How Weight Training Might Change the Brain | Hacker News Reader

How Weight Training Might Change the Brain

nytimes.com

136 pointspseudolus174 comments

Serious lifting or athletics in general necessitates cultivating competent time management, planning skills and self control/discipline. Even more so if you roll into dieting for maintaining weight class or generally aesthetics. Once a lifter exhaust all novice and easy gains which doesn't take long, it's down to planning multi week/month long meso cycles, trouble shooting and learning about about your body, refraining from immediate gratification - i.e. goal setting, developing weaknesses, fatigue management - just generally embracing slow and steady progress. It's one of the few hobbies that can't be rushed.

That said, most people never get this serious and conscientiousness is what separates a long lifting career and snapcity (injury). A whole heap of genetics as well, since people who are genetically gifted at lifting tend to self select for staying in the hobby. Instagram culture also doesn't help if your psychologically prone to social comparison. Finally if you progress far enough, there the cost-benefit ratio shifts from health to strength, from experience, some sort of injury is almost guaranteed. It's really one of those things that should be embraced in moderation for the general population. Moderation is really all you need, people only need to develop some function strength and musculature for health benefits. You don't need to deadlift 600 pounds to inoculate your hips from shattering after a fall, indeed the road to 600+ will probably messy you up in the first place.

Seems like using gear is a pretty easy way to rush this

"Gear" is slang for steroids, hormones, and other chemical aids to muscle development, for those who aren't familiar.

For a subsect of a subsect of the population - those who genetically respond well to training and drugs. The general consensus on gear is you shouldn't start until you're familiar with the nuances of training (3-5 years). Particularly when it comes to ligament health- it's very easy to outstrip recovery ability when progressing fast on gear. That doesn't stop people from being reckless.

Plenty of people on gear who doesn't have the basics dialed in and get poor result. That said, I whole endorse more research into gear use, it's sad that purity of sports culture has basically made the area taboo. I think a lot of the population, particularly elderly or sedimentary would benefit from more muscle providing if the true cost benefit analysis are better understood or better gear is developed without current known side effects. The benefit would be compounded with resistance training but that's a hard sell for general population whereas magic juice is not. The health care savings in mitigating falls among elders (one of the largest medical expenditures) alone would be gargantuan.

> Plenty of people on gear who doesn't have the basics dialed in and get poor result.

I don't believe this is true. I read a study (that I can't source right now) essentially suggesting something like:

Training +gear: 9kg of muscle gained Training -gear: 5kg of muscle gained No training +gear: 7kg of muscle gained No training -gear: 0kg of muscle gained

All that said, I'm left with the same conclusion as you, which is we should be actively shooting up menopausal men with testosterone. When my count goes below healthy, I'll certainly be looking for it.

Normal gear raises your genetic limit by ~5-10%, 7kg of leanmass is a great result for untrained people to inoculate against everyday challenges hence my endorsement for larger role in general population who can't be bothered to train. For serious trainers who you can pack on a lot more lean mass than that, whereas ignorant gear users gains + gear bonus might leave some pretty easy gains on the table by training stupid. Genetically exceptional folks aside. That's not to say gear doesn't confer a massive benefit in the short run. But it doesn't give you the knowledge for long term progress, and if one is not willing to be educated on the basics for lifting/nutrition, they're probably not responsible enough to use gear safely. Anecdotally, gear/dark side seems to be a one way street for most users, it's a lifelong commitment with real medical side effects, "rushing" it without understanding the consequences is a bad approach especially when most people reach 95% of their genetic ceiling withing 3-5 years without gear.

It really depends. Anabolic-androgenic steroids come in a rather wide variety. It's one thing to inject Test Cyp or some other bio-similar to natural human testosterone in "normal" doses as part of TRT or similar therapy. It's quite another to inject something like Trenbolone[1]. That and similar drugs will produce extreme results in anyone who isn't androgen resistant. And they have all kinds of other nasty side effects too. Suppressing intratesticular testosterone is virtually assured without additional intervention.

Interestingly there is some evidence that the effects of steroid use continue even after discontinuing use. Also, thanks to the unexplained secular testosterone decline, pretty much every American man who doesn't medicate is going to be well below his genetic potential. Unless, of course, the secular testosterone decline is a consequence of some dysgenic force.

[1]Used to make cattle get meatier. And it works exceedingly well.

On the social comparison note, I don't regret 8 years of constant training in the least, however I do suspect that if you do add a lot of musculature to a tall frame it can be a bit intimidating in engineering cultures where most men are out of shape and view the activity as "meatheadish."

I think if you are fit and in addition dress well and are nice to people, you just come across as someone who has their life together.

I suppose there will always be the haters, though.

As you get older staying fit is even more important. Both for your ability to just function, and also I strongly believe it signals you've still got your sh1t together.

In my mid 40s I let myself go and got over 100kg (I'm ~6.3), but have dropped 10kg in the last 1.5 years and also gotten stronger. 2-3 sessions a week of Stronglifts 5x5 and riding instead of driving to work.

I reckon my head just works better as well. I find it much easier to concentrate for longer periods of time.

I don't know, in west coast tech centers, it's pretty much a meme that all tech bros rock climb/boulder.

Only reason people hate on others improving themselves is because it brings forth their own inadequacies and chips at their ego.

Rock/wall climbing is fun and you can really see yourself improve fast if you just have the discipline to get to the climbing gym three-ish times per week. Plus it will make you look good and feel better about yourself which will just make you all around better person.

I don't think it's that. Some people are legitimately obnoxious and believe they can dominate you because they spend more time lifting weights, and they have really obnoxious philosophies and pet theories that justify their own behavior. They're the natural enemy of shier people, and as a result those types can be distrustful.

Lifting and in general working on yourself does shift your world view. You start to see through a lot of the bullshit that people peddle during the day. I bet same thing happens when you build something all by yourself knowing that only you could have done what you did.

Well, very broadly speaking there are two ways of looking at things. One philosophy is we should live in a world where the playing field is leveled and we should look out for the weak.

Another is the weak need to get out of the way of the strong, and if you are struggling, it is your responsibility to become stronger.

Increasingly I feel personal philosophies are largely self-serving. You believe in things that will benefit you. As you gain strength in one area, you tend more towards the second philosophy.

However, I think believing that can easily turn people into bullies. Do we want a society that is optimized for the dominance of the few? Do we want to break every interaction down crudely into a competition between "the strong" and "the weak," despite the fact that human beings are complicated and are strong and weak in many different areas?

The mistake a lot of meatheads make is assuming because they have physical strength, they should be allowed to dominate. However, in modern society, I feel other forms of strength are much more important. Emotional strength. Moral strength. Intellectual strength. They don't have much to do with muscle size, despite what some seem to believe. We should respect character more and physical appearance less.

I'm actually gaining weight pretty quickly now after weight lifting, but I hope I never forget what it feels like to be pushed around, and I never let myself push around others.

Obviously society would be better with more winners, but what we need to aim for is equal opportunities not equal outcome.

As for modern society, there are many ways to view what is important and in what way. Questions like who is benefiting the most from these new masculinity rules (toxic masculinity, etc) posed on men has multiple answers.

Being mentally strong is not exclusive with being physically strong. In fact both should enhance one another. You should educate yourself on how to best take care and enhance your body and in return you get better functionality which enhances your mental capabilities.

I'm not sure. Even though I don't want to admit it, I'm sure I, along with many others, would have more confidence in a fit, muscular person than an out-of-shape slovenly one.

I'm the opposite for hardcore engineers. An in-shape, muscular person looks like they have dedicated a non-trivial amount of time to not software. I presume most people that look like that just see writing software as "a job" and won't be as capable of fully owning anything more complex than small portions of a complex application.

> An in-shape, muscular person looks like they have dedicated a non-trivial amount of time to not software.

Hitting the gym can actually be pretty complementary to writing software or doing other sorts of engineering in the best possible way. For example, many people are psychologically messed up due to some sort of mental "baggage" that basically shows up as a somatic fight-or-flight response, albeit generally in an in-set, chronicized form rather than a literal stress reaction. This can place a significant cap on both your executive function and your self-perceived mental acuity. Hitting the gym is an excellent, time- and cost-effective way to work that stress out of your body and mind!

I had a boss that was a good programmer and would work late into the night on pet projects. A true coder. But he'd get so stressed out he'd yell at team members every time things went wrong. Communication was poor and the whole team suffered from it.

You need to devote a "non-trival" amount of time becoming a well rounded person or everything else is going to suffer, including your ability to maintain relationships in the workplace and communicate. That's way more important than knowing all the arcane details of the Java virtual machine.

Cool story. Nothing to do with body building.

That's effectively quack science. I'd love to be proven otherwise with evidence, but I've seen nothing that shows people spending an hour a day outperforming people who do not in mental tasks.

Totally disagree. "If you want something done, give it to a busy man."

Hitting the gym doesn't require significantly more time than any other hobby which one might take seriously. And I'd surmise it's possible to be a great engineer while also maintaining hobbies other than spending every waking second writing code.

That's a strange view. Goof programmers are supposed to be smart people than can focus not only on little implementation details, but also the overall vision. Part of your overall vision as a human being is a healthy lifestyle, so I can see being fit only as an advantage, especially for a programmer.

>"Goof programmer"

What did you just call me?!

Taking care of your body only takes ~1h a day and eating healthy most of the time.

You might as well not trust anyone with a family or any kind of hobby outside of programming to write a decent program.

Alternative: If all your software work has to be done at a computer you probably aren’t thinking hard enough.

Your ideal engineer seems to be someone who devotes their life to your business at the cost of their personal health and betterment. Someone who’ll burn out when they realize their employer only sees them as a tool to be used and having any personal life or hobbies comes at the cost of their boss not making record profits every quarter.

Nearly every notably brilliant programmer out there has other pursuits. You need to diversify your interests for your health and to gain inspiration from outside sources. Locking yourself into a bubble of software only makes you miss out on the world.

On the other hand, I do my best thinking when going for a jog. It doesn't require extra time.

People who spend all their time writing software tend to be very good at pushing out very large amounts of lines of code very fast, but that doesn't necessarily make them good engineers.

Richard Stallman said, "My hobbies include affection, international folk dance, flying, cooking, physics, recorder, puns, science fiction fandom, and programming; I magically get paid for doing the last one."

I don't see how you could be an intelligent, creative person and only be fixated on one thing your entire life. The smartest people I know have all sorts of creative outlets. I think I saw something that said a very large portion of Nobel prize winners are musicians, too.

Personally, I exercise because if I don't my mood suffers. It's a big problem, which I have found a solution to. Don't judge people.

To pile on further, hitting the gym and other sports relentlessly is what allows me to continue programming for long hours without my body falling apart.

I beleive it's all in your head. I used to feel very self conscious in my CS classes about looking like a meathead, but I can't point to in instance during schooling or career where that feeling was confirmed by someone's actions/words.

Before I trained an engineering manager literally said offhand a candidate was "to big," during my training I had a small framed junior engineer do a 180 and become adversarial after I talked about my training and goals at a group lunch and in interviews I've sensed discomfort from men with small frames as well. It really is instinctual.

In the manosphere subculture it is called getting "mogged" as in Alpha Male Other Guy and in forums where they speak freely it is an acknowledged phenomena.

I think there is something that is inherent to 'nerd culture', at least of a certain generation, which instills a feeling of otherness and persecution by 'alphas'. I was a socially awkward nerd in high school with few friends. I left feeling like I was persecuted and had a large chip on my shoulder towards 'normies'. It wasn't until years later that I realized most of it was in my head and self-inflicted. There is a lot of media out there pushing the 'jocks throw nerd in a trashcan' meme. I grew up in places where you'd have thought things like that would have gone on, but in hindsight I don't remember much of it. Sure, the cool kids didn't value intelligence, but they weren't persecuting anyone for it.

I get the impression lots of other nerd types have a similar chip on their shoulders, whether from real trauma or imagined. As I have become more fit and more outgoing over the years, I find it's harder to connect with other nerds, perhaps because I don't share the same victimhood fantasy, or maybe I just seem unapproachable to them? I don't know, but I definitely feel more apprehension than when I was a fat guy with bad posture and ill fitting clothes.

So the persecution feeling of "nerds" from "jocks" is "mostly in their head and self-inflicted", but the persecution for being "alpha" from "guys with smaller frames" is totally real. And really, I really can't help to think about all the mental baggage someone who uses the term "alpha" has.

On the off chance your reading comprehension has improved since you read my initial comment, it is worth pointing out that I was referring to my personal experience when I said "most of it was in my head and self-inflicted."

'Alpha' is a term of our times. Sorry, I don't define the language. Substitute 'cool kids' or 'socially elite' if it makes you feel better(assuming you want to feel better... maybe you enjoy being righteously indignant?).

I'm really conflicted about this.

I'm a nerd. I was bullied in school.

I was also fairly small and weak and non-sporty, so I was an easy target.

I also liked to talk and especially talk back to the bullies. Who knows, I might have even "psychologically" bullied other people using my wit and intelligence (several of my classmates complained to the teacher once that I would "insult" them which came as a total shock to me... was probably true but I wasn't doing it maliciously and wasn't consciously aware the impact it had on others).

It's really hard to generalize from 1 example.

It seems to be fairly common for the abused to turn into the abusers at some point. Once you've internalized the status of a victim, abusing your power over others can seem like justified self-defense or righteous revenge.

I remember a lot of 'us'(the uncool kids, 'betas'(haha), nerds, dorks, dweebs, etc) being somewhat conflicted over the Columbine killings, because, while the perpetrators were absolute evil assholes, we understood why someone might feel justified in lashing out at the 'cool kids'(is that more acceptable than 'alpha'?).

There are definitely nerd bullies. Hell, my mom and uncle were exactly that in high school. They even used to taunt and make fun of my dad. Unfortunately for my mom, being a smart, sarcastic, cross-eyed nerd girl meant you had to sleep with the dorks, and behold, my family was born.

Everyone really is a victim these days aren't they. I'm sorry but as another tall, muscled software engineer, it sounds like you need to get off those forums.

I'm sure there are some people that feel that way, but when it comes to leadership, and other areas in life the truth is that your frame will give you 'instinctual' benefits. Not to mention with women.

Life isn't fair. But don't feel bad for the positive traits that you do have.

I don't feel bad and don't feel like a victim, I'm just stating an observation. I'm on those forums because I've become fascinated by social and evolutionary psychology and they provide a lot of insight into people's thinking.

Do they? Evolutionary psychology in particular seems like myth making more than anything else. Though, myth can produce a sensation of insight...

Be careful with that "fascinated by psychology" justification for hanging out in toxic places. I've heard that kind of statement from people before, that they're "not really" in a subculture, they just find it "anthropologically interesting". 99% of the time it's at least partly BS, a mental self-excuse to distance themselves from something they find actually quite intriguing.

If you frequent such places, you will inevitably pick up the concepts they use, like you did with "mogging". Once you have the concepts in your brain, you will begin to pattern-match them in daily life - like you did with "mogging". It is exactly this acquisition of "new concepts with which to view the world" which is interesting. But once you start habitually viewing the world through a manosphere lens, you are on a slippery slope to becoming like them. Take a look - do you want that?

tl;dr meme exposure is dangerous and should not be taken lightly - we don't have the mental separation we think we do. This is not calling you out or anything, just a PSA to you and anyone else reading this thread - innocent curiosity is how people get radicalized!

Fair warning, but yes I am aware of meme exposure, have very solid critical thinking foundations and don't limit myself to observing extreme perspectives.

I guess I'm kinda curious what your #'s are. Are you getting mogged for DLing 140kg, or 300kg?

That comment is more directed towards the increase in eating disorders, body dysmorphia and negative thinking when comparing progress online. Particularly in men. 5 years ago, 5plate is a solid deadlift, now junior women are pulling that. And it's causing very brittle minded people grief and others to push too hard ruinously when it's clearly not in their cards. Not to mention predatory fake natties schilling nutrition supplements, photoshopped photos etc etc. The gap between the average joe and top 0.01% is increasing as participation increases. I'm sure expectations will normalize with time, but I've noticed a distinct increase in unhappiness among people who spend too much time on bodybuilding/powerlifting instagrams due to increasingly unrealistic expectations. That's not unique to lifting culture overall, but it's a salient development for a niche sport that rapidly gain popularity.

Are there any specific eating disorders that these men you are describing are more inclined to be victims of? I feel like this whole intermittent fasting trend is a little eating-disorder-ish but it doesn't seem that bad overall.

I do agree the dysmorphia is getting bad. I wouldn't be surprised at all to learn that anabolic steroid use is growing rapidly. I think it's really analogous to how in certain sports, athletes feel like they need to use anabolic steroids to even compete; now because of instagram (and even just more people in real life... I've seen a few people at my shitty gym who almost definitely are juicing) it feels like these huge juiced up guys are everywhere and it threatens regular people's masculinity

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jul/31/eating-disor...

Just in general, there have been quite a few articles like this in the last few years. Particularly affects bodybuilding communities trying to get to sub 10% bodyfat. One of the problems is that lifting social media is basically Youtube recommendation on steriods (pun intended), the average lifter that lifts or diets for health doesn't get as much attention as the shredded one lifting big weights, probably on drugs, and if not, have genetics 99.99% of people doesn't and therefore have effectively zero chance of replicating.

Edit: another issue is because health culture likes to emphasis on hard work and discipline without acknowledging that 2sigma genetics is precursor to being at the very top. Kids see juiced idols who play the eat well and work hard card (including wholesome figures like Arnold), whose livelihood depends on perpetuating that myth, and telling the truth is tantamount to admitting you committed a crime due to legislation around steriods. The incentives are stacked.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by 5 plate, but if you're talking about 5 x 20kg plates on either end of an olympic bar (which is another 20kg), that's a 220kg/495lb deadlift and is still very much a solid deadlift.

For an 85kg man (average in UK is 83.6kg) that's as near as makes no odds 2.6x body weight.

For a 70kg woman (average in UK in 70.2kg) it's more than 3x body weight.

Generally anything more than 2x body weight is considered a solid deadlift for both men and women. Sure, not in powerlifting, but powerlifting is still pretty niche even amongst people who lift regularly.

(For comparison, I weigh 97kg (14-15% body fat) and would be over the moon with a 220kg deadlift. I'm heading in the right direction but a couple of unrelated skiing injuries have prevented me from getting there... and of course, I'm getting older, so who knows.)

EDIT: Corrected with ONS figures for average weights in UK.

~500lb is very much an aspiration life time goal for most trained men, even revised army fitness standard full score doesn't ask for more than 340lbs. Minimum is 140lbs. I think NASA / astronauts prescriptions is also a very low sub bodyweight multiplier for reps to prevent atrophy AND MITIGATE INJURY RISK in space which is key. That is probably what the general population should shoot for.

On social media, the gold standard for bragging strong was 500 as little as 5 years ago, hence all the meme that 600 is the new 500 and now 700 is the new 500 everytime world records are pushed by elite athletes no one should be comparing themselves to. But for some reason a lot of lifters tend to do this even though very few people think if they train hard enough they can be faster or comparable to Usain Bolt.

I think it's a unique development with the intersection of social media and lifting culture. The bell curve for strength in the population hasn't changed, but the top 0.01% are increasingly visible and it's causing a crisis in social comparison that's not healthy. I don't know if it's a unique issue only for people involved in niche powerlifitng/bodybuilding subcultures, I think it's one of those situations where memes migrate up to general fitness/resistance training enthusiasts and starts to affect casual viewers who like to compare. There's also a fair amount of people who get into lifting due to self esteem reasons.

Hmm, maybe people doing lifting should focus less on some pathetic instagrams and facebooks and more on real life, real people and real interactions

An unspoken truth about lifting, imo, is that a big chunk of the group is a bit lonely & seeking social validation & attention. It's part of why they lift.

> ~500lb is very much an aspiration life time goal for most trained men.

I think that's a bit ridiculous. I could lift nearly that untrained, albeit overweight. I'm 40.

Given the option, I'd be leaner and better at running!

BW / lean mass plays a huge part. There's a few powerlifting phenoms whose origin story is pulling 500lbs on their first try, albeit as skinny teenagers. There's people who worked on farms or have athletic backgrounds that's build a muscular base and moving to barbell is a relatively easy transition. And there's people who are genetically blessed. But I don't think that's typical. Here's the 2018 /r/powerlifting survey, even among trained people in a population dedicated to being good at deadlifing, the median deadlift is 450 for men not on gear. Relevant pic last result:

https://imgur.com/a/ozbvt8W#FOOYBVB

Very interesting. I don't understand all the terms in those pics, but I'm taller than their median respondent and heavier (BMI ~34), so that's probably what it is. Just doing a lot of hiking, walking upstairs to the apartment, etc is "deadlift training" if you weigh enough.

Nicely Put Eddie Hall pulled 500kg 1102 ibs Incredible video (he nearly killed himself) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9Y4o_BqC0A He weighs around 160 kg so a bit over 3

Junior women can't pull a 5 plate DL. Women can, but certainly not junior. Even for men it takes some time to get there.
There's a tendency (especially on the internet forums) to think that average muscle mass an capability is the same, when it varies a lot more.
It's ok if a person can't do a 50kg deadlift at the beginning. Everybody has their own limits.

Jessica Buettner pulled 227.5kg (502lbs) at 72kg last year at 23years old, Amanda Lawrence pulled 252.5kg (557lbs) at 84kg this year at 22years old, both in Junior women classic powerlifting.
It's OK to be to pull whatever weight, lifting should be about realistic self improvement and self empowerment. My point is because records are getting chipped so fast, and for the first time, extremely strong women are entering the stage due the raising popularity of lifting among women that it's causing a lot of issues (and toxicity) in lifting social media, which I recommend most people to stay away from.

Junior is usually defined as "inexperienced" (as in "junior developer")
They might be at a competition "junior" level but I'm willing to bet they have at least 5y.r. of experience lifting weights
She was competing already in 2014 (source https://www.openpowerlifting.org/u/jessicabuettner ) and she's also Type 1 diabetic
Also this is a competition/record level of weight for their bodyweight, men might be lifting 220kg for their usual workout

My bad for using lifting classification nomenclature. Record breakers get social media attention and lifters like to compare/peg their progress to how fast the top 1% progresses. Conventional wisdom suggests diminishing returns at extreme end of competitiveness, but since there are so many new entrants into the sport, outlier "juniors" are progressing extremely fast and shattering records on time scale that normally take years in a mature sport. 5 years is really a short career in lifting terms - many people who lift similar amount of time with less progress are getting... overwhelmed by the progress. This progress is happening in male weight classes as well, but I think women deadlifting or squatting 500lbs makes some men question their masculinity in unhealthy ways. There was always 20 year old women who could deadlift 500lbs, but they didn't train, now they do and they're very visible. Now they are and as expected, some people can't cope and even form toxic communities around their inability to cope. Buettner in particular gets shit on because she gets insulin TUE, and insulin is performance enhancing in muscle building... and keeping her alive. It's all very dumb.

> Record breakers get social media attention and lifters like to compare/peg their progress to how fast the top 1% progresses.
Completely agree.
But I think people are progressing earlier due to starting earlier, better information/training (and a bit of better/more accessible supplements) and their progress is getting more visible through social media.
Congrats to those breaking records in competitions but it's exactly that, outliers and records (and even then a lot of hard work to get there).

Also there is a lot of confusion between bodybuilding and powerlifting, especially on communities like /r/fitness (it starting to improve though last time I checked). I think it started a few years ago with websites like stronglifts.com with the idea that increasing weight was the only objective, leading to injuries and disappointment for beginners.

Thank you for saying this, as I was about to post something similar. I came to the valley about 8 months ago, and switched from hiking to lifting because of time constraints. Since getting big, I've felt more and more out of place. I even caught one of my bosses referring to me as a 'bro' when he didn't realize I had dialed in to a meeting.
Now, granted, the current crop of engineers I work with are some of the most stereotypically nerdy folks I've ever encountered. Back in San Diego, the engineers I worked with were usually surfers, extreme skiers, advanced cyclists, or some other "alpha" pursuit. The "alpha" engineers in the valley that I've encountered so far... are generally pale, skinny, socially awkward and not very friendly.
(Edit: Quotes around 'alpha'. Added 'engineers' after second 'alpha'. I thought I edited out the second usage of 'alpha' because it's really all engineers, but keeping it because it still works.)

I think you are likely on to something with this and your comment below. Testosterone has been decreasing steadily in men over the years and sitting in front of a machine all day probably doesn't help. And yes, the "jocks vs nerds" meme likely contributes to the mentality we are sensing.

> And yes, the "jocks vs nerds" meme likely contributes to the mentality we are sensing.
Well, bullying was a thing, and it wasn't the nerds bullying the jocks

Sure, but to bring that mentality to adulthood seems ridiculous.

Is there a reason why there is a decline in testosterone? Is it connected to the sperm count steadily decreasing mystery?

Last I checked no one has put forth a plausible theory.

There are several related to diet including obesity and xenoestrogens.

There have been some research studies focused on exogenous estrogen mimicking chemicals (Xenoestrogen). Some plastics exhibit these affects. "BPA (Bisphenol A) is the monomer used to manufacture polycarbonate plastic and epoxy resins used as a lining in most food and beverage cans. BPA global capacity is in excess of 6.4 billion pounds (2.9×109 kg) per year and thus is one of the highest-volume chemicals produced worldwide." -https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenoestrogen
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1469672/

> Is there a reason why there is a decline in testosterone?
Except for the ongoing war against boys?
I'm fully aware that girls has faced problems as well, probably more than men, but the solution to that shouldn't be to punish young boys today for the sins of their grandparents.
Edit: I'm serious. I'm as much against sexism as anyone, but IMO the solution isn't to make all boys behave more like girls but to make boys behave as better boys.

chemicals and a sedentary lifestyle seem more plausible than a war against boys that doesn't exist

> chemicals and a sedentary lifestyle
As for the theory about chemicals I think that can be a good explanation for parts of the problem.
One observation that strengthens this theory is that dogs are affected as well.
> a war against boys that doesn't exist
The war part is a way of speech, or hyperbole, I give you that.
But how about you explain:
- the majority of prison populations being men. Is society failing them like we say about every other group who is overrepresented in prisons or are men more evil? If men are more evil - explain why they are different from other groups overrepresented in prisons.
- why do boys on average score significantly better when tests are anonymous compared to when the tests are named and graded by their teacher?[0][1]
- Related to the first: Why are judges more lenient towards women? [2]
- etc
[0]: http://sciencenordic.com/why-boys-get-poor-grades
[1]: I'm well aware that the opposite happens as well. A good friend of me told me how he (who always got good grades) and a female student who always got average grades swapped their hand ins and found that the teacher had still graded his top notch and hers as average, so yes, this happens as well but seems to be less common at least around here.
[2]: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/155708511143021...

Maybe you feel out of place because you're thinking in terms of "alphas" etc., which to me sounds like a totally douche/"bro" thing to do. Most people I know that don't lift don't care about body shapes etc., otherwise they would lift.

Heh, ya no. I use the term because it seems to be the closest word in common usage to what I'm trying to describe. I'm not going to spend 45 minutes typing a dissertation so I can avoid a sensitive term.
There was also a time when I was a fat nerd, about 22 years ago when I emerged from college, and for a while would have made many assumptions about the intelligence of someone who was fit and especially someone who was 'buff'(can I use that word? does it make me sound like I 'bro'? I don't know...).

You can say swole instead of buff if you want to be trendy.

> Most people I know that don't lift don't care about body shapes
This is a lie and you know it. Everyone and I mean literally everyone cares about appearances. No matter how you slice it everyone has a style they are trying to project. This same goes for body shape.
If we had a pill that instantly -- without effort -- gave everyone a six pack and lean muscular body, everyone of your friends would be on it, because deep down they care.
Problem is one of discipline. It is not easy to wake up early and hit the gym or after hard day of working to do the same. It is not easy to not eat that doughnut (it is Sally's birthday after all and it would be rude not to take a free doughnut).
I am far from perfect, but I try my damnedest each and every day and I'm making progress and I've already noticed it affecting people around me, but I'm also fortunate that the team I work with is full of sport-y people, so at least I get to hang out with "my people", but I feel the difference when I interface with other teams.

>> Most people I know that don't lift don't care about body shapes
> Everyone and I mean literally everyone cares about appearances. No matter how you slice it everyone has a style they are trying to project. This same goes for body shape.
Even those few people who are too lazy or apathetic to project an image on purpose have preferences about others' appearances. This is literally the reason why advertising uses professional models to sell products.

>everyone of your friends would be on it
No. Why are you talking in absolutes after spending so much time on the internet? There are always exceptions.
Muscular body requires a ton of energy and protein to maintain. Not trying to get on a soapbox here, but I am personally trying to minimize my impact on the environment. This includes eating the minimum amount of protein required to stay healthy. I definitely won't waste the additional energy to maintain useless muscles (which are absolutely useless for a desk job), which will not even be visible under the baggy shirts I prefer to wear.

we are already talking about magic pill, why should you assume it required any more energy than you consume now?
>useless muscles (which are absolutely useless for a desk job), which will not even be visible under the baggy shirts I prefer to wear.
This is cope if I've ever seen some. You can rationalize it anyway you want, but deep down you know that if you at this instant could have rock hard abs with perfectly sculpted body without any effort you'd take it. You'd find use for it.

This thing always comes up whenever non-fit people talk about fit people, and I believe the core of it is just a hint of envy. Fitness is the one thing you can't cheat at or take shortcuts, and no amount of money can compensate for not doing the work.

There are a lot of hidden assumptions here.
One of them being that protein-dense foods always has a greater impact on the environment than other foodstuffs. There are plenty of vegetarian or even vegan bodybuilders, and we know how to isolate protein from vegetables. Pulses are protein-rich, if you don't want to eat isolated proteins.
The second one is that a muscular body will always require more energy than a non-muscular body. While muscle does have higher calorie requirements than most other kinds of tissue, most fit people actually eat less calories (and better quality calories) than unfit people, due to being used to keeping their diet under control.
The final one is that the only thing one might want to do with their life is their job. Even if you work a desk job, that doesn't mean you won't want to be physically active in your off time.

> Problem is one of discipline
Not discipline - priorities. I'm lean and fairly fit, and while I would like to be a little bit more muscular I'd rather spend the time at the piano or with my family

>I'm lean and fairly fit
Judging this is real hard since fairly fit means such different things for different people, but spending 5 hours a week at the gym isn't a big time investment. It obviously won't be getting you Mr. Olympia body, but it will make you bigger and stronger than most people.
Part of discipline is also fighting against excuses. Excuses like I don't have time to work out. I don't have time to prep my meals. That's why you need discipline.
Taking things to extreme you could wake up at 4:00 am to workout for an hour every single day. Obviously that means giving up on media consumption time during evening to get full night's of rest, but that is why you need discipline.

If it's not your priority then it's not a matter of discipline. Discipline is what you need in order to live according to your values and long term priorities instead of short term desires. But people can genuinely value other things, which will take up all their available time, over being bigger and stronger.

Almost anything you focus yourself on would benefit greatly if you were more fit and taking care of yourself and making yourself grow (both mentally and physically) doesn't take that much time. I currently spend 1 hour per day for 5 days at the gym. On top of that food prep and other training related stuff, lets say it takes me 2 hours a day. Everyone can find 10 hours per week if they just time track what they are doing. For me it has pretty much mean unsubscribing from Netflix and way reduced Youtube consumption.
But true your milage may vary, but usually it is just discipline issue. People want instant gratification and do not want to wake up early to hit the gym before they head out to work.

> but spending 5 hours a week at the gym isn't a big time investment.
That's a sizeable investment when you have kids. Which is fine -- but you definitely have to stop doing something else in order to do it. If like me (and perhaps parent comment) you _already_ don't passively consume media, go to bed early, etc, you really do have to trade something for it. And (again, perhaps like OP) if you are already healthy and fit (ex: I can play soccer for 2 hours) there's even less benefit (relative to your other pursuits). Which is all actually to say -- there are many people for whom discipline is certainly _not_ the issue.

Sounds like we have a lot in common ;)
All my meals are already home-cooked (and, in the summer, mostly home-grown), and I exercise for 30 mins 5 days a week (plus extra physical work in the garden at weekends). I'm fit enough. The extra couple of hours I'd need a week to build muscle are better spent doing something else, IMO

I'd say I'm fairly fit for my age (and particularly given my health bullshit) and my time commitment is about 6hrs a week, sufficient to cycle 400 miles a month.
I've been fitter and I've been way unfit (in my 20s I was a gym rat), early thirties I ballooned to 245lbs and these days I sit around 185lbs (because of health reasons I struggle to eat enough to keep weight on) having lost 60lbs a few years ago via diet and exercise.
For someone approaching 40 I look decent physically (which is actually a problem since I have multiple serious health problems).
For me the cycling is important, it's both a fuck you to illness and a pressure valve - as a friend said once "it's impossible to be remain angry on a bike" as you just exert yourself harder.
Added to that is calisthenics every other day (planks, pressups, sit-ups and pull-ups) as I'm focussed on maintaining functional strength as much as I can.

For some of us skinny guys it's really hard to even get basic beginner gains. I tried it on and off for years. My form was good, too, and I stuck with it for long periods.
Finally, I learned to get on a good program and TRACK MY MACROS. That's making a huge difference.
It's not always discipline. Sometimes it's finding the right program. It took me literally 20 years to figure that out, because I was laboring under the bad advice that "you should just eat healthy and you'll get there" that my dad kept telling me.
For the naturally skinny, you need a constant caloric surplus (or even just a regular amount of calories to recomp -- I couldn't even recomp effectively because I'd starve myself) or you're mostly wasting your time.

100%. I can guarantee that every single one of those weak guys decided to "get in shape" at some point in their lives, went to the gym for a week, then quit because "it's too hard". The followed up with a mountain of excuses about why they're too busy or they'd rather play piano or whatever other explanation is necessary for "I'm actively choosing to look like shit".
The funny thing is, physical appearance is the primary way we judge other people. Like Arnold said, "A well built physique is a status symbol. It reflects you worked hard for it, no money can buy it. You cannot borrow it, you cannot inherit it, you cannot steal it. You cannot hold onto it without constant work. It shows discipline, it shows self respect, it shows patience, work ethic and passion. That is why I do what I do."

This discussion has become a satire. It began like this:
> I do suspect that if you do add a lot of musculature to a tall frame it can be a bit intimidating in engineering cultures where most men are out of shape and view the activity as "meatheadish."
And it devolved into this:
>The followed up with a mountain of excuses about why they're too busy or they'd rather play piano or whatever other explanation is necessary for "I'm actively choosing to look like shit."
Jesus, I wasn't rooting for the scrawny nerds at the outset of this thread, but now I am.

I think you overstate the case. Yes, everyone will choose a better option at no cost, but most everything has cost, and we have limited budgets of discipline, money, etc. to pay the various kinds of costs required for good things...so when someone "doesn't care", it literally mostly means that they won't pay the cost of the thing.
So, I don't really find it far fetched that quite a few people by a reasonable definition "don't care", by which I mean they don't consider the benefits worth paying much cost at all, which I consider a fairly reasonable definition of "don't care." I'd like to know Sanskrit; if I could take a pill and know Sanskrit, I would. But do I really care? No. I won't pay my time and attention for it. It'd just be neat. Mostly, too high of an opportunity cost to spend the time on it. The same applies with body shape for me. It'd be nice, but it's not worth my effort. I won't pay much for it, so "I don't care."

As a guy who's bulking, I worry about this too. I've been skinny my whole life and true nerds have always recognized me as one of their own. Will that change with a lot of weight training?
It feels really silly to type that but I feel the ability to seamlessly fit into that culture is a big advantage.
Like, my fiancee is an attractive latina woman and she is the biggest geek I know, but she feels like she has to "prove herself" to other geeks. I hardly know anything about that culture but they instantly see me as one of them.

Gatekeepers are going to be gatekeepers. Some folks rely on the nerd persona to look like the smartest person in the room; they probably picked that identity up at an early age. When they see an intelligent person who doesn't fit the stereotype, it can make them uncomfortable.
But those people are rare. For everyone else, it doesn't matter.

Uncomfortable is an understatement. Being smart/geeky is their identity, the "self" that they see within, and it is something that separated them from the jocks. Seeing someone who looks like a jock but is smart/geeky must be like a punch in the face. The thing that made them who they are, the thing that they were made fun of and bullied so much for, is now so casually adopted by the people who did the bullying. It is similar to the feeling when male gamers see female gamers who portray themselves as geeky gamers or whatever after for years making fun of those geeky virgins and their video games.

I'm curious how lifting would compare to other core activities, like hiking or lumberjacking.

Hiking isn't generally something that builds mass. Hiking promotes a lean frame that isn't going to intimidate anyone.

I don’t think that’s the goal for most people. For those wanting to do enjoyable activities, hiking is a good way to get some exercise and enjoy nature, which can be as meditative as any other cardio.
If muscle mass is the goal, hiking isn’t the best way to do that. But it can be healthy in a variety of ways for many people.

OP wondered about the differences between lifting and hiking. Please read my comment in that context. I was an avid hiker for years, so I get what you're saying. I don't think anyone is hiking to build mass. That would be silly.

There is something significant about learning to coordinate the firing of signals to a dozen muscles at once (and maintain those GO signals for the duration of the rep) which cannot be replicated any way other than lifting a big weight with one or more major muscle groups.
Also, as an aside, for the duration of that one rep, (if the weight is sufficiently heavy for the lifter) the mind narrows focus completely - no other conscious thoughts are present at that time. This is an interesting contrast to how many of our HN-type minds usually operate.

I love lifting for exactly this reason. It's meditative.

I'm reading this thread in between sets during a late night lifting session. Tired as, but I'm still giving it a shot..!
Agree it's very, very good for calming my mind.

the mind narrows focus completely
Rock climbing is the same way when you're in a precarious position or executing a difficult move.

I suppose that’s true of many things. I already recognized it from performing music, but the athletic experience had escaped me until this topic came up.

I never quite understood what people love about lifting but this comment makes me want to try it.
Cycling for a long time tends to completely clear my mind, but I don't know the feeling of "learning to coordinate" that you're talking about.

Enough money let’s you bypass a surprising amount of those things, like the time management, planning and troubleshooting.

> It's one of the few hobbies that can't be rushed.
I haven't found any hobby that doesn't have the exact same process and progression. Quickly gain some skills, but have to dedicate serious time to it to achieve more than a basic level of proficiency.

Indeed. Certainly any hobby that requires hand/eye coordination or any use of muscles at all, cannot be rushed. Doing too much in too little time leads to injury, whether it's lifting, martial arts, heck even rushing playing the guitar will lead to bleeding fingers. Coordination and perception can be pretty hard to improve on.

Before I read the article, I don't want to be biased so I'll just comment ahead of time... I want to note that a steady workout routine has helped me _more than anything_ else to control emotional fatalism, anxiety, and depression... and generally make me a more encouraging human being to be around. It's just one data point among millions but for me it's solved a myriad of issues.

The article spoke specifically about cognition and not my experience unfortunately. But it's interesting to note anyway that physical activity does have a correlation if not a causation on mental capacity

for me personally the biggest benefit of weight training has been the discipline it gives me. Once I stick to my gym plan, everything else in my day falls to its place.
Knowing I have to be in the gym every other night from 10 to 11:30, gets me to get my chores done quickly before 10 and not waste time on Reddit/Netflix all night. I also listen to audio books between sets to make a better use of my down time
For anyone looking to get started, I have been following a workout plan called 5x5 for a year and it’s been working all right for me. The idea is you do 5 sets of 5 reps of 5 different workouts and increase the weights you do by 5 pounds each workout

5x5 is an amazing starting program. Highly recommend. Just make sure you have good form.

Which is to say get a competent coach or record every compound lift you do and form check the videos. You may think you are doing a lift correctly, but you're rounding out or whatever. It's very hard to tell without that extra evidence. Done correctly powerlifting is about as safe as strenuous physical activity gets, but with bad form you will ruin your knees, your back, and who knows what else.

If you are doing SL 5x5 correctly you don't need coach because you start with an empty bar. What you should do is to read and watch tutorials on how to perform each lift correctly. Then as your progress you can do some recordings to check your form, but there is no need to out source that stuff. Just take things slow.
Only time someone starting has had issues with form is when they rush things. Either they don't start with empty bar and progressively add weight each week and they jump to higher weights or they rush the setup.
When I started I just watched videos of the lifts I was about to make on Youtube and started with empty bar. Now 2 years later I've obviously progressed to programs that better suite me, but I've had no issues. I have no doubt that my form isn't 100% perfect, but seeing the clients of the personal trainers at my gym my form is way better than average and it is completely because I have a check list in my mind for each lift.
Off topic: while I'm writing about SL 5x5 the biggest issue I had with the program was squatting every day. I was fat when I started so even low bar weight made my knees hurt and it put me off on squatting for months, but now with reduced squatting (once per week) I have no issues squatting even heavier weights.

You do you.
However, plenty of people with sedentary lifestyles, which includes many who will read this, will have mobility issues that they may not be aware of without coaching. Sure nobody is going to do major damage with the empty bar, but the bar doesn't stay empty.
That said when I say coach I don't mean some random "functional fitness" type that a chain gym will push on you. I mean a powerlifting coach, ideally one who trains people for competition.

Yes it’s great to start at the gym and get used to that environment. But yes form is very important and you should not progress in weight if all your reps are not 100% ok. This is NOT emphasized in the program but it should be. It’s easy especially on squat and deadlift to progress quickly with bad form. And then you get injured...

Strong recommendation for the StrongLifts 5x5 iOS app. That said there are some downsides to 5x5.
- the lifts in it are simple, but also very easy to hurt yourself with if you don’t have good form. Form work is not emphasized.
- there is no flexibility work in it. It’s basically impossible to do strength work without flexibility. To the point 5x5 should likely recommend yoga as a central component or something.
- while big muscle groups are very important, for lots of people isolated muscle work is necessary to fix imbalances, old injuries, etc.
None of that should discourage people but realize that the sticker claims of 5x5 about time commitments and completeness aren’t really true.

>That said there are some downsides to 5x5
Among others, listed here[a]. The reasoning seemed sound and I'm easily swayed, so reading that after a couple of weeks of doing 5x5 caused me to switch. Exercises are the same (with the addition of chinups), but configured differently throughout the week. It's easy enough to set up the workouts in the Strong[b] app, but admittedly not as easy as the Stronglifts app.
[a] : https://old.reddit.com/r/Fitness/comments/4uij/a_detailed_lo...
[b] : https://www.strong.app/

You are supposed to start with an empty bar and progress from there, so you have a good amount of time at low weight to work on form.
That said, I do agree there should be more flexibility work. The suggested warm ups are also inadequate.

As a middle aged lifter I'm finding that the 2.5kg increase every session is one I'm best off disabling in the app as the lifts get heavier, having started from the bar. I still aim to increase once I'm solid at a level, but the important thing is getting consistent workouts. Getting injured runs counter to that.

You could try something like 5/3/1, which has you generally working at submaximal loads most of the time and only increases the weight every 2-3 weeks. One of Wendler's principles is that slow progress is still progress, something I agree with.

Oh thanks, I'll check it out. That sounds very interesting, and might be just what I need.

There are few things they don’t tell you about weightlifting:
- stretching is critical and takes time, without stretching you’ll eventually injure yourself.
- eventually you’ll get some minor injury and will have to manage that and wait for it to heal.
- start by getting a coach to specifically learn good from and find your max weights for different lifts. Strictly control trainer’s desire to add some non-core exercises, once good form is established, dismiss the trainer.

Most people can’t distinguish a good coach from some buff person with confidence and a track suit. There are surely more bad coaches than good ones.
For this audience, I would recommend reading/scanning StartingStrength.com, or the book of the same name by Mark Rippetoe.

Do you know of any recommended stretching routines?

Agile 8 and Limber 11 are the most common ones I've seen. The r/bodyweightfitness subreddit also has a decent routine.

I just do stretches for the muscles I'm training.
This is good book:
https://www.amazon.com/Stretching-Pocket-Book-Bob-Anderson/d...
This strap is really helpful:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00065X222/

Can you point me to a study that shows stretching has a statistically significant positive impact on injury rates?
I know it's the common school of thought, but the studies I've read have found it was beneficial for flexibility, ROM, and soreness but no statistically significant impact on injuries or performance (data is mixed positive and negative for performance).
Anecdotal data is useless, but I've been lifting relatively heavy for years with little to no stretching with no ill effects. I do use warm-up sets but no other warm-up/stretching techniques. However, I am definitely open to changing my routine when the data supports it.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1250267/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15233597
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.525...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15076777

Well, my personal take, based on experience, is this:
You have to have enough range of motion for the lift you are doing, if you lift and don't stretch, muscle tends to shorten, and eventually you are not going to have enough range. This leads to two problems:
1) Potential over-stretch under load and injury, which will require time to heal.
2) Pain in joins, like knees or shoulders. Goes away once you start stretching.
If you do some other additional activity which gets you through full range of motion, like yoga or some active sport, then there is really no need to do extra stretching, otherwise, for me, stretching is required.

Lifting is basically weighted stretching. You can't train a movement and lose mobility for the range of motion you're training.
If your training has at its core multi-joint compound exercises, you shouldn't have to worry about your mobility.

In that context, it makes sense that the greatest danger to a workout plan is having kids.

Since my kid was born, maintaining a regular gym workout has been a lifesaver for me.
I find it's so easy to lose sense of time and what is important when you deal with the constant demands of a little baby - having an exercise routine keeps me grounded - it's away from home, something I do on my own, on my own terms and leaves me feeling good about myself.
Finding time to regularly workout is something I'd recommend to all new parents.

Yes, but they have their own schedule that can mess that up (especially in the infant/toddler stages).

It can be great to have the workout- but it only works if you are able to get sleep, which is in large part up to your kid & the luck of the draw.

That program is basically a rip-off of Mark Rippetoe’s work in Starting Strength which I also recommend.

It's not a rip-off. That doesn't even make any sense in an environment where you see people taking programs and basically remixing them or improving on them all the time. Taking inspiration, maybe. The weaknesses of SS are generally well-known (such as criminally low amount of volume), which is why people recommend programs like StrongLifts, GZCLP or 531 for beginners instead.

I guess Rippletoe stole it from Bill Starr "Strongest shall survive; strength training for football" then.
This study is bloody awful. For all we know it's the fruit loops which improve rat cognitive function.
The only good thing I'll say about it, is when the NYT starts reporting on the health benefits of X, it means X (drinking red wine, high fat diets, etc) has become trendy among the self regarding upper middle class. Weights; it's about time.

> when the NYT starts reporting on the health benefits of X, it means X (drinking red wine, high fat diets, etc) has become trendy among the self regarding upper middle class
I realized long ago so many of my long-term life decisions were based on thinkpieces in The Atlantic, The New York Times, or a similar publication.
Choosing experiences over stuff, eating only "real food" and cutting out sugar, getting more involved in community events and not being such a shut in -- all traced back to thinkpieces.

Could be worse: could be Joe Rogan (aka Oprah for dudes).
The Times definitely wasn't writing about such matters when it was a working class hobby; now that the upper middles have discovered crossfit...

While I'd always recommend barbell training, I actually got my start from a dead simple book called Body For Life, and I still think it makes a great beginners plan.

The amount of volume stronglifts 5x5 expects you to for your legs compared to other body ports is just much to high. It‘s not really balanced.

I recognize the value of these studies but I don't think they're worth the pain and distress inflicted on these animals.
I can't put myself in the place of these researchers and see myself injecting things that cause harm to the rats without feeling really shitty about the situation. Are they just numb to what they're doing?

We've already figured out that aerobic exercise increases our cognitive abilities
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerobic_exercise#Neurobiologic...
Even though weight training isn't aerobic, couldn't it still increase our state of fitness?

> Even though weight training isn't aerobic
It's never been clear to me what "aerobic" really means. Heavy or many-repped squat or deadlift sets will raise your heart rate plenty, and get you out of breath.

The difference shows up as you lengthen the session. Aerobic exercise is efficient for long exercise sessions where the goal is to build up general endurance, because it's not inherently time-constrained like anaerobic exercise is.

It means that the majority of your energy is being provided by the aerobic metabolic pathway. Raising your heart rate doesn't mean it's aerobic. There will always be a contribution from the aerobic pathway, but if the instantaneous demands are too high then anaerobic pathways provide most of the power.
Intuitively, the pathway that's providing most of the power is the pathway that gets the most training effect.

Weight training is as much neurological stimulation as it is muscular. In fact, most of the fast gains a new lifter makes are due to learning to recruit motor units, which is to say training the nervous system. As any long time lifter can tell you, putting on muscle mass naturally takes a long time. The question is does stimulating motor neurons have knock on effects for the rest of the CNS? It's plausible that it does, but with some brief searching I'm not finding any compelling research that it does or doesn't.

> As any long time lifter can tell you, putting on muscle mass naturally takes a long time.
I don't agree with this. It's generally easy and straightforward to put mass fast: do hypertrophy, sleep 8+ hours a day, eat 2g protein per kg of body weight. That's all it takes. You'll see results very quickly, even with subpar training.
Learning new motor patterns (especially firing many muscles/full body at once), improving tendon strength, potentially increasing muscle density, improving physical awareness (say, handstand, or anything inverted, or anything with balance, or splits/pancake/perfect shoulder mobility), cardiovascular fitness - all extremely difficult to achieve (compared to just getting muscle mass).

Unless you're doing singles, a significant amount of energy is being delivered aerobically (I can't find the study atm, but I vaguely remember numbers around 50-70%). The longer you go, the higher the contribution by your aerobic system. It's a different stimulus from an hour of steady-state, of course, and it might be closer to HIIT than jogging. As for the benefits, there's this https://www.uab.edu/news/research/item/10251-weightlifting-c...

Weight training does use the aerobic system when you're not lifting heavy weights. As for the state of fitness, there have been studies about weight loss due to lifting heavy weights.

I started running (very) seriously only recently.
I can tell you for a fact that weight training will not significantly improve aerobic fitness. However, it will improve it up somewhat.
Just an example, you will never run 5km under 20 minutes just by weight training. But you can run 5km on the first try (say.. ~30 minutes) if you are into weight training (so your cardiovascular fitness is okay-ish, it's just not great).
Almost the same exact thing happened to me, as someone in supreme physical shape.
Long story short: you get great results in the things that you directly train; some things overlap, but the overlaps are never significant.

Interesting to note, that it's theorized the brain actually developed because of the need to control movement (muscles).
https://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_wolpert_the_real_reason_for...

Bit of a meta question: how applicable are findings in rats / mice to humans. Does it differ based on the types of relationships the study is trying to find?
I've always wondered this and have historically assumed the correlation must be high - but never really dove too deep into it.

80% probability of failing in clinical trials (on humans) https://www.nature.com/news/preclinical-research-make-mouse-...

Wow that's way higher than I expected. And it saddens me, all the tests we run on these little beasts for such a small eventuality of success.

Animal studies are about models and proof of concept, not direct replication. It’s silly to get hung up on that aspect.
Comparative Medicine is conducted with an awareness of the necessity for additional translational research, and while pharmaceutical outcomes are potentially total dead ends due to deeper biochemical pathway differences (which are strongly rooted all the way down to genetic differences, even across human subpopulations), one can easily get a sense of the value you of animal studies via trauma and gross anatomical studies.
A surgeon won’t make the same cuts and blood vessel clamps in a porcine heart transplant as with a human, but if you can transplant one pig’s heart into another pig, human to human is next. Curveballs like blood transfusion (types and factors) and immuno-suppression/rejection add overhead to making a transplant work in humans, but the answers to the big questions all say it will work.
So too with mice and rats and dogs and primates. To a degree behavioral realities fit too, although humans have a far deeper grasp of abstract concepts, so we’ll make leaps of cognition that render some animal models invalid.
Humans and animals are both prone to compulsive behaviors, addiction, self harm, but how we get there is often a little different since society and the rule of law can lend layers of social padding that give us a second chance to rescue ourselves before we violate norms and resort to pathological patterns. So animal psychology compares along bolder, broader strokes and lines than broken bones and wound care.
So 80% failure is just considering direct replication of practice, like a vet going and doing the same thing to a person. Sometimes the vet can save the day, but other times a human has a very different standard of care.

Related, I was at a talk about Type 1 Diabetes. They mentioned that we know how to cure the disease in mice with over 300 different methods. None of which seems to work in humans. Thats why they had to work with very hard to obtain live tissue samples from patients with different stages of T1 Diabetes.

>... weight training, accomplished in rodents with ladders and tiny, taped-on weights...
This is awesome. How comes I'm hearing about that first time? And why are there no videos?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XBXUlvpeh4

Speaking of exercise, anyone want to go for a run together in Hong Kong?

I'm not into running anymore, mostly focussed on weight lifting, if you're on HK island, go for a run on Bower Road, it's definitely an experience. I also used to run in Happy Valley race course, it's nice and quiet there.

Thanks for the recommendation, I’ll give it a try. I’ve been mostly running up and down Quarry Bay Park, but it does get boring after a while and the proximity to the highway probably isn’t too healthy either. I also love cycling but in Hong Kong it seems too freaking dangerous for all sorts of reasons.

You can do some cycling in Tai Po area, but down there, it's not the drivers that make it dangerous, but other cyclists. They cycle like they walk, so be prepared to be constantly cut off and have people stand in the middle of the road.
If you're close to Quarry Bay, you might want to look into Tai Tam, it's a nice nature park, there's several paths that you can take.

I'm not in HK but I would have a HK related question. Do you have an email I could reach you at?

You can find it in my profile, I just added it.

Synopsis: Start training

in mice.

In rats
And it does change the brain in rats. It might change the brain in humans.

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