Hacker News Reader

I hear this opinion on Reddit as well. Yes, it is possible to get "tons of exercise" on your own using body weight, but it is not the same as barbell strength training. You are much more limited because actual strength training is a somewhat scientific process of progressive overload--adding 2-5 pounds per workout to an exercise. You cannot do this easily/precisely with body weight exercises, and additionally there is a reason the barbell is shaped as it is--to maximize the ability to support and balance the weight.

The argument that nobody "needs" gym access is akin to arguing nobody "needs" restaurants--they can all just cook their own food. Or nobody "needs" grocery stores--they can just grow/raise all their own food.

It's also not just about gyms. People who did sports (even if it was just playing badminton with buddies) have nothing that's even close.

That's not what this comment thread is discussing though. Nobody claims you can swim just as well at home as you can in a swimming pool. What is being discussed was this:

> I wonder how many people have been forced into a "sedentary" life style by COVID-19...

So to go from "you're forced to be sedentary" to "but you cannot badminton, so this is wrong" is a strange non sequitur.

It is what the comment I was responding to was discussing. It acknowledges in it's second sentence that it's possible to get some kind of exercise but states that it's different enough that it makes perfect sense to say that COVID caused some people to become sedentary.

it's absurd to say that you're limited by body weight exercises. there are so many "scientific process" body weight regimes to choose from. barbell training has such a high barrier for entry for so many people when really most people just need to do something.

Irrelevant. Here’s the original comment:

> I wonder how many people have been forced into a "sedentary" life style by COVID-19...

You are not forced into a sedentary lifestyle if you have the time and space to do bodyweight exercises.

I've just kept going to the gym. If your local gyms are closed, obviously that isn't an option though.

You can definitely still get a workout, and I get probably about as much exercise now as I did before. But I don't have anything like the same strength training equipment so I think I've definitely lost a lot of strength as I can't do any heavy lifting.

Did you lift above your total body weight before? Below that body weight exercises can maintain strength, and above that weighted vests can assist.

Well, forced is maybe too strong of a word. If people have the kind of exercise they enjoy and do consistently but are now prevented from doing it - it's fair to say that they are sedentary due to COVID.

I was not talking about exercise. I was talking about your normal life being altered from more than 5k steps taken to less.

For instance, I need about 1k steps to the subway and I bring kids to the kindergarten or pick them up for, say, 2k steps. So on a normal workday, I get 4k steps just by getting to and from work. That's missing now. Consequently I have to start exercising just to keep the status quo ante.

I'm certainly not a top 1% athlete. I might be top 1% in athleticism, but if you're restricting to athletes... Definitely not. There is no way I could make the same progress at home as I've been getting with my trainer for the past couple of years. Not a chance. Luckily he has a private gym where only one client is there at a time since covid times started, so I haven't had to test this.

But... Having your program tweaked constantly, form improved constantly, diet examined regularly, etc... Youtube isn't a substitute. And without equipment? With my trainer helping, maybe... With youtube? My fitness would definitely be worse.

> Outside medical complications caused by actually getting COVID-19, nobody.

Sort of. I’m a working parent with a baby — his other parent is also working full time and we don’t have child care. Between full time engineering and full time stay at home parenting and doing minimum necessary chores to survive, I haven’t had a full night sleep in months (see: baby). Thanks to COVID I don’t have the time to work out as much as I’d want to.

Bodyweight HIT are pretty ideal in that situation. They are short, "interruptible" if baby needs something sooner then anticipated, can be done next to baby in same or adjacent room and require no setup.

For workouts I tried several apps from playstore till I found some that suited me.

What about older people who couldn't even have their daily walks for several months? Should they be squatting in their tiny apartments holding water bottles instead? I'm sure there are plenty of people who can work out at home, but I believe there are plenty of people who can't, or at least is a lot harder, for a variety of reasons.

> What about older people who couldn't even have their daily walks for several months?

Why can't they? Health officials have said that outside walking (with a mask if near others) is reasonably safe, or you can pace walk in much smaller spaces if one wished.

Plus walking isn't the only exercise available to older people. They don't have to remain sedentary simply because their normal walking route closed.

I think this post is just ignoring some of the realities that a lot of people have gone through. In many places you weren't allowed to leave your home at all. In spain, only one adult member of your household was allowed to go outside for basic necessities, without leaving your neighborhood, for 3 months. For about another 3 months you were limited to certain times and areas, which made having social distancing for walking/running practically impossible. Couple that with the fact that in some cities people live crammed in small rooms in shared apartments, the access for healthy movement for a lot of people was greatly impacted.