The Internet’s Richest Fitness Resource Is a Site from 1999
newyorker.com
newyorker.com
> ExRx makes its organizational logic plain. Its pages adopt the structure of unordered lists—uniform and sturdy...unlike elsewhere on the modern Internet, on ExRx you are never lost.
> the site’s plain face lends it a certain authority. In a fitness ecosystem dominated by new- and old-school flash, from personal trainers on the hard sell to influencers with soft power, exrx.net treats me like an adult. If Instagram Reels and TikTok videos are the solicitous pusher on commission, ExRx is a librarian—or, better yet, the library itself.
(Emphasis my own.)
- Loads immediately, no frustrating and slow skeleton loading gray boxes
- No popups asking you to subscribe, register, or download a mobile app
Why do we tolerate the modern web treating us so poorly when the example of how to do it better has been around since the 90s?
The difference between being pulled into it and seeking content myself is an important one. Services that annoy people into doing what they want may get short term results but are generating a lot of ill-will for the medium and long term.
This website even has reasonable advertisements in the side-bar. No floating videos that auto-play, no ads injected right in the middle of the content I'm reading. Just a plain old ad on the right side of the content.
I’ve been wondering why ad blockers aren’t better about blocking these. I’m not sure when the last time was when I got a popup on a website that was something I wanted to see.
While network filters are still working well, it's getting harder to block on-site elements like popups because web frameworks often generate nonsensical class names to apply on divs, to prevent Developer A's class names and styles from conflicting with Developer B's. So if previously you could successfully hide the HTML email popup container by looking for the class/id "ad-container", you won't be able to do that if the class/id changes to "xxgsgshhmahbgsg"
As for why they do it, businesses are fundamentally amoral. Take your average Silicon Valley entrepreneur and transplant them into Somalia with no way to leave, and they'd be figuring out the ideal way to capture cargo ships and hold their crews for ransom. Then if said crews were raped by some misbehaving underlings, they'd try to disguise it to maximize the profits.
It's the meta joke behind the entire Silicon Valley TV series. Some characters are more likeable than others, but almost all of the key players are fundamentally incompetent/insecure/exploitative people that you wouldn't want in your life given the option.
That alone is a big win in my book.
"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."[2]
- epistemer
You lift incorrectly, you get trauma, injuries, I've seen a guy in a gym lose an eye. I've seem people leaving weights where they shouldn't, others trip over them.
You choose your date poorly, you could get trauma and injury too I guess.
Edit: For an example a bodybuilder, an olympic weightlifter and a greco-roman wrestler all have muscle, but the problem space is very different even though they all share some common set of tools. But in any of these three you’ll get pretty far and see quite a lot of progress just keeping it simple. Optimization is needed only at the very top.
Lift or train about every other day, try to improve from the last time. Eat. If you feel extra tired, rest. If you dont seem to progress, change your regime a bit. Human body is built for adaptation, it’s the only thing we have. It is not complicated.
Rich discussions yes, but also discussions like these https://old.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/2rbqzh/bodybuilders_...
It is a toxic hellhole now, unfortunately .
Super interesting world we are living in
On a more on-topic note: I’ve never consciously held ExRx in high regard, but considering how exhaustive and encyclopedic its curation of exercises is, perhaps I should have. One also couldn’t argue that it contains false content because it merely collects exercises instead of prescribing them (unless of course they’ve added some section where they do, which I don’t know of and cannot comment against).
And correct me if I’m wrong but it doesn’t sound like you know the scope of sports science? It’s a combination of the fields that I made an example of above plus physics, too, and many more (such as business and psychology), but oriented specifically for the purposes of sport and recreation.
Part of it is the subconscious figuring out what works, and hanging it onto the closest known concept. The other half is that false beliefs are practical and helpful sometimes.
He said she was 20 years old, and his second 20+ y/o one. His said he went by:
- a balance of positive + negative reinforcement
- regular dog food, nothing fancy
and that
- if she was a seeing-eye dog she'd have been dead by 10
My takeaway is that mental stress is a killer. He was letting her have her "dog-nature". Roam around, sniff things, unburdened.
But the #1 has to be people. Everyone withers away alone + takes cues from our environment. The dream is having people around who make it feel natural to be healthy.
Physiology of Sport and Exercise by Kenney, Wilmore, and Costil.
Strength Training Anatomy by Delavier, though this is more like ExRx and is far less exhaustive
And the above should be more than enough but it won’t harm to read NSCA’s Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning.
I'm sorry, I don't mean to be uncharitable, but 'exercise science' is not an empirical scientific field like physics or chemistry. It's very difficult to conduct genuine experiments or isolate causes in the human body. It's pretty well-known that lots 'exercise science' studies that prove X were conducted with relatively untrained undergrad volunteers, who would probably gain on any program because they're a) young and b) exercise newbies. Political science has 'science' right in the name too, but I think everyone understands it's not an actual empirical field either (which is fine!)
I'm certainly open to hearing contributions from exercise scientists, but I weight folk wisdom from say the bodybuilding or powerlifting fields at least as heavily
But the broader reason why this analogy doesn't work is that most medical treatments (medical devices, drugs, etc.) are subject to a really stringent approval & evidence of efficacy process. As they should be! But there just isn't anything similar in exercise science. Studies that prove, like, plyometric wall bounces make you more explosive or something are just incredibly underpowered versus the level of evidence required for the FDA to approve a medical device or drug.
If ES studies were somehow conducted with that same level of funding & rigor, I would take them a million times more seriously. In practice, it's an n=10 or 20 study with a bunch of undergrads for a p value of .0501 or something
No need to read the article.
"The site is https://exrx.net" is enough.
I am indeed being very pedantic here but the parent to your initial comment as you quoted did not exclude the additional context noting the relevance of the link (as per my quote) but rather emphasized leaving out the opinion portion. The difference between "just posted" and the theoretical "posted just" you seem to be implying.
Upvotes all around; cheers!
Doctrine \ DBAL \ Driver \ PDOException (1040)
SQLSTATE[HY000] [1040] Too many connections[0] Exercise Prescription on Internet (ExRx.net) https://exrx.net/
I'm in the same spot — injured myself because I foolishly trusted an incompetent trainer. It's been weirdly difficult to pick myself back up; I'm still stuck at the "blaming myself for trusting bad advice when I should have known better" phase.
I hope you get well soon.
Funnily enough, the error message [0] looks far more modern than the rest of the site. I guess they updated the backend (a PHP framework called Doctrine, I think) without updating the design ;)
So it's outdated alright, but not quite as ancient as the article makes it feel. The HTML may feel hand crafted but that's often because PHP frameworks often rely on templating languages to set up a base theme for the website, which then gets filled in by content generated by a WYSIWYG editor, saved to the database.
It's quite possible that they've used their old website as a basis for their theme/templates, keeping all their old HTML in place.
It's a real pity that this is not more common with modern websites, especially in the "recipe" or "news" domains. I am grateful for Wikipedia however.
This made my day.
Also site seems to be getting creaky - we may be pounding the server a little hard.
Maybe the help they need is architecture/infrastructure improvements.
Now, for $reasons, I’m not as much of a gym rat. But I am training to at least run 5Ks again (as opposed to 10Ks and a couple of half marathons). I’m going to make myself get into resistance training again and this is going to be a great resource
So I would go to their classes to pick up moves. There were also various certifications and conferences (SCW).
I got started in lifting weights ironically enough because I was a short (still short), fat (I got better), kid with a computer (still a software developer…sort of) and had cerebral palsy (still do).
While I didn’t have any coordination to play sports (my CP basically effects my left hand and a very slight limp), I could “lift things up and put them down” with the best of them and my “physical therapy” turned into weight lifting at 12 and I was paired with a personal trainer early on.
When properly conditioned as an adult, I found that I could run up to 9 miles (a 15K) in races and come in the middle of the pack (a little more than 6 miles an hour) before my legs gave out on me.
At my old age of 49, I wouldn’t put my body through the kind of training it takes to do anything above a 10K and probably no more than a 5K.
I also took advantage of remote work to buy a “Condotel” unit in a resort in Florida for half the year specifically because it had 3 pools (swimming is much easier on my body) and a gym.
The other half of the year, I “nomad” and fly around the US and stay in hotels instead of AirBnbs partially to have access to gyms and pools.
My wife took up the mantle a few years ago and now she teaches dance/fitness classes.
Should I be treating this as equivalent to smoking or drinking in harm? https://exrx.net/Nutrition/Disrupters
Regardless of the above usability issues, examine is a pretty good supplement research site.
Edited to add: I don't like examine's pricing. Examine is essentially the "consumer reports" of supplements and I'd expect to pay magazine subscription rates, not a month of gym membership annual rate. Its not that I can't afford it or it doesn't fit in the budget, it doesn't fit in the worldview of this is how much you pay for that kind of service. Even $50/yr and I'd sign up, but two hundred? Really?