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Comment by crazygringo | Hacker News Reader

"Lift a heavy stone"? That's a joke, right?

Barbells and dumbbells are appropriately ergonomic (handles, balance, etc.) and won't ruin your back if you use proper technique. Lifting a heavy stone is a recipe for injuring yourself severely.

People need specific indoor gym equipment if they lift, which is a very valid form of exercise. Or, you know, if it's raining or thunderstorming or a humid 100°F outside.

And bodyweight exercises only get you so far, even if you're doing one-handed or one-legged versions.

You can't just dismiss the fitness routines people have spent years choosing and refining and getting better at. The fact that you seriously suggest lifting a heavy stone demonstrates you don't seem to know much about safe fitness at all.

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> People need specific indoor gym equipment if they lift, which is a very valid form of exercise. Or, you know, if it's raining or thunderstorming or a humid 100°F outside.

I've been lifting for 15 years, mostly in the gym. The last couple of years though, I've realized how much you can do with bands. You can't beat them on cost and convenience in the realm of home gym equipment. The only thing you can't reasonably do with them are squats. Deadlifts can be substituted with pull-throughs which are a better posterior chain movement anyway. Yea, you might have to do more reps. That's infinitely better than nothing.

Unless you're a competitive strength athlete, or trying to be one, not having access to a gym is frankly an excuse. In my younger days I used to have a very rigid mentality when it came to strength training which eventually led to burnout and extended vacations from the gym. Having mental flexibility instead of striving for some notion of perfection is what's kept me in this game long-term.

EDIT: typo

>You can't just dismiss the fitness routines people have spent years choosing and refining and getting better.

I am not, It must be very hard, to take away something you love and trained.

Society is asking you to sacrifice a big thing for something that may not benefit society at all. The chances of you catching and then spreading are ~ 1/1000. Assuming a 1% mortality. We are asking 100,000 people to give up something they love to save one loved one.

My own value system is that my enjoyment is not worth 1/100,000 of a person life. I would say in the order of 1/1,000,000. Based upon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALARP is where I get my figure.

I am interested which figure you think is reasonable - 10^5 or 10^6 or between or higher or dismiss the risk entirely ?

Society is asking you to sacrifice a big thing for something that may not benefit society at all.

^ They definitely aren't asking

are you really arguing there would be a higher chance of compliance if instead of making it law we resorted to politely asking?

Lifting stones has been a thing since at least ancient Greece.

On that note, construction workers do severely damaging work every day (not being sarcastic, they mess up their bodies for people who will haggle to the last cent). Show them more respect.

Where would i even find a heavy stone?

Craigslist.

You can usually find a threadbare heavy equipment tire more easily though since most people with stones just let them sit whereas tires need to be disposed of.

You can use cheap resistance bands instead of pricey and heavy barbells and still get great results. You can hit all the same muscle groups just as hard. Honestly you probably hit more groups than what you hit in olympic lifts. These bands are also very available online compared to other equipment.

Some light reading on the subject:

https://yoga-horizons.com/pdfs/Fatmans-Guide-to-Cable-Traini...

You can't just dismiss the fitness routines people have spent years choosing and refining and getting better at. That's incredibly arrogant.

More arrogant than putting other lives at risk because you can't put your routine on hold, or alter it for a bit? No. It isn't.

"Lift a heavy stone"? That's a joke, right?

No, and it's part of strongman competitions. It's not dangerous if you have the right form and don't overdo it. Same as dumbbells & barbells.

> why do you need specific indoor gym equipment?

He answered your question directly and then you change the goalposts. Clearly you hold the opinion that gyms should remain closed, and that's fine, but why even ask the question?

"More arrogant than putting other lives at risk because you can't put your routine on hold for a bit? No. It isn't."

This is the part I'm confused about. If gyms were open, people who's lives were at risk still wouldn't go to the gym. Only people who didn't care would go. They are consenting to the risk that would inherently come with it. It isn't the type of place that at risk people HAVE to go, so why shouldn't we open it for people that are fine with the consequences? Also, restaurants are all completely open for dine-in in many of the places that gyms have yet to open. How does that make any sense? No one magically stops breathing for the hour+ they're in the restaurant.

I think quarantine should be down to the individual and the rules they'd like to implement on their private property (including their business), but you've probably already gotten that by now.

>I think quarantine should be down to the individual and the rules they'd like to implement on their private property

Too bad most people leave their private property and interact with people in public spaces where their personal rules are moot.

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