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Comment by sebastiansm | Hacker News Reader

I followed the advice of lifting weights.

Before that I was feeling pretty tired of my life, barely played with my little son, was exhasuted in my work as data scientist and my personal relationships with my wife, family and friends were poor. Also I didn't had the energy to pursue my hobbies, was abusing cannabis and alcohol and had poor eating and sleeping habits.

Since I started going to the gym and found this simple beginner routine everything started to feel better. Something changed and feel way better and improving every other aspect of my life.

I started this program, but I think anything similar will help: https://stronglifts.com/

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I also started on stronglifts and moved onto greyskull lp shortly after my progression stalled and I stared to lose interest:

https://physiqz.com/workout-routines/powerbuilding-programs/...

When the easy gains are over it becomes much less rewarding. But the easy gains themselves are worthwhile. My plan for that is to step back to a minimal strength maintenance program and focus more on sports and outdoors enabled by the strength.

Would it be terrible to mostly use weight machines? That’s all my gym has?

Not optimal, but there must be some program for those cases

Machines trick you into thinking you're progressing. The first time I went from Smith machine squats to free weight squats, I couldn't walk the next day (went from 150kg on the machine to 80kg free weight).

I just don’t think my knees could handle squats. I was thinking to do a leg press with lower weight. Like 20 reps.

Have you looked into isometric weight training? Heavier weight, lower reps, static holds for longer duration. Typically used in physio for rehabilitation but can also work as exercises on their own, especially when you get older and have joint issues.

With good form, your knees shouldn't be involved that much: https://exrx.net/WeightExercises/Quadriceps/BWSquat - your knees shouldn't go past your toes.

fwiw high weight + low reps (4-6) if you want to get stronger, lower weight with more reps for getting bigger (8-12)

Using mostly machines is fine, don’t worry about what others think is optimal. The truth is, if you push yourself hard, you can get great results regardless of the equipment available to you (and you still need to push yourself hard with free weights too).

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