Reasons to grow and keep big muscles
todaypurpose.com
todaypurpose.com
The drawback of this is that there's this idea that he is the standard. But he's actually very opinionated, has some outdated info, and is very focused on powerlifting.
That's not to take away from his utility for beginners, but once you are out of the beginner stage his programming recommendations are not as effective or sport specific enough for a lot of people.
If someone is going to the gym to improve at a sport, which is recommended for practically all sports, then something like Dan John's "Easy Strength" where lifting is the means to improving at the sport and not simply the end goal is probably a better direction.
Came here to say the same thing. And afaict even his powerlifting advice is bizarre and dated.
After helping out some beginners get into lifting I'd say his program is at best a poor use of time and at worst, dangerous and encourages injury.
But as a novice, you can progress linearly for some time and it's viable, as long as you know when to tap out. And then you might as well start with something more long term altogether.
I was at a Starting Strength seminar recently and the coach explicitly said that the beginner's program is not the end-all, so I'm not sure where that criticism is coming from?
The people behind these books also run the YouTube channels https://www.youtube.com/@GreySteel and https://www.youtube.com/@startingstrength, respectively. Lots of highly educational videos on these!
https://peterattiamd.com/about/
Summary:
Eat 1g of protein per pound of body weight
Creatine seems good on the margin and there's no downside to it.
Resistance training and cardio are both very important and you should probably be doing significantly more than is comfortable.
Sugar in moderation isn't as big a problem as it is made out to be.
Alcohol has no benefit and is harmful, to some extent, but Attia still drinks it.
I believe it's 1g per pound of "lean" body mass.
https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/328...
- You can replace sugar with stevia and immediately introduce a calorie deficit.
- Cardio isn't super important if you are already doing Resistance Training. Simply getting around 10k steps per day is more than enough.
You can just reduce portion sizes and caloric intake until you reach your goal weight.
You train strength and endurance for health and body composition, and performance if you care about that.
I'm a bit of a gym rat, mostly lifting though also some bodyweight/calisthenics.
I don't really do cardio.
I was concerned about it, so talked to my doc.
He said "you're lifting for an hour a few times a week. Your heart rate spikes when you're doing heavy lifts, right?"
"Yes".
He replied, "you're fine".
To test the theory, I got into the pool without having done any cardio at all in years. I had no trouble swimming 500 yards straight.
I wouldn't characterize my cardio capability as great, but it's moderate and good enough.
> Extreme cardiorespiratory fitness (≥2 SDs above the mean for age and sex) was associated with the lowest risk-adjusted all-cause mortality compared with all other performance groups.
Sure your cardio might be "good" now, but see Table 2 for what happens to you over time (with and without training).
Put more plainly https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6153509/
> Individuals with higher cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) showed lower risks of all-cause, CVD and cancer mortality; those with higher grip strength (GS) had lower all-cause mortality. All-cause and CVD mortality risk was lowest in adults with both higher CRF and higher. Improving both CRF and muscle strength, as opposed to either of the two alone, may be the most effective behavioral strategy to reduce all-cause and cardiovascular mortality risk.
If you want athletic performance, there are the Iron Man / RASP standards and a heart rate between 40-60. Do note that while under 60 is highly trained, 40 is more on the elite athlete side of things.
But by not doing cardio, you're actually leaving a lot of low-hanging fruit on the table. The second slide in this video might be persuasive: https://youtu.be/ovM3mD5Roow?si=IRSRjsq8MRas9Yq6
Episodes 236-238 of the Barbell Medicine podcast goes more in depth about the health benefits of endurance training and what a good target is for health benefits.
> Mitochondrial dynamics, including continuous biogenesis, fusion, fission, and autophagy, are crucial to maintain mitochondrial integrity, distribution, size, and function, and play an important role in cardiovascular homeostasis. Cardiovascular health improves with aerobic exercise, a well-recognized non-pharmaceutical intervention for both healthy and ill individuals that reduces overall cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality. Increasing evidence shows that aerobic exercise can effectively regulate the coordinated circulation of mitochondrial dynamics, thus inhibiting CVD development. This review aims to illustrate the benefits of aerobic exercise in prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease by modulating mitochondrial function.
Attia is a fan of "zone 2" training in particular because it trains mitochondria to burn fat, which leads to "metabolic flexibility". https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28467922
> Metabolic flexibility is the ability to respond or adapt to conditional changes in metabolic demand. This broad concept has been propagated to explain insulin resistance and mechanisms governing fuel selection between glucose and fatty acids, highlighting the metabolic inflexibility of obesity and type 2 diabetes. In parallel, contemporary exercise physiology research has helped to identify potential mechanisms underlying altered fuel metabolism in obesity and diabetes.
Weightlifting, if anything, depletes muscle glycogen, a sugar, so you aren't really training your fat-burning.
Edit: found https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38727635
I really don't get how anyone actually keeps up with such a regimen for any serious length of time. Perhaps they just play T-Rex at a chicken farm every morning.
Check out the latest talk from Dr Robert Lustig https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n28W4AmvMDE&pp=ygUGbHVzdGln
Its a 3.5h video, but roughly sugar is as toxic as alcohol and the food industry is adding it to most products. In short if it has a label (like most processed foods with many ingredients) you should avoid, switch to the ones that don't have (like an apple).
This book is also great "The hacking of the American mind"
`While researching the toxic and addictive properties of sugar for his New York Times bestseller Fat Chance, Robert Lustig made an alarming discovery—our pursuit of happiness is being subverted by a culture of addiction and depression from which we may never recover.
Dopamine is the “reward” neurotransmitter that tells our brains we want more; yet every substance or behavior that releases dopamine in the extreme leads to addiction. Serotonin is the “contentment” neurotransmitter that tells our brains we don’t need any more; yet its deficiency leads to depression. Ideally, both are in optimal supply. Yet dopamine evolved to overwhelm serotonin—because our ancestors were more likely to survive if they were constantly motivated—with the result that constant desire can chemically destroy our ability to feel happiness, while sending us down the slippery slope to addiction. In the last forty years, government legislation and subsidies have promoted ever-available temptation (sugar, drugs, social media, porn) combined with constant stress (work, home, money, Internet), with the end result of an unprecedented epidemic of addiction, anxiety, depression, and chronic disease. And with the advent of neuromarketing, corporate America has successfully imprisoned us in an endless loop of desire and consumption from which there is no obvious escape.
With his customary wit and incisiveness, Lustig not only reveals the science that drives these states of mind, he points his finger directly at the corporations that helped create this mess, and the government actors who facilitated it, and he offers solutions we can all use in the pursuit of happiness, even in the face of overwhelming opposition. Always fearless and provocative, Lustig marshals a call to action, with seminal implications for our health, our well-being, and our culture.`
> Sugar is poison.
So no fruits and vegetables then?
Fruits and vegetables have fiber, its a different story.
By the way he goes on talking about diet soft drinks, and explain that they are also bad, you produce insulin anyway.
This is where I'd start to tune out on other stuff this person is saying. I looked into this a while back when my son sent me those studies/links (we've been in a constant bar-argument debate over if real Coca-Cola is better or worse for you than Diet Coke) and I recall that it was highly specific to individuals. Some displayed a slight insulin response, while others did not.
I hit my weight loss extremely aggressively in the past year, and as part of that wore a CGM. I drink far too more diet coke than I reasonably should, and I've never been able to correlate any blood sugar events (high or low) to my diet coke or coke zero consumption. You'd think there would at least be a small amount of data in the graphs to tease out given it's a daily thing for me.
Of course abstaining from both is the right answer - but there has been no clear repeatable data I've seen yet that shows detrimental health from the artificial sweeteners commonly used. A lot of the first studies that got traction were either extremely flawed, non-repeatable, or using dosing that never made sense to test with.
Arguably sugar is more of an issue for those trying to lose weight than for those trying to gain muscle, as it will induce a glycemic roller coaster effect that will ramp up food cravings, which, when fed with processed carbs, becomes self-perpetuating. And that's not even touching on how it interacts with Candida.
Throw all that on top of the calories you NEED from other nutrients and you're running a serious surplus.
If you are a big guy like me and can't do push ups, then you can do Knee push-ups or alternatively you can also stand between two walls at angle and push yourself away from the other wall. For heavier guys like me This is the equivalent of pushing about 20Kg. In general the higher the incline the less of your body weight you lift.
If you don't have any dumbbells at home you can also fill up multiple water bottles and put them in a rather strong bag(like the eco friendly ones you buy at the store). After all 1L of water is about 1Kg.
Don't forget, you must not rush the exercise. Slow make sure you keep a good form.
Also if this is your first day exercising. Don't do more than 5-10 minutes. You can increase the time you exercise the next time.
It's fine to do a lot of aerobic training. You almost certainly build up muscle instead of burning it; aerobic training by definition is about burning fat (not that you'll lose weight). Joint issues can be avoided by sticking to a plan that slowly increases load (e.g. < 10% distance increase per week for running) and keeping track of your heart rate (e.g. < 75% of max).
I'd also challenge the idea that cardio interferes with your recovery for weight training purposes.
If you are looking to start, huge shoutout to Dr. Mike from Renaissance Periodisation and Dr. Milo from Wolf Coaching. Both of their YouTube channels are excellent and set you up for the long-term.
This is something I didn't know I didn't know, and I had to learn the hard way. It doesn't mean 5x5 is bad, it just didn't fit for me when starting out initially. Lifting forums have a tendency towards the idea that, "you aren't special, just do these things" because they have a lot of people descend upon them with too many questions.
But sometimes things aren't working, and you need to adjust.
> But sometimes things aren't working, and you need to adjust.
Absolutely. Dogmatic approaches to training doesn't work very well. Listening to your body and adapting does.
As for hypertrophy programs, I make my own by following Dr. Mike, Dr. Milo and Jeff Nippard on YouTube. Here's the one I am currently going through: https://1drv.ms/x/s!AiiXzauoGwzRgx2Jzb45uzbzdWC8
What is functional strength? I remember a story where a guy was deadlifting and a kid came up and asked, "what muscle does that work?". The lifter asks the kid if he watches football, and the kid says 'yeah'. The lifter then goes, when you watch a line backer run across the field and hit a runner - that's the muscle the DL works.
The reason 5x5 is recommended so often is almost everyone will benefit from more strength. After a full cycle of 5x5, any other programs you do will benefit from the strength base you built. 5x5 of the big lifts also limits people wasting time on things like curls.
The bigger problem, IMO, with SL is that when you fail, and of course you will, there's nothing to help you break through it.
And what you said is also right; from the page:
> 5×5 means you do five sets of five reps with the same weight. Squat 20kg five times, rack the weight, and rest 90 seconds. Then Squat 20kg for five reps again. Repeat until you’ve done five sets of five (5×5). Then move to the next exercise.
There's no way you can keep the weight same across 5 sets unless, according to the example, 20 kg is your 10RM+ weight. That too with 90 seconds rest. Squats and Deadlifts will gas you out completely. It'll take you 90 seconds to just catch up with your breath. And some more for the actual muscle (and synergists) to recover.
Being fit definitely has its social benefits in romance, but it isn't the reason I go when it's far below freezing out at 730 in the morning.
Research also backs this. That the people who keep going find ways to enjoy it and not for the long term hope of losing weight or looking fit.
If I could make a single change in my life 20 years ago, it would be getting into a gym habit. I tried back then, but had both horrible trainers (the "puke and rally" bro type) and friends who didn't have a clue about what they were doing. It all seemed pointless to me unless immense effort was put in. I also worked landscape and came from a blue collar family background where working out was seen as a sign of bougieness - who needs to pay to go work out if you work hard all day?
But this year (at age 42) I got a personal trainer at a local gym and started going once a week. She is great, and matches my personality and style to the workouts. I never realized how quickly and easily you can start seeing results - and that feedback loop can be quite addictive.
I can't say I look forward to going into the gym now, but I at least don't dread it. Once I'm there and halfway through my routine I'm quite happy I went, and it really does impact your mood and emotional state probably much more than I even want to admit as I type this. It's hard to realize you went through most of your life ignoring such a major component of success - basically playing life on hard mode for no particular reason.
The gym is also interesting in that you can be having a real shitty unproductive day - but you go in and get your routine done - and you can still feel accomplished. Bad week at work? At least you still got your 3 workouts in and are 2% stronger than last month.
They've all been, almost to a person, incredibly welcoming and eager to help. It's more often the casual exercisers that are a problem, if anything.
The reason could be addiction.
My point is simply that just because you do something compulsively, does not make that thing an addiction. E.g. breathing is compulsive, but it's not an addiction.
They exist, and endorphins are using the addiction biological framework.
Regardless, exercise people.
We don't have a biological framework for addiction, we have a framework for building routines and healthy habits. The system is incredibly beneficial and we'd do ourselves a great disservice not utilizing that system to improve our health and lifestyle.
Again, I'm fairly sure we all understand what you're saying, but I find there's a great deal of cumulative power in the language/framing we use day-in and day-out and I believe my characterization isn't just optimistic, but more accurate.
yeah, we do. and it involves neurotransmitters.
"addiction" may not be the right word in this (workout) context, but it's a well established concept in other contexts.
You can learn to enjoy pushing yourself in this way. To an outsider it can look like you're hooked on it, or that it is easy to make the choice every time.
Going from morbidly obese to the mid-range of the normal weight BMI chart in about 6mo time has been absolutely eye opening for me.
It's less about sex than it is about appeal. I don't care so much about being desirable to the opposite sex these days - but the impact of being considered conventionally attractive in pretty much all social contexts is profound.
There certainly is an impact from self confidence, but it cannot explain the whole difference. Humans simply treat people they find attractive differently than those they do not.
I'm about to hit 40, and I'm definitely more motivated by being healthier in 20 years, than I am by random strangers lusting for me. (I mean, it's nice to have my spouse lust after me, but turns out she does that with my current body.)
Being able to get up off the ground quickly or drag the kids around on a sled is also nice.
form and recovery count for a lot, people!
I think this dismisses a large portion (possibly the majority) of people who exercise. There are major mental health benefits, it provides structure, it’s fun, etc.
If the only reason people work out is for aesthetics then everybody would just be a bodybuilder. But there’s a huge swath of sport and modalities people pursue instead.
That makes an assumption that majority of the population thinks that bodybuilder physique is the most attractive one. If you are optimizing for aesthetics, imo the maxed out bodybuilding physique is both very difficult to achieve and isn’t going to optimize for most-liked aesthetic.
Out of bodybuilders i personally know, it is either about the challenge or going for the aesthetics that they themselves like and want (all while being very aware that it isn’t necessarily what most people like, and that’s valid).
That’s just a small nitpick though, fully agreed with the entirety of the rest of your comment.
You're assuming that the body builder aesthetic is everyones desired aesthetic, it's not.
Also, working out for your health and working out to be more attractive are not mutually exclusive things. I'd argue they're the same thing, and even if you disagree, it's still reasonable for a large numebr of individuals to cite both health and aesthetics as their motivation/reasoning.
I'm not, it was just an example. I can't edit, but you're right this could be more clear. What I mean is that if aesthetics is the only goal then people would exercise optimizing for aesthetics exclusively.
> Also, working out for your health and working out to be more attractive are not mutually exclusive things. I'd argue they're the same thing, and even if you disagree, it's still reasonable for a large numebr of individuals to cite both health and aesthetics as their motivation/reasoning.
This is a strawman. I didn't say exercise is only for health, nor did I even imply it. I said that health can be a primary motivator. That said, I'd still disagree with your statement.
Someone who is diagnosed with diabetes and changes their lifestyle to be more active and eat better might get the benefit of looking better after some time, but I'm pretty sure their primary motivation is to not die. Remember, OP claimed the real reason people work out "is to look good".
But you're ignoring a lot of people who simply want to see what the human body is capable of, or just have fun, or any other number of motivators. Someone who runs ultra marathons, doing bodybuilding shows, powerlifting, etc. surely is more interested in testing their limits possibly at the expense of their health/aesthetics.
Or sometimes people just want to play basketball because it's just exceptionally fun.
In that case, apologies for misunderstanding, and agreed fully. I was saying the same.
The only part of your comment I disagreed with was the assertion I took issue with up top, which we've already covered was a miscommunication on our part. The rest of it was supporting what you said.
> I didn't say exercise is only for health, nor did I even imply it.
You aren't the only one in this comment chain, and the topic is the dichotomy between the motivating factors of aesthetics vs health in exercising for fitness, thus why I zeroed in on that, using your prior example and the implication therein to highlight that said dichotomy is not exclusive. we already addressed that as a miscommunication though rather than an actual disagreement.
In other words, I was agreeing. And despite you saying you disagree with me, you immediately go on to substantiate that point with the diabetic having multiple justifications for exercising: There's more than one reason to exercise, and they aren't exclusionary.
It’s about having a head start in the pecking order game for any room you walk into, work or social or otherwise. It’s about people moving out of your way on the sidewalk instead of the other way around. It’s about people showing respect and going the extra mile at the airline counter or the retail store.
There are a lot of subtle benefits that people probably don’t want to readily acknowledge
More likely to signify who is or isn't the asshole.
If you were always moving out of the way when you were smaller, because you had to, is it so noble? If it isn’t truly a choice to?
Becoming attractive unlocks doors in the world that were previously locked. It’s always up to the individual what they do with them
I get what you're saying, but the subtext is the weak are less noble because they can be pushed around. Feels like punching down.
> Becoming attractive unlocks doors in the world that were previously locked.
Much better framing.
At the other end of the spectrum it’s nearly impossible to be consistently noble if you are say, the leader of the free world, with great power comes great responsibility etc.
But in the Catholic Church for example there are just as many saints who had small influence, often not even extending beyond themselves to another person, as there are saints with massive, global influence
There are other ways to be precieved as dangerous. Appearing to be dangerous is the real choice. Having the image of being bigger/stronger can actually have negative effects as well when considering things like what level of force is considered justified against you, other people seeking to prove dominace just due to your threatening appearance, etc.
"Becoming attractive unlocks doors in the world that were previously locked."
Not really. Sure it would help in certain things like mate selection, being an OF model, etc. Maybe you get slightly more courteous treatment. But it's not really opening doors that couldn't be opened in other ways. Not to mention that being attractive does not require big muscles. There are other ways to achieve that.
On the second point, may I ask do you have big muscles?
Muscles and attractiveness might have made my situation slight better in some ways (like dating), but it hasn't made up for social inadequacy. There are many people who are less attractive who have gone further in their careers etc with better social skills and such. So there are multiple angles to get ahead. Being physically attractive doesn't hurt, but I think being attractive in other ways is more important.
I grew up in Atlanta and I lived in Chicago for awhile. From my personal experience, and the stats back me up, Atlanta is worse for violent crimes. The worst thing that happened in Chicago was someone broke into my car when I wasn't home. In Atlanta I was stabbed when I wouldn't hand over my wallet.
Through sheer luck during my youth I didn't end up dead or in prison.
Thank you, very politically aware of you, however, I am in good shape but do not feel the members of my desired sex lusting for me, please elaborate on how to induce this lust in the desired sex, diameter of biceps, visible abs? What is required of the facial geometry? Thank you, can barely ;) wait to be lusted for.
I am happily married for over 15 years and enjoy not being a couch potato for my wife. And of course, being fit helps a lot with your sex life besides the aesthetics aspect of it.
Having said that, doing weight training or other kinds of exercise is really hard when kids are young and consume 98% of your time. Maybe in a couple of years I can start doing this seriously instead of ad-hoc. Hopefully still in time to combat the decline.
To be honest, I’ve been doing it for 6 years (38M) and I only do it for health reasons. Sex, daily activities, I can do whatever just fine and usually with better performance. I don’t go pushing myself to the max, dead lifting Earth; just enough to (if I can) force myself a bit more and to keep me in shape and keep this strength that has helped me so much already. I don’t do no preaching, nor do I want to be in a strength competition, nor do I do it for attracting partners.
Good things come easier when you feel better yourself (confidence) and you can actually back some of those things up.
this should not be discounted -- a lot of studies back up the anti-depressant effects of regular exercise. i find it's the closest i get to a 'moment of zen'.
any suggestion?
I'm unconvinced. Visit any gym and you'll see that very few people are attractive and certainly no larger a percentage than the general population.
Most of the research given is about exercise, and including some level of strength training, being an overall health benefit. The research does not necessarily support higher body mass (eg big muscles) being beneficial or even necessary. Higher muscle mass can actually be a detriment to things like joint, heart, and kidney health.
What matters is exercise that includes some strength training. Training for healthy strength (includes stamina, complex movement, etc and not just max weight) should be the focus over building mass. There are even studies showing that measures like grip strength matter most in relation to body mass - meaning strength to mass ratio matters.
https://peterattiamd.com/outlive/
It’s a good book, I’m currently reading it now. The premise is: if you want your later years to be healthier (as thoroughly defined in the book, but covering physical and emotional wellness), you need to start early with a long term plan
So far so good, I’m enjoying it
The author has some great reasons to grow and keep big muscles, but I have some thoughts to add for that "majority of people at the office" crowd.
Thought #1: there is one item that the author mentions that I think is absolutely critical yet buried all the way at the bottom.
> If you’re over 30 (or even in your 20s and able to afford it), hire a personal trainer to start. They can check your form and avoid any kind of injuries. With weights, it is really easy to get a bad form, no matter how many youtube videos you watch. I went to see a Physiotherapist 4 years after I started squats, and this is the best thing I’ve ever done. She retaught me everything I think I knew about squatting.
I cannot over-emphasise how important it is to focus on form so you avoid injuries. When you're older, hurting yourself will knock you off the exercise horse for years. Also, note that if you're in your 30s and have been mostly sedentary your adult life, the squat and deadlift may not even be movements that you have the range of motion to do.
Don't fall into the trap of pushing yourself because the program said so or the internet said so or because you feel inadequate next to the huge gains that people are showing off on the internet. There is absolutely no shame in taking things slower. Remember your goal is not to look good naked on the beach next summer, it is to maintain healthspan into your 70s.
Thought #2: cardio is important, the author's warning about "too much cardio because your joints will give out and you will lose muscle" is really odd and feels like I'm browsing /r/fitness in 2010. If you're very concerned about your joints, do something lower impact, like swim or cycle or row or the elliptical.
But do take your rest days.
Thought #3: stronglifts 5x5 is great if you're in your 20s or your early 30s. If you're older than that, well, you can still do it but please be careful. See thought #1 above.
It's actually a really good filter. Keep those people at arms length. The ones that don't have that attitude are the ones with positive balance aren't headed for the steroid slope.
Lifting is something that you should do with yoga or Pilates, swimming, some running and biking all in the mix. Because you get benefits from all of them.
The best starting workout for people imo is you lift 3 exercises, one set each to about 10-15 reps, then do 5 minutes of cardio between them. Do that cycle 4 times.
You'll get 20 minutes of cardio and 12 different exercises. Make sure 2-3 of the motions are lower body.
> If you’re over 30 (or even in your 20s and able to afford it), hire a personal trainer to start. They can check your form and avoid any kind of injuries. With weights, it is really easy to get a bad form, no matter how many youtube videos you watch. I went to see a Physiotherapist 4 years after I started squats, and this is the best thing I’ve ever done. She retaught me everything I think I knew about squatting.
This seems to suggest that "bad form" (which has no clear definition) would be a reliable source of injury, which it isn't. People like to harp on this because they've had a bad experience, but it's not a scientific fact that you have to move in some particular way to avoid injury. Don't let the absence of a personal trainer stop you from investing in your health.
> But excessive cardio is counterproductive, leading to loss of muscle mass and potential joint issues.
Such an incredible claim would need substantial evidence. As long as we are not talking about extreme exercise volumes, I call bullshit on this one.
---
I see a lot of in humble opinion uninformed comments in this thread. I believe the hackers here might be interested in barbell medicine [1], they have a podcast [2] that has way more info than one might ever want on health and training-related topics. I also feel it's a great innoculator against bullshit, which feels to be the majority of content about fitness these days.
They thought of weight training as kind of a meathead thing, something you do to belong to a meathead tribe, and they couldn't see why I would do it since 1) they raised me to value intellect over physicality, and 2) there's no way I could ever enjoy the benefits of being perceived as a meathead, since our genetics didn't allow for it.
My efforts to get them to see it as a practical means for improving their lives went nowhere, until my mom realized she was having trouble stepping up onto curbs. Now she works with a trainer once a week, and she's thinking doing it twice a week since once isn't killing her. Better late than never.
And maybe the article was light on citations, But there is science.
Everyone, even grandmothers, should be doing some resistance training.
I’m sure there are some channels that are ok, but my cynical take is that most channels are there for one reason: to make money (by getting views).
This is often (usually?) contradictory to giving good guidance, vs. telling people what they want to hear.
https://youtu.be/x1kv3oKoZkQ?si=iehzC8H815vEtA1M
Part of the problem is that most of this works. If you pick up heavy things, you will get stronger. If you're trying to differentiate yourself you'll focus on specific techniques or sports, but really, the basics are not hard: do something that's difficult and your body will adapt to improve its ability to do that thing.
However, some specifics that I've found useful:
Barbell Medicine - focuses on strength training, not just barbells.
The Bioneer - a little lifestyle heavy, but the basic advice is sound.
Alan Thrall- also barbell focused, but lots of good advice to be gleaned there, including on bodyweight.
Ross Enamait - boxing focus, but bodyweight stuff. His book "Never Gymless" is good.
Underground Strength Gym - an oldie, but a goodie.
But you might also look into calisthenics, which is enjoying a surge in popularity, it seems. Lots of good stuff out there on bodyweight training with a variety of adapted equipment.
It’s mostly dumbbell focused, so needs much less space than a barbell. That specific model brings its own screen, but you can get a smaller unit that just holds weights and uses your iPhone depth camera.
I follow their programs plus I select workouts that follow upper/lower/rest pattern. Maybe it’s less optimal than 5x5 but I’m getting great results regardless - so far down 4” at my waist and feeling a lot better; as the OP mentioned my back pain is gone.
You can train a lot of muscles if all you have are free weights + bench. Simply search, "Home workouts Dr. Mike" on YouTube.
Created because of the inventor's dislike of going to the gym, lying on the floor, or doing arbitrary movements disconnected from anything else in life.
https://books.google.com/books/about/Science_and_Practice_of...
Realistically, am I kidding myself that I will be fine without barbells? I would be fine with adding dumbbells and kettlebells at any weight. Does this work? My goals pretty much align with the idea around this article: I want to stay healthy, long. I do not want to injure myself. Looks are of no concern to me.
I understand that workouts are a topic with strong opinions. If you are into barbells you probably also do it because you believe it's necessary. Given a level response on this might not be simple but it would be much appreciated
I don’t plan on doing it myself, because like you, I pretty much just keep my dumbbells and kettlebells, bands for travel or certain exercises, and some cardio mixed into 2 days of training.
I will probably won’t live as long as the study, but if that is not healthy enough to feel like I’m feeling now, I have better things to do that go to a gym for barbell and other heavier exercise machinery.
You don't need to grow anything. Use your muscles by being active, a hard thing to do in IT.
The current physical activity guidelines call for 150 minutes of moderate intensity cardiovascular training per week and at resistance training on at least 2 days per week. There's lots of ways to get there, and maybe strength training is the way to do it for some people. Even if that's not the focus, however, people should set aside some time to focus on resistance training because it provides a number of long term benefits.
Moving helps joints heal: https://www.arthritis-health.com/types/joint-anatomy/how-do-....
Fitness increases IQ: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091202101751.h....
Heavy weight lifting is one of the best things I do for my mental well being.
Muscles need energy. When you use energy you produce waste. The waste in the muscles case is reactive oxygen species,. If you can’t clear that waste, you will become sick and fatigued and have disease.
If you increase muscle mass without making sure you’re getting rid of these reactive, oxygen species Muscle mass won’t do a thing for your longevity.
If you want to live longer, balance your oxidative stress.
Beyond that, resistance training DOES combat stress. C’mon man. Some counter opinions just aren’t worth voicing.
I wish we, as humans, understood odds better. All health advice is about stacking the deck in your favor, but outliers always exist. I'd be more critical, except I'm sure there's some area where I apply a similar ignorance of the basics.
This cannot be possible, by definition. The majority of us will be within one standard deviation of the midpoint on a bell curve because that's how bell curves work. And that means basic evidence based health and fitness advice applies to the majority of us. Not bullshit like "oxidative stress".
Better for who? That’s my point. Obviously my grandfather didn’t need it right?
But I’m against these simplistic explanations for something much more beautiful happening underneath all this bro science advice.
There is no evidence that strength and cardio ALONE leads to longer life and health spans. what I’m arguing is that there is something beneath what you’re all looking at that would help way more people if we understood it completely. And what that is is the balance and mitigation of oxidative stress. It is quite probable that because my grandfather did not work out, he did not create a lot of oxidative stress, and that’s what helped him live longer. What would be more important for humanity is understanding oxidative stress.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7892233/
Further, whole-body resistance exercise increased oxidative damage. For example, resistance exercise at a 10-repetition maximum load increases the MDA level in the blood [19]. Furthermore, local resistance exercise, which is a single type of resistance training in a specific muscle group, can increase oxidative damage.
If you can't deal with "reactive, oxygen species" from muscles, you can't live. Your heart is a muscle.
Just being deficient in manganese, zinc and copper could increase superoxides to a point that starts creating DNA damage.
And it’s funny that you don’t think reactive oxygen species damage heart muscles. If there’s too much of them that is. If there’s an imbalance that is.
https://www.hindawi.com/journals/omcl/2020/5732956/#
If you’re not exactly sure what reactive oxygen species are, then, why don’t you look them up before you make comments of what you know nothing about. If you’re making fun, about a stupid comma that Siri placed in my sentence then well, that’s just childish. And you’re not serious at all.
Tomes of papers support the connection between physical activity, reduced inflammation markers, and decreased all-cause mortality.
Maybe you should actually take some courses in molecular biology, instead of googling some very basic high-level articles and over-generalizing to support your misguided point.
Correlation, not causation.
What the hell is muscle use above a curent baseline? What does that even mean? I’m pretty sure you’ve never taken a science class in your life.
Meaning, a conservative increase over your current training regimen, as opposed to over-training. If you go from couch potato to running several miles a day, that's going to be way more stressful than gradual ramp-up. I made that caveat because intense over-training can cause really bad things such as rhabdomyolysis at the extreme.
>I’m pretty sure you’ve never taken a science class in your life.
I'm pretty sure I have a BS in chemistry and worked as a synthetic chemist for years, and you are talking out your ass.
Further, whole-body resistance exercise increased oxidative damage. For example, resistance exercise at a 10-repetition maximum load increases the MDA level in the blood [19]. Furthermore, local resistance exercise, which is a single type of resistance training in a specific muscle group, can increase oxidative damage.
Did you even read your own link, or are you just googling keywords and linking papers with a title that superficially supports your thesis?
Those enzymes that it unregulated, those genes that they upregulate… do you know what they are? Let’s talk about one…mnSOD or SOD2.
Do you know that enzyme needs a co-factor and that co-factor is manganese. What do you think happens when you keep exercising, but do not replenish your manganese? mnSOD does not work as fast and this leads to a buildup of superoxides and disease.
Up regulating these enzymes because we’re exercising is not decreasing oxidative stress, it’s getting rid of the oxidative stress that we created. And all that results is that we deplete ourselves in manganese.
Does this happen for everyone? No does this happen for people who might have polymorphisms in there SOD2 genetics? Probably.
https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/ajpcell.003...
RDA for Mn is 1.8-2.3 mg/day. Tolerable upper limit is 11mg/day. Mn ions are highly conserved in the body and mostly cycle through redox states and various complexes.
That's actually a pretty narrow therapeutic window, again because it's a trace mineral and biology has evolved to recycle it very efficiently.
Also, there’s a study at Stamford going on right now, looking at manganese levels and illness and they’re finding that these ranges are old and arbitrary.
And that tolerable upper limit is a joke since I had to take 30 mg a day.
Just do a little research and find out where they got those limits and ranges from.
But, regardless, it proves my point, that exercise depletes manganese and that could cause disease in people who don’t have sufficient manganese. So just telling everyone to work out and you’ll live longer is a false statement.
Adding
https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/3419
There are no reliable and validated biomarkers of manganese intake or status and data on manganese intakes versus health outcomes are not available for DRVs for manganese. As there is insufficient evidence available to derive an average requirement or a population reference intake, an Adequate Intake (AI) is proposed.
But yeah, your broad point is correct. Biology has several billions of years of evolutionary experience dealing with ROS and upregulates antioxidant biomolecules in response, it's way more complex than "ROS bad".
Here are all the papers that use the terms since 2023
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_ylo=2023&q=reactive+Ox...