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Comment by ggm | Hacker News Reader

The heavy measure is 1rm: the maximum weight that can be handled for one rep, under supervision.

Most people won't be doing this. They will be doing more reps of a lower weight. Which is more like the medium group than the high group.

I count myself in that camp, age (just!) and effort wise: I do four distinct sessions of weight bearing exercise a week with reps, a mixture of on and off water rowing, pilates and gym work and it's tiring, satisfying and nothing like the maximum tested here. Almost all the people I do this with are the same with a few exceptions. Doing the high grade of this test is .. hard.

The health benefits of the medium group are more indicative of whats practically achievable, IMO.

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That's not how they defined heavy and medium in the study. Here's what the heavy cohort did:

> At a commercial gym, HRT performed a supervised full body programme three times per week, with 6–8 weeks of initial habituation. The periodisation programme was machine based and each exercise included 3 sets of 6–12 repetitions at ~70%–85% of 1 RM, which was estimated using the prediction equation according to methods by Brzycki.

This seems pretty reasonable to me regardless of age, the heavy program didn't include testing 1RM. It was 3x6-12 of each exercise at around 75% of 1RM. Sounds like an ordinary weight training program. With 6-8 weeks of habituation most older people could probably do this. All machines so pretty safe.

The medium program didn't even use weights - it was all bands and bodyweight and unusually high reps at 55% of 1RM. I don't know any serious lifter who would recommend that program, I haven't even thought about how you would measure a 1RM for exercises that don't use weights? So not sure what this is but I'm unsurprised that the heavy program worked better.

The medium program included circuit training and kinda sounds more like a cardio routine, wonder if that's the comparison they were going for

I think active people should look into Super Slow one set training to complete failure.

Basically, pick the weight that you can do super slow, for about 60-90 seconds max. You should be at total failure at the end, but since the weight will be MUCH lower than 1rm, it's very safe.

I think this is a LOT more effective than doing exercises for sustained periods of time.

Someone once told me any exercise you can do for several minutes is just dancing. Not strength training. And from trying many methods over the years, I agree.

I've had friends that can squat impressive numbers try super slow body weight squats. They can do more squats with 225+ lbs at their usual pace than they can body weight super slow. Considering how much safer super slow body weight squats are (basically no risk) compared to 225+, I don't know why more people don't do it.

Super slow sounds a lot like "a few positions of static holds". Agree - static holds are really really important for general strength and especially mobility, but are not what people are really going for when they talk about "getting stronger".

Unless I'm missing something - super slow probably makes you look and feel better but doesn't put up those "Big numbers" that some people care about.

Super slow is not static. It's about 8-10 seconds per rep.

Yes, it makes you look better and get stronger and healthier. It wouldn't work for a competitive lifter I suppose since that takes a lot of practice managing those weights, even if someone is strong technically.

Idk what regular person, especially approaching retirement age really cares about putting up big numbers. they exist sure like everything else, but I'm giving general advice not body builder or competitive weightlifter advice.

I'm of the "If it's hard it's worth it" camp which has loose goals of "get better". So it works for me!

I don't understand your post. There is no mention of testing 1 rep max (1 RM) in the article.

Are you under the impression that the HRT group was training by only performing 1 RM lifts? That wasn't the case:

Meanwhile the moderate group did something very similar, just with more repetitions and less weight:

> 3 sets of 10–18 repetitions at ~50%–60% of 1 RM

I don't see how one is more "realistic" than the other.

I would like to add that I believe that most people will not and should not do 1rm tests.

People who have trained for some time know their actual 1rm which in itself has factors that influence it on the day such as sleep, food intake, hormone levels etc.

Even then trained individuals can fail their 1rm at maximum.

Untrained individuals belief of their 1rm vary wildly. Those who overestimate their 1rm at retirement age have much larger recovery times (and from my observation, more risk of long term damage) than the average 20 year old.

> I would like to add that I believe that most people will not and should not do 1rm tests.

More so, most people don't even know how. It's something you'll absolutely want a good coach for if you aren't a thoroughly experienced lifter. And even then it's a good idea to not attempt it alone.

Yeah, even experienced lifters tend to shy away from 1RM lifts, especially as you get older. Just too little margin for error.

Not to mention the increased risk of cardiac arrest or stroke especially for the inexperienced

Training 1RMs are genuinely athlete territory

I misread. The article says The periodisation programme was machine based and each exercise included 3 sets of 6–12 repetitions at ~70%–85% of 1 RM

I mean that’s probably the point of the study

1RM is almost purely CNS adaptation rather than strength (~3-5 reps), muscle hypertrophy (~5-10 reps) or cardio/endurance/conditioning (~10+ reps)

I know older former athletes who still train their 1RMs but I agree it’s well beyond what most health conscious people are training for

I wonder if there was a public health campaign around this whether it would do more harm than good. I can see a lot of potentially fatal cardiac issues arising

The actual article had nothing to do with training 1RM, this whole thread comes from a misinformed top level comment.

This. I misread:

The periodisation programme was machine based and each exercise included 3 sets of 6–12 repetitions at ~70%–85% of 1 RM

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