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Comment by tifadg1 | Hacker News Reader

On the offchance you're not trolling, these are quite the outdated views you're holding.

It's fine to muck around doing 120kg squats if that's your thing, but you're continuously putting yourself to increased risk of injury as the years go by and you're increasing weight. To mitigate that risk you then have to start doing additional warm up, foam rolls, recovery routines. Oh and lets not forget that most people can't even do squat properly, so add static stretching too. That's hell of a commitment to someone who likely hates the process and just wants to be healthy.

That said, I also do weight training, but I don't emphasize it due to above. 2x/week full-body base, 2x/week 30 min cardio, 2x week static stretches. Am I advanced in anything? No. Am I rounded more than person going to the gym 3 times a week? I'd think so.

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> To mitigate that risk you then have to start doing additional warm up, foam rolls, recovery routines

How do you know that any of this is effective?

> Oh and lets not forget that most people can't even do squat properly, so add static stretching too.

If you don't squat correctly, you need to do static stretching to ameliorate it? What?

> It's fine to muck around doing 120kg squats if that's your thing, but you're continuously putting yourself to increased risk of injury as the years go by and you're increasing weight.

Being strong decreases risk of injury and death. We're not talking about becoming competitive weightlifters or powerlifters here, we're talking about becoming decently strong. To become strong, you must learn to execute the lifts with sufficiently good technique to not injure yourself. If you can read a book and think somewhat critically (so, hopefully, the entire Hacker News readership) you can learn to execute the lifts correctly.

Would you have the same defeatist attitude if I was talking about joining a recreational soccer team, where injury rates are literally magnitudes higher than in the weight room?

I did weight lifting for years in my 20's... I could squat 500+ lbs, bench 325 lbs several times, do 25 consecutive pullups with a wide grip or narrow grip, etc. I looked like a bodybuilder.

Then I did Crossfit for several years in my late twenties... more cardio, a bit less weights.

Then rock climbing for several years in my early thirties.

Now I ride my bike competitively on Zwift and have tons of fun doing it.

All exercise is good. If I could go back in time, I would greatly reduce the amount of weight lifting I did and focus more on fun cardio centric activities. You get all the muscle you need from those.

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