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I'm all for exercise, but useful and environment-friendly exercise

- why putting bikes on a car to go riding? just get on your bike directly and save that extra pollution

- why taking your car to go at gym and run on indoor machines?

- why taking your car, ordering your food, etc and then lift weight? recently I saw a person traveling in a van, with a whole weight lifting bench and heavy weights, there must be more useful thing to take for a trip no? there are plenty rocks or wood branches on that site, or you can just lift your own weight, or lift smaller weight for a longer time, there are plenty "natural" oppoturnities

same thing for the diet, you can pick more local and less polluting, less or no-plastic wrapping

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The article is about strength training in general. If you haven't read Starting Strength, then maybe the idea is foreign to you. Suffice it to say that lifting heavy with progressively overloaded weight is the only way to build strength.

That said, to your First point, if you live in America, you might be aware that cycling anywhere is dangerous for your health. I myself have ridden my bike many miles through dense traffic in order to get to closed roads to do fun rides and crits, but I would never give this advice to anyone in the general case! Bike infrastructure is a joke in the United States and if you're not a freak with a preternatural sense of spatial awareness, the reflexes of a cat, and a half-serious death wish then quite frankly you are only endangering your own life putting yourself next to 4000-lb vehicles driven by teenagers and distracted adults texting and changing their playlist while driving. As an avid bike rider who logs over 1500 miles a year on the bike I recommending cycling in traffic to NOBODY.

I agree with your bicycle thesis, with the caveat that if you are way, way out in the country, where traffic is ever so light, and you can hear the lone cars that pass coming a mile away, yeah, you can have a great time safely on a bicycle. Anywhere near population density though, I would think twice about it.

I rode a lot in the inner city for years, but despite the fact that it's looked down on by the local authorities, I'd just travel on the sidewalks with my "mountain" bike. In the rare case in which I'd encounter a pedestrian, I'd simply veer out of the way or halt and let them pass. Sharing the road with motor vehicles on a bicycle in the U.S.? I wouldn't do it. It's just not safe. Copenhagen it's not.

I lift in a useful way, doing many useful manual tasks, helping a friend at fruit market (so lifting hundreds of kgs), carrying my own food (on a bike or walking) etc.. so I build useful compact and strong muscles, while being at a low BMI because endurance is the most important thing there

There are so many opportunities to use our muscles in our daily life, without generating more pollution, without using more services like gym, their products, their space and energy while you can simply exercise outdoor, not even talking about the benefits of sun

This is a very American question, driving is not the only way to leave your house.

Obviously it's silly to drive to the gym only to run on a thread mill, but that's not what the article is about, it's about lifting heavy.

Lifting heavy can't be replaced with lifting a lighter weight many times, it trains very different things. And using rocks or branches is not a practical solution. If you can't get to a gym and can't afford to buy your own weights, a better way is to look into calisthenics. You'd really only need to buy a door post pull up bar or similar and you're set.

I'm curious, what's American to you in their reply?

All of the points from OP mentioning cars despite the article seemingly being about gym. US have a view of being focused on cars when most of the world travel by bike or foot in cities.

> most of the world travel by bike or foot in cities.

of course, I'm talking of rich countries, there's not just USA, (West Europe, ...) where the car usage is extremely high, and where fitness services flourish

Poorer countries have other priorities, and a better general health, low obesity level (but less public health, so a lower life expectancy

> calisthenics

that's what I meant with lifting your own weight, you can find many places for that outdoor, no need to buy anything

People in the rich world outside the US have a very different relationship to cars, not to mention public transport and walking/biking.

In fact, the car obsession in America is a poor world phenomenon, you'll see this in countries where car ownership is considered a luxury. In other rich countries people just use the most convenient mode of transport, which in cities usually is the metro - it's never the car.

I disagree, I live in western Europe, France, and the situation is unfortunately very US-like, people care a lot about their cars

> In other rich countries people just use the most convenient mode of transport, which in cities usually is the metro - it's never the car

No, other rich countries are converging to this US model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_...

It's not about car ownership, it's about car dependence and how you view the car. In Scandinavia most people have cars, but nobody would find it the least bit strange for a middle class or rich person to take the bus to work, and people don't think it's normal to drive 500 m to a shop.

I don't know if you are French or just live there, but you have probably noticed that most people have very small cars compared to the US. Most people don't feel the need to signal status through having a large car, it's much more pragmatic.

South of France, high proportion of SUV, many Teslas too, there are some small cars that probably don't even exist in USA, but still a large proportion of oversized vehicles, and 1 bicycle every 100 cars (roughly, when I'm bored and start counting on my bike or walking)

many SUVs: https://www.best-selling-cars.com/france/2022-full-year-fran...

You're kinda missing the point. It's not about number of cars or bikes per capita standing in a garage but rather how the cities are built differently. Everything is designed for walking and bikes. In the US, they are designed for cars.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORzNZUeUHAM

What is silly about driving to a gym if that is the way you will run? Not everyone likes to run on roads or trails. Some beginners want something more deterministic.

> This is a very American question, driving is not the only way to leave your house.

...except that in many parts of the USA, effectively it is, after spending the past eighty years preferentially building exclusively infrastructure for private cars.

This is exactly why it's a very American question.

Meh

- I don't want to drive bike along the buisy road, or do running or walking. I prefer to do that in less poluted environment

- The same with car, I want to minimize exposure to outside polution, at least until teleport is discovered or we all live in urban woods.

- Rocks? No, you shouldn't lift rocks for exercise, becuase you will injour yourself. You should lift rocks in general, when you need to lift them, becuase one of the points of exericse is to be fluid in daily life, and if that includes lifting some rocks periodically thats more then OK. But basing your long term exercise strategy on random stuff around is not good idea IMO. As with anything in your life, you need good tools.

Atlas stones are a common strong man lift.

For people who have already trained to an elite level with regular weights.

since million years, human go at the gym and lift regular weights to get really strong, it's well known, how else would they do? They also eat protein mixtures

It's well known that at least since the antiquity humans were practising body weight exercises to strengthen themselves.

I don't know how Neanderthals got strong but I'm not sure they had a lot of rocks to carry regularly.

that's exactly what I meant, you can get strong without a gym and their specialised stuff, specialised diet etc.. all this is just consumerism

Cool. You do it your way and I'll do it my way and we'll see who gets results.

well, if your way can be as environmental-friendly as possible, all good (so no additional products, services, artificial food, etc)

and the "results" are a bit artificial as well, what matters is a strong core, legs, arms, but not the useless volume you get when lifting, because that's not a movement we do in our daily lives, we rather do small movements, static pauses, small weights. Better training for the right purposes

I'll take "taking your car to go at gym and run on indoor machines" for $400.

I'm 72, and I run dirt trails. I find running on asphalt uncomfortable on my joints, and dangerous unless you can find pedestrian-only paved trails. Concrete is even worse to run on. (And running treadmills is incredibly boring, so I'm not actually answering the original question.)

At one point, I had a trail starting from my back yard, but where I live now the nearest dirt trail of any length is a couple miles away. So I drive to the trailhead. Similarly for dirt bike riders who want to ride on dirt, I suppose.

Why not ride my (road) bike to the trailhead? There are some narrow roads (as in no shoulder) between here and there. (FWIW, I drive an EV.)

you could just walk then, walking outdoor has much more benefits than indoor machines. I guess there is also the appearance part: "Oh look, he can't even run", no, we have to be above appearance

I love some Japanese guy who talked about slow running, everything is there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9L2b2khySLE it's better to run slowly well than faster and bad (with bad consequences on the joints)

I'd like to see the numbers on how much getting exercise contributes to global warming. Not every story has to be about the environment.

everything does, a gym & car lifestyle is a high contributer obviously, I don't think this kind of person manage to be under 2T CO2 eq / year

I currently need to take the car to the gym as I am recovering from a broken leg. I tried walking but by the time I got there I was in too much pain.

Once my rehab is complete then I'll cycle or walk.

On a tangent; the calf muscle is a real hard muscle to build back...

>On a tangent; the calf muscle is a real hard muscle to build back...

I had real trouble growing my calf muscles. Years at gym and no progress. I found a way. 5 years after getting fat they're showing some good growth. In my case less gym was key.

simply walking a lot outdoor, on any terrain, and bicycle gives strong calves, and low BMI through hormones and an adequate diet (rich in fiber)

The problem with lifting rocks is that you don't know how heavy the rocks are.

You can generally tell how heavy they are by the size and also by trying to lift them.

The real problem is ergonomics.

fortunately there is a large choice of rocks and wood, and that's customisable a bit for wood

I'm sure you can get strong lifting rocks and wood. However, a barbell set-up (whether at home, gym, or elsewhere) allows you to perform progressive overload in a safe, controlled and convenient fashion. Fitness fanatics have been using them since the 19th century for that reason.

But find some large pumice rocks and you'll really look impressive!

Perhaps they were moving the weights to their home so they can workout in an environmental friendly way?

But training for competition would require a barbell set not just random heavy objects.

People in this world have preferences just like you do, but not about the environment.

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