r/Fitness would talk about risks of training more. Unfortunately I was going to post there, but they pretty much ban any discussion of injury.

I've been reading this book and have found it really good: https://www.amazon.com/Strength-Training-Anatomy-Workout-II/... What it does differently than other books is tells you what are the pros, cons, and risks associated with each exercise. That way if you want a chest exercise but you have an injured shoulder, you can choose the one that is the best choice for you.

The book also talks about how its a myth that the best way to gain strength for everyone is to do heavy compound barbell exercises and talks about how your individual morphology makes certain exercises better or worse for you.

Another plus from reading this book is that you will learn what the individual muscles are and their purpose much better.

If anyone knows a good place online to discuss avoiding injury, please let me know.

I've been fortunate that the trainers I've had have focused very much on proper technique and form which lays the foundations to prevent injury. Online, Kelly Starret's Mobility WOD (https://www.mobilitywod.com) is a great resource. I really like his philosophy of teaching people the tools to diagnose their own problems and working on them, both to prevent future injury and notice when injury may be sneaking up on you. His book is good, too. I'm unfamiliar with the one you already have, so it may cover a lot of the same ground.

I suspect what caused my injuries was that I was training the muscles harder than the tendons. Eventually the tendons gave way. I could never get any solid answers from anyone about how that part of your body really works and what causes it to fail.

It’s undervascularized. It doesn’t fail so much as the normal process of microtrauma-and-repair that strengthens muscles is mostly just microtrauma in tendons. It was once thought he damage was inflammatory, but histological studies have shown otherwise: the tendons degenerate into more-poorly-organized collagen; effectively, a disorganized scarring.

There’s a great article on it. I was going to summarize it, but honestly, I think it’s super accessible to non-medical folks: https://academic.oup.com/rheumatology/article/45/5/508/17888...

I do quite a bit of strength training and have near-baby hands. Rippetoe has videos on how to hold the bar. You should never be cinching skin against skin.

I'm not sure how you can lift and not get rough hands without using gloves. I also don't see why someone would care about their baby hands in the gym.

It reminds me of Costanza's hand modeling. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZxX3-rJoNI

http://www.gymnasticbodies.com may be interesting to you. So many people focus on strength or cardio, while mobility is just as important.

I can't recommend Michael Boyle's books enough - "Functional Training for Sports", and "New Functional Training for Sports". He trains athletes at a national and olympic level, and injury prevention is a key theme running through everything he says. In contrast to Starting Strength et al, he actually makes the point that heavy bilateral squats and deadlifts are often too hard to teach and do well. He doesn't recommend doing back squats at all. The programs they use for athletes focus on single leg work, the argument being this is both safer and more 'functional' (how often do you back squat heavy stuff in the real world?).

Brilliant advice, I will definitely look into it but right now I’m not lifting huge weights so even though I’m loosing fat and feeling good my squat is nice and deep and controlled. I’m not sure if I’ll feel comfortable in a few months as by then on Strong lifts the weight would be huge!

Single leg work with heavy weights puts a massive torque on your body that I would view as very dangerous.

I would trust expert coaches who have tried both approaches.

It's hard to pin down the source of injury because there are so many factors, but I suggest looking at it holistically:

* The weightlifting equipment - whether the barbell is balanced, if your shoes are flat to allow proper force driving, and lifting belt or shirt if applicable.

* Basic limitations of your body. I have scoliosis, and while it's a noticeable condition, it doesn't affect ordinary activities. But in the gym, compound lifts are considerably harder. I have adapted towards favoring bodyweight-centric exercises like weighted dips and leg lifts. I haven't had any injury from it in years now.

* Other health and nutrition factors. At 32, all it takes is one meal of junk food and I stiffen up for the next four hours or so, or one poor night of sleep and I'm struggling to do cardio the next day. Worse mobility transfers to worse form, and performance degrades from there.

For gathering information specific to me, I've just done a lot of data collection of both the "mental note" and "exercise log" kind. I don't aim to be in the gym more than once or twice a week, and as long as my numbers are going up(which I usually measure by total volume to allow weight/reps/sets to shift around) I'm happy.

Lately I've been training jiujitsu 2 hours a week and the overall intensity/satisfaction there far exceeds what I usually get out of the gym - grappling uses everything you have - while the injury rate is "scrapes, bruises and soreness from submissions every session" and any more serious injury is generally dependent on my own caution and whether or not the opponent is a maniac, which is most common in two settings: during competition, and when they are completely new. When you're used to rolling, it becomes less threatening and more of a mind game.

Rippetow ftw

3-5hrs/week of exercise provides a huge ROI on mental performance and health. Find a program that works for you and stick with it.

In my opinion not exercising is as short sighted as not using an employer matching 401k program.

7-10hrs/week here. Exercise is great, definitely helps me think, makes my brain feel fresher, and gives me the stamina I need to keep up with my sleep schedule.

But ho boy does it often feel like it's eating into how many hours are available in the day. One problem is that the more exercise you do, the more you want to do.

There are diminishing returns on exercise. A person doing 3 hours of exercise a week will see more benefit per hour than a person doing 9.

I've gone into 10+ hours/week to try to reach a personal fitness goal before. Reaching the goal was more about satisfying my own ego than living a healthier life or investing my time wisely.

>There are diminishing returns on exercise. A person doing 3 hours of exercise a week will see more benefit per hour than a person doing 9.

Just like for someone who is morbidly obese to walk few blocks then..

Personally I workout 9-10h a week and have been for years. What changes is the amount of cardio I do. The mental clarity, energy, feel of accomplishment, getting fresh air (running), being in great shape, coming up with business ideas or solutions to problems etc make it easily worth it.

In regards to how to make time. There are natural amateurs working out twice a day 2 hours a pop and still working full day jobs. At some point you just have to prioritise what you want to do.

I'm a big advocate of strength training, and becoming strong has impacted my life in ways I never expected before I was strong. That said, it's likely that when it comes to impact on memory, aerobic exercise is the way to go. [1]

Only somewhat related, but besides finding this to be anecdotally true (big improvement in memory since I started running), I've also noticed that running certain routes--or perhaps past certain landmarks--will dredge up a memory that I've somehow linked with that specific place.

[1]https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/regular-exercise-changes...

Are there any strength training apps that don't require going to the gym / using equipment?

Plenty. Look at the FAQ on /r/bodyweightfitness: https://www.reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/wiki/faq

EDIT - ah, didn't realize you said app. There is at least one: https://www.reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/comments/3bmwzf/i... and I've seen a few others but haven't tried them.

I'm still in the free trial period for Aaptive. Overall good, but they don't show any diagrams or videos for the exercises making it somewhat difficult for a n00b like myself.

https://aaptiv.com/

I've noticed that "lifting weight" seems to be the most popular physical activity on HN. I wonder if this is an American bias.

I can see the appeal and the convenience but I personally dislike gyms. Loud music, A/C, TVs everywhere, little social interaction etc... and lifting weight is very artificial.

I much prefer practicing sport outside and/or with other people. There are a lot of fun sports, such as boxing, climbing, hiking, swimming, running, martial arts, dancing, skiing... I see a lot of people who want to start exercising going straight to a gym because they are unaware of other options.

> lifting weight is very artificial.

Please explain

Have you tried group classes?

A lot of the activity that you mentioned can be done in a gym but at the same time I would like to say there is no match to being outdoor. Short on time then hit a gym otherwise outdoors are worth it.

Weight lifting also makes you stronger and less prone to injuries.

One thing to make clear here (which I think you intend but don’t make explicit) is the difference between free weights and machines. Lifting free weights engages large groups of muscles and their coordination in balance and stabilization through the movements, which contributes greatly to injury prevention. Machines tend to isolate muscles and provide stabilization and restriction, so you don’t get these benefits.

Agree. Working out with machines is similar to sitting on a chair :-). For newbies, machines are great to improve their form

> "For newbies, machines are great to improve their form"

Well, there we do disagree ;) The activation patterns which are crucial to balance and stabilization don't get developed when using machines, and you can build up muscles much more quickly than connective tissue (tendons and ligaments). It's all too easy to into a situation where you're strong enough to lift weight that you can't stabilize under stress, and that's when injury is likely to occur. Weak tendons and ligaments coupled with poor stabilization activation patterns is a recipe for injuries. Better to start off with lighter free weight and good form for long term health and strength.

I don't have it at hand, but I recall a trainer encouraging a progression that went along the lines of "Form, then Speed, then Weight". If this jogs anyone's memory and has a reference (perhaps with a correction or expansion), I'd appreciate it.

I agree and, while not everyone can, I got around it by setting up a small home gym. I have a box I set my laptop on and get some work done between sets, helps to not have to carve out the dedicated time for going to/working out in the gym and allows me to focus on my work and my exercise. There's some start up costs depending on the equipment but they're only as high as you want them to be past ~$100, I spent ~$650 4 years ago on some nice weights, bench, and rack, dropped the gym membership, and can't recommend it enough. Bonus, my wife and kids occasionally use it.

Lifting weights, unnatural, spending thousands of dollars to put water inside and swim in it, totally natural!

Buy weights for your home =]

Probably wanna stay away from boxing if you're looking to improve your memory.

Well, if by "lifting weight", you mean "resistance exercise", then I believe you're mistaken on a few points:

1. It doesn't have to take place in a gym

2. No fancy equipment is needed. Can be done using the weight of your own body (i.e. calisthenics) or a kettlebell.

3. Is as necessary as cardio to the continued healthy functioning of your body into old age. http://www.archives-pmr.org/article/S0003-9993(18)30079-0/fu...

If you're the type to not want to go to the gym (anxiety, or it's too far), I've had immense benefits from cycling, both indoors and outdoors. I can think more clearly about programming when I'm chilling on the bike, so many ideas and bug fixes have come while just pedalling along.

Do you have any recommendations for indoor bikes/trainer that you've used?

I agree that it is extremely beneficial. Though my cycling is only done to and from work. I've thought about getting a cycling machine with a reading/laptop platform for indoor use, but it's hard to identify what I'm actually looking for since they're a bit different from bikes and I've never used one.

Instead of spending lot of money on cycling machine, look for "Magnet Steel Bike Bicycle Indoor Exercise Trainer" on amazon. Decent stand to use your bike indoors for $50-$60

Thanks for the recommendation. I've looked at trainers like that and some look solid. I might just have to go for one. It's just hard to gauge quality versus something like a Kickr Snap.

If you have the cash there are some great electronic resistance direct drive indoor trainers you attach a real bike to. Search Google for zwift enabled trainers (brands like tacx)

Seconding the recommendations for a cheap trainer + Zwift. Also, if the weather is good, find a local club to ride with outside. Although indoor training is great, nothing releases endorphins like an outdoor ride with some friends.

This is mine: https://www.cycleops.com/product/supermagneto.

I hook it up to a bike computer (Garmin Edge 520) and an app called TrainerRoad (https://www.trainerroad.com/platforms). It's a bit of an investment, but I find that having numbers/instrumentation makes things exciting especially when tracking your progress.

My bike and my bike trainer are in my top ten best purchases ever in terms of the value they've given (increased energy, increased fitness).

Rowing is also an exceptional full body exercise to do indoors.

Nytimes article title: >Memory Grow Stronger

Actual study: >mitigates the negative consequences of chronic stress

This is like saying that not pooping makes you gain weight, when the study is on how much you eat affects the weight of your poop.

Noncongruent.

Not really. The abstract of the study specifically lists improved memory as one of the effects the mice experienced. There are obviously lots of caveats you could list (e.g. it's only shown to help mice with chronic stress, not people or even mice in general), but it doesn't seem incongruous the way you're describing.

I don't understand and I hope it doesn't mean I have a concussion.

This article should probably be titled "Exercise may prevent memory degradation under stressful conditions". The study, as reported, doesn't imply that exercising improves memory, only that it cushions you against stress which might make you forget things (or cause you difficulty to store things in the first place).

There's also some evidence [1] that exercise promotes hippocampus neurogenesis in adults, which could improve your memory in more permanent way, not just remedying stress effects.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5281566/

In Sweden Anders Hansen, a well known psychiatrist and researcher, is pushing for people to exercise to improve all parts of well-being.

One introduction to his work in english is the TEDxUmeå talk below.

Why the Brain is Built for Movement | Anders Hansen | TEDxUmeå https://youtu.be/a9p3Z7L0f0U

Mind body connection is real, who knew.

(in healthy, male mice)

Not sure about others but I have noticed increase in the number of articles published on nytimes.com on the front page on HN. And because I am not a paid user for them, I hardly get to read these articles(it seems they have limit of free articles/month).

Just curious, as these articles are on the front page(one nytimes article almost every day), most of the HN community pay for their subscription? Or there is something else going on e.g. voting ring with paid subscription to promote and increase their sign up rates?

I think they just tend to be well written and well researched, so people upvote them. That being said, if you want to get around the paywall, just open the link in a private browsing window.

Or, you know, subscribe.

Why would you pay for what is essentially sophisticated blog spam? The quality of 95% their 'journalism' is abysmal.

I keep seeing comments like this about NYT and I truly don’t understand where they’re coming from. And I don’t mean that in a dismissive way, I’m genuinely curious. Yes, the Economist and the New Yorker often have better writing, but their authors also have far laxer deadlines. What is the better alternative to the journalism of the likes of NYT that I am apparently missing? (I’m referring to English-language dailies here, but it doesn’t have to be US based).

I'm a big fan of the Financial Times, but if you're not as in to the finance/business stuff then it may not be worth it for you.

I do think that more people should pay for news (the turning point for me was Brexit).

There is only so much trump news one can read.

> What is the better alternative to the journalism of the likes of NYT

I think HN is a good alternative to any online news site.

The NYTimes is widely known, read, and linked to across the web, so it's not surprising that it shows up on HN as well with regularity. There's nothing going on with respect to voting rings or whatnot: I'd be surprised if there weren't more than a few NYT (or WSJ or WaPo) submissions on the front page every day just due to their prominence as publishers.

While I'm sure there are HN members who have subscriptions, as you note, there are a few articles available for free, and there are a few workarounds for the paywall as well, often posted in the comments.

> it seems they have limit of free articles/month

My recollection is that count is stored in a cookie. And articles accessed via google (news?) may just work?

As a long-time reader, I wonder if the NYTimes might have a higher conversion rate if their banner ad theme, instead of being "Truth" and "The journalism you deserve", was more like "we often get things wrong, and we're coming from the Town and City chattering groupthink bubble, but at least we're trying". :)

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