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Comment by dfsegoat | Hacker News Reader

> Would decades of squats, deadlifts, free weights/kettlebells ... to withstand most chances of hip breaks occurring

If you look at a lot of competitive athletes and bodybuilders, they tend to be pretty broken in their old age. E.g. Ronnie Coleman - former Mr. Olympia - could barely walk after tons of spinal and back surgeries.

Maybe you have the bone density - but if you are immobile with tons of joint and arthritis issues, it probably will not help.

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Lifting weights is not body building.

Lifting weights doesn't mean trying to max it out every session. It's still "lifting weights" to go in and do a half hour of compound lifts with moderate weights. Most people can keep that up for a long time.

Yeah but what about people who are not ultimate freaks of nature like the rest of us? You can't look at a guy like Ronnie Coleman and say that's what most people can achieve with decades of squats, deadlifts and free weights. As far as I've seen, decades of squats , deadlifts and freeweights are super beneficial for keeping strong in your old age and actually reduce the likelihood of joint issues and also reduce the risk of falling.

Would it be be fare to say Ronnie wasn’t a healthy person?

I don’t consider body builders who use steroids to be healthy people, I lift weights everyday.

He is an outlier. He lifted very heavy weights and did tons of peds.

Also to note, he had horrendous form and was victim of the painkiller downward spiral, product of his various back surgeries.

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