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Comment by jasondigitized | Hacker News Reader

"Everybody wants to be a bodybuilder, but nobody wants to lift no heavy-ass weights." - Ronnie Coleman

I have gained quite a bit of muscle mass after building out a home gym during covid. I'm no scientist but following the Reddit PPL[1] workout and eating lots of protein did the trick for me.

[1] - https://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/comments/37ylk5/a_linear_pr...

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I have lifted for 30 years.

The standard bullshit line in the fitness industry has always been "everyone else is wrong". Practically what every single trainer ever in the world has said.

The reason is because of all the things I have done in my life, lifting is the most trivially simple activity there is. It is as complex as shoveling dirt. The only way to differentiate if trying to make money is to bullshit. Pick the weights up, put them down, eat food. It just not that complicated.

Their BS is the value add you get for paying them more money.

For those who want to look athletic enough, work a full time job and still have free time, sure.

Actual competitive bodybuilding is far more complicated.

> Actual competitive bodybuilding is far more complicated.

Sure, but that's a general truism.

People focus too much on the 1% micro-optimisations instead of nailing the 99% that produces the largest rewards.

I like how Steve Magness puts it[^1]

> Good, solid consistent work stacked month after month, year after year is what leads to better performance.

[^1]: https://twitter.com/stevemagness/status/1493946400442392589?...

This 100%, but I think it is also just the proliferation of information today.

99% of the gain is about a very simple set of exercises. I maintain that most people would get a superb musculature with just cycling/running, squats, deadlifts and bench presses (ignoring pre-existing injuries). 4 exercises where the most complex machinery is a bike, and even that can be replaced with running. Doing it consistently is the key.

But then two problems happen:

1. People try to find shortcuts to make things easier. This is basic human nature. 2. While looking for ways of making it easier, a huge pile of salesmen insert themselves into people's attention, peddling the latest program, diet, fad, complex equipment (hello Peloton), etc. At that point, anyone who doesn't have >10 years of experience with their own body will simply be lost and unable to discern true good advice from drivel.

As pointed out before, there's no money to be made, no "value to be added" to 4 dead simple exercises with a one off expenditure. There's no subscription to be sold, nothing can be turned into a service if the equipment lasts several lifetimes. The weights you buy yourself can be passed down to your kids, and they will likely be able to pass it down to their kids. A hunk of chromed steel can last a very long time, the only thing you have to buy is maybe running shoes or gears for your bike.

> most people would get a superb musculature with just cycling/running, squats, deadlifts and bench presses (ignoring pre-existing injuries).

FWIW, you just described the essence of the Tactical Barbell system here. I've been using it to great effect over the last ~4 years. I will probably never touch a different strength and conditioning program as long as I live.

And most of Strong-Lifts 5x5. They add in a couple other movements but basically the same idea.

Yeah, but at some point an LP stops being a productive use of time. I prefer wave/block and undulating periodization programs because I never feel like I'm anywhere in the vicinity of failure and I'm always fresh for hard conditioning the day after a strength or hypertrophy session.

The other bit you’re potentially missing is folks just want to emulate the “big” workouts that folks show off on social media. Which conveniently ignores the bread and butter boring stuff that’s actually critical to building effective fitness/whatever.

This is one of my all-time favorite HN quotes: "Pick the weights up, put them down, eat food. It just not that complicated." Sincerely brought a smile to my face.

No offence, but as someone who worked in construction, shovelling is actually not simple at all. And working with a pick is even more complex. There are all kinds of optimizations you can introduce to avoid back injury and to maintain a steady rhythm over an eight-hour workday.

Just like lifting - but past a certain fairly easy to reach point it's just about repetition and micro optimization.

Darn, I can't find it. There's a guy who claims his only form of workout is just moving a massive pile of dirt back and forth in his yard. Significant because he's a pro athlete of some sort but I forget what he does -- NFL, UFC, strongman...

One day I'll stumble upon it again and come back here and share. Just thought it was funny to compare it to shoveling dirt when that's actually what an elite athlete does somewhere out in the world lol

The problem here is that there really are many little optimizations that could be applied to "pick up, put down" and some do work. Injury avoidance and recovery in particular are easy to overlook.

Of course the magnitude of the effect from most optimizations is small, so it's pretty easy for con artists to claim some secret or new breakthrough.

At the very highest levels people want every edge they can get, but it's silly for most of us who aren't devoted to competition to go down these rabbit holes. Pick up / put down / don't get hurt goes quite a long way.

I mean sure you can say this about the majority of things.

Programming is just typing away and compiling your program. It's not that complicated.

If you want to be proficient at BB / power lifting / <weight-lifting activity>, doing more research and optimizing is important

But most people don’t want to be proficient. They want to stay mostly healthy and get laid

Getting healthy and looking good is the base line. If you workout for 6 months and don't see immediate changes you probably did something wrong. If you workout for 12 months and aren't looking better youre not proficient

> The standard bullshit line in the fitness industry has always been "everyone else is wrong". Practically what every single trainer ever in the world has said.

I find YouTube trainers' flame wars quite enjoyable. They tend to get triggered by comments or other trainers' videos and publish angry (to me - funny) videos in response. Recent clip from Athlean-X (something about "worst fitness youtuber") is a good example. So much energy wasted on nagging.

When I want to listen to someone who appears to know their shit, I put dr. Mike from Renaissance Periodization[1] on.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/c/RenaissancePeriodization

Yup. Everything else is either bull shit or an attempt to optimize. Unless you are a body builder or a pro athlete you really should focus on consistency more than optimization.

Getting 1% better results for the average person is going to be nullified by the beers they drink on the weekend/the multiple days they skip because they dont feel like working out/any number of other normal life actives that are not optimal.

Find a way to exercise that you enjoy it and do it often. After that don't think about it too much.

Recently I've been riding an exercise bike after work while playing a video game on my computer with an xbox controller. Every 5 minutes I hop off the bike and do some weight training then get back on the bike. I ride for an hour. Doing this most weekdays has lead to far better results than when I used to go to the gym because I actually do it everyday/most days and I don't rdread it.

Another tip in this vein that I've found helpful when it comes to strength training, especially on days you feel tired or unmotivated, is to not count the reps. Just do as many as you can with good form and then stop. Trying to always hit some number creates unnecessary stress and frustration when you can't get there, and causes injury when form breaks down and/or you push too far.

The point is to fatigue the muscle, not do some particular number of reps. If you're feeling good and want to test yourself or go for a PR, that's great, but if it makes you feel bad or you start dreading workouts, stop counting!

Great advice. Again, unless you are a body builder the reps really dont even matter.

While this is better than not working out at all, the only way you're going to get your muscles to grow is by progressively overloading consistently over time, and if you have too many sessions where you aren't pushing more weight or doing more volume than the previous session, you'll be leaving a lot of gains on the table.

Yeah, you’re right of course about progressive overload being necessary for gains. You don’t need to count reps every workout to achieve it though. If you listen to your body and go to form breakdown, are consistent, and eat/sleep well, both the number of reps and weight you can do will naturally go up over time. It’s not at all linear though—depending on biorhythms, there will be ups and downs in the short term. My point is mainly not to sweat it on the many ‘off’ days when you can’t get a PR or might be well below. These are a normal part of the process. The important thing on these days is to just put the work in.

   Unless you are a body builder or a pro athlete you really should focus on consistency more than optimization

This is the best general advice I've read on here. Follow a fitness routine, stick with it. Whatever makes that easier for you, that's your secrete sauce.

> lifting is the most trivially simple activity there is

Lucky you. For me, I always hit plateaus after a couple of months, and then in the past have given up several times after no progress over many months.

This time, starting 13 months ago, I'm determined to stick with it, but still it's sloooooow, despite hours at the gym every other day (no exceptions!) putting in the work. So I'm definitely interested in seeing if there's some other approach that might be better -- more reps, higher weights, more/less variety, less rest period, more frequency, ....? Maybe the answer is I just need to be at the gym lifting hard 3 hours a day, 7 days a week.

You may not see any progress, but that doesn't mean there isn't any. You are perfecting the moves you are making, and strengthening your bones, ligaments and tendons, which just don't develop nearly as fast as muscles.

Staying at a plateau for a while is sometimes great to avoid injury.

There's a lot of different strategies you can employ when you hit a plateau. Try de-loading (e.g. 10% less weight) and working back up to the weight you plateaued at. Try adding drop sets after your main sets. Try implementing a periodization program. It could be related to your diet; perhaps you're not eating enough. It could be related to your sleep; perhaps you're not sleeping enough. It could be a result of supporting muscles that are lagging behind the main muscle utilized for a given lift, so do some research into supplemental exercises that could shore up those supporting muscles. Good luck!

I would argue the complexity is in finding the simplicity. It's very easy to get overwhelmed with all the contradictory advice and information out there and become paralyzed by the fear that you may be dumping months or even years of effort into a sub-optimal plan. You're not wrong about the answer actually being very simple, but it's important not to trivialize the difficulty in arriving at that conclusion for a lot of people (myself included).

I know others are suggesting workout here so it thought I'd contribute back. I had a lot of success following Julian Shapiro's guide I'm how to build muscle [1], like so much so that I had to get rid of a few shirts because my arms wouldn't fit anymore.

It's detailed in explaining multiple faucets including nutrition and rest, I didn't follow every source he listed but he claims to have done quite a bit of research regardless everything is listed.

[1] https://www.julian.com/guide/muscle/intro

> "Everybody wants to be a bodybuilder, but nobody wants to lift no heavy-ass weights." - Ronnie Coleman

I don't wanna look like a bodybuilder but if I could stay skinny and shark the highland games I'd be tickled pink.

This.

I want to look athletic enough so I can put a shirt on without having my belly being the part that stands out the most.

I don't want to look BIG necessarily.

You have to put in so much effort to look big that it just does not happen by accident. If you just want to lose the belly all you have to do is stop eating. No exercise required. Resume eating when your body finishes eating the belly.

I don't want my body to eat up my muscle mass in the process.

You really don't have to worry about accidentally building too much muscle. It takes a ridiculous effort. I'm talking about multiple hours of training a day, 6 days a week. If you go and spend an hour in the gym lifting weights 3x a week and do some cardio before each session, you'll get a nicely shaped body with well defined muscles but you definitely aren't going to be even close to looking like Ronnie Coleman, trust me.

With "eat up" I was talking about losing muscle by not doing any exercise while I'm on a caloric deficit :)

Make sure you're getting enough protein and do some weight training while you're cutting and you shouldn't really lose much, if any, muscle.

I'll go farther, I want to be as strong as I can be, at something near my minimum healthy weight. Weight is wear and tear on my body I don't want. Sadly, I'm very far from that goal... My appetite is just so intense after lifting, it is really hard not to eat big, so I end up dirty bulking and never have cut.

Accidentally becoming too muscular simply does not happen unless you start injecting. Don't worry about it.

I disagree. I never injected anything, but I was a distance cyclist for many years, ending almost 20 years ago and my legs are still mannish. High reps, low weight can build build muscle on a high-carb diet. What I really don't understand is why cyclists get bulky and runners don't.

Have you seen the thighs on sprinters? Maybe an extreme example, but they are often similar to cyclists.

https://www.menshealth.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/tra...

Distance running and sprinting lends itself to completely different physiques.

Just like the dudes competing on the Tour don’t look anything like the guys competing in the velodrome.

"Everybody wants to be a bodybuilder, but nobody wants to lift no heavy-ass weights." - Ronnie Coleman

And he cannot even walk well and his back is fucked up. not exactly worth it

Yep. Maybe I'm lucky but it's a pretty simple formula for me.

Lift weights 3-4 times a week, cardio outdoors 2 times a week. I drink a whey protein shake with creatine after every workout and don't eat more calories than I burn.

My lifts are continuing to increase and I'm putting on muscle. I'm still under 40 so once my testosterone drops I'm sure that'll get harder.

It really depends on your goals. If you have a sedentary job and just don't always want to be the weakest person in the room, something like stronglift's 5x5 or simply starting strength will get you way more bang for your buck (and time).

I've been doing starting strength for about 14 years now and I can bang out a session in 30-45 minutes.

My old trainer's version was "the reason everyone doesn't lift is it's hard." His motivational saying was "the weight's not gonna lift itself."

I'm planning out a home/garage gym now. Is there any equipment you recommend? Or ones that people should stay away from?

If you don't train to failure and know how to dump safely, or you always train with a spotter, you can get away with just a squat rack and bench. If you want more safety though you probably want a power cage.

I've gotten a ton of mileage out of just a dumbell set. I do all the things most people do with a full bar: squat, bench press, etc. Dumbells are a lot safer for solo workouts.

Using dumbbells instead of a bar also builds stronger stabilization muscles, and doesn't let your strong side compensate for weak side.

True but once you start getting heavy it can be difficult to get into the proper starting position for some lifts as well finishing safely. YMMV.

That is definitely true! Very useful in the "I want to start developing stronger functional muscles" context, but will only get you to a certain point

If memory serves, last time I was lifting weights regularly, I could bench 225lb with a bar, but only 140ish (2x70lb) with dumbbells.

It's expensive but hard to go wrong with Rogue. I've used their stuff in gyms and at home. It's solid. In my experience, great customer service as well. So, if you plan to use that home gym over the long run - invest in high-quality stuff that you won't need to replace after just a couple of years.

While I have Rogue stuff, I think the REP Fitness racks and benches end up being a better deal for what you get quality wise.

Rogue is the gold standard but I honestly haven't seen any deficiencies with other smaller brands like Rep or Titan Fitness. I don't know your fitness level, but if you have the space I always recommend the basics: squat rack if you have the time (can also function as pull-up and bench), dumbbells, curl bar if possible, and free weights. I'd keep an eye on used/craigslist listings as well, with the pandemic lifting, a lot of people who spent a lot of money on excess equipment will be looking to unload extra equipment.

I've picked up a bunch of things from Titan the past year. The weights and equipment themselves seem fine and will probably stand the test of time.

The one issue I have had with their weight lifting subsidary is shipping Can be a clown show - really banged up boxes, sometimes with holes punched through.

That may be the case with others too - large and heavy items are a problem at FedEx UPS. In fact, my FedEx delivery guy is required to be able to lift more than the people in the distribution center who end up handling these items more times en route. Another issue with shipping is the tie down straps. Titan tapes them over which means the large awkward packages are more difficult to move.

Also, Titan appears not to have any way to send you parts should something have gone missing. I bought a bench (its really nice, love it) and the box was hammered on the way. Though it initially looked like everything inside survived, one small metal plate was missing but absolutely necessary for assembly. After a week Titan sent me an entirely new bench and I had to send the first back. Definite PITA and so wasteful of time/money for all involved.

Rep has been fine for me as well. And much cheaper than Rogue.

Sorinex is who I went with.

My living space is limited, so I bought a pair of adjustable box dumbbells (5-75lbs) and a skookum collapsible bench. The stowed combo occupies less space than a chair and they give me serious workout mileage: bench press, flies, rows, sit ups, skull crushers, military press, curls, lunges, deadlifts, etc. It's a great starter gym for us mere not-power-lifter mortals. I WFH and can do sets during breaks and boring meetings.

Skookum?

As mentioned by others, a full rack is the best get to start with. I long ago got a half rack which is fine for benching alone (has spotting arms) but not for serious squats.

Advise making sure whatever bench you buy to make sure the height off the floor is comfortable for you. I had one that was a little too tall and believe that contributed to some lower back stress.

I'm in a rural area now and once again stuck with no spotter, also older with assorted old lifting and snowboarding injuries. I picked up a hack squat machine to enable me to safely work on squats again while also not having the load sitting on top of my spine.

I've been considering the Rogue SML-1, which I think is not considered a full rack.
What's wrong with with a half rack with spotter arms for squats? Is it a matter of not being able to handle very heavy weights?
Thanks for the input, btw - super helpful!

https://www.roguefitness.com/sml-1-rogue-70-monster-lite-squ...

My half rack spotting arms are really only meant for benching, quite short. The advantage of a full cage is safety in multiple directions.

This guy has a good write up of the plus/minus of the different types. https://www.setforset.com/blogs/news/squat-stand-vs-half-rac...

There's a pretty good design for barbell training in Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe. Basically, you need a bench and a squat rack, and a platform between the equipment and the concrete floor. He makes it easily out of plywood sheets and horse mats, and off-the-shelf rack, bench and weights. You can also form the rack out of steel channel, wood and bolts, with off-the-shelf pins.

If you buy bumper plates, an olympic barbell, and a decent bench, you won't regret it (if you keep lifting). For about 90% of people, the program in the book is pretty good, too. For guys like me, we probably should use something more like a 50-60% 1RM with more reps, because I plateau really quickly on his program. The descriptions of the exercises are really good, and there are also lots of coaches who will teach it.

Just built out a whole Rogue setup last October: rack, bars, bumper plates, bench, etc. Would never recommend anything else. It's the "Apple" of equipment. Yes, its expensive but it will last forever.

I live in NYC and don't have the space to build out a home gym, but if I could the two things I'd love to get would be a heavy bag [1] and a gymnastics stall bar [2]. I have some kettlebells and thicker muay thai jump ropes I'd throw in there too. Practicing on a heavy bag for a even a few rounds is a crazy workout, and there's a lot you can do on a stall bar [3].

[1] https://www.boonsport.com/collections/heavy-bags/products/co...

[2] https://www.roguefitness.com/rogue-stall-bar-3-0

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xvfi4hWw5tw

Honestly, even though I have my own home gym, I would recommend getting a Tonal if you have the money for it.

As a newbie lifter, any consistent lifting + food intake/protein will do wonders.

Been running this for over a year and I have been loving the results.

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