Fitness Crazed
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
[1] http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0982522738?pc_redir=1400896569...
[2] http://youtube.com/watch?v=2ME8gEN54Ao&feature=kp
Lyle McDonald's bodyrecomposition.com is, as far as I'm concerned, the best nutrition resource on the internet. Lyle does a great job of taking clinical research and boiling it down to practical applications for people who train.
Once you're done with starting strength, you switch to something like IF (intermittent fasting) to cut the excess fat. Then you end up with lots of muscle and no fat.
You can either lose fat or gain muscle. It's incredibly difficult to do both at the same time.
Your body can only build muscle at a certain rate, and the rest of the caloric surplus is going to be converted to body fat. So what I'm saying is if you are willing to pay a little bit of attention to macro nutrient intake, you can gain muscle with much less of the associated body fat that comes with bulking.
This way, you have to much less to cut. More importantly, you learn how to eat properly which is essential for long term success.
With right combination you can do it. Targeted Keto/IF combination seems to be quite effective. Sheds fat while maintaining (or gaining) muscle mass and minimizing the impact of the diet to your strength levels. I've dropped +25kg BW while gaining +5kg of muscle mass and gaining/maintaining my big-lifts. I noticed that going from Stronglift 5x5 to Madcow really helped my recovery. Mostly as my body couldn't keep up with the heavy squatting and deadlifting too many times during the week.
People get caught up in stuff like the deadlift because you build up to what seem like big numbers. But the fact is, it's not very impressive. Most guys can get there. And it's not very useful, athletically speaking.
I think Rippetoe's original schtick was built around bulking kids up for certain positions on high school football teams. Having an extra 20# to throw around at age 17 is going to really help a lineman. I'm a bit skeptical about the wider reverence the Rippetoe approach gets these days.
That is probably the most false statement I've ever read on the internet. Which is saying something. Athletically speaking, there is no single exercise better than the deadlift. With the squat coming in at #2.
Proof: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrLVlbgwcW8#t=80
This guy is doing a 47 inch box jump... out of a pool. This is what deadlifting does.
Thing is, pylometrics is still nr. 1 for most explosivnes and also olimpic lifting, but not classis weight lifting, strength is not power.
+EDIT: This guy on the video does far more than just DL to achive what he does, he is also very competent at calisthenics, he does one leg hill jums and other extremely difficult exercises ... Claiming this is a product of solely DL is misinforming.
NB: a good trainer can, at minimum, perform those exercises for reps with more than bodyweight. Many gyms -- 24 hour fitness and crunch come to mind -- employ "trainers" who appear to hopefully have read a book but are wildly unprepared to train others in exercises that can destroy body parts if performed incorrectly.
Nope. The book is far superior to any of the trainers I've encountered. The book has so much detail on each exercise, it will take you weeks to absorb it, but if you read relevant parts before/after each workout, to make sure you're doing everything right, you'll probably wind up with much better form and technique than a random trainer's personal opinions.
And if you don't already know the correct form/technique, then how on earth are you going to evaluate which trainer you can trust? Answer: you can't. The book is the way to go, if you can be conscientious about reading it thoroughly, constantly reviewing it, and following what it says.
For the rest of people interested in getting strong: get a competent trainer (one easy evaluation metric is, as I mentioned, their deadlift maxes; greater than 500 pounds makes avoiding injury w/o good form very unlikely; or participation in powerlifting events; etc).
You don't need to go to a trainer. I learned everything I know from reading, watching videos and having my form critiqued. It's actually better to go to a good powerlifting gym and make friends with some strong people, but you don't NEED to. At least not until you get to pretty elite levels.
In fact, going to a the typical trainer at the gym is a waste of money, effort, and is MORE likely to get you hurt (like rhabdomyolysis for instance). Half of those guys will just have you balance on a bosu ball while doing some arbitrary movement, and rake in your hundred+ dollars an hour. You might go home more sore than a 30 minute lifting session, but you effectively wasted your time, and probably simply decreased the likelyhood you'll even go back.
No, lifting weights isn't some magical or super technical thing (unless you are doing Olympic lifting, then, then I'd suggest getting a coach, not a trainer).
Edit: FWIW, if you can find a trainer that can DL 500lbs that is at a regular gym, I'd be liable to eat my hat. Now show me that same trainer that actually trains his clients with a routine for beginners as good or better than Starting Strength, and I'll eat my hat without ketchup.
When I started, I lucked out when I started training and got a trainer who started me on light squats and barbell bench. Then after a while I made friends with the strongest guys in the gym who have been training for 15+ years.
I dont think you need to find a hulking trainer - my advice would be to find a trainer who has been training for a long time. By that stage they have realised that slow, steady, consistent progress is much more important than just quickly posting huge numbers. They are much more likely to know the benefits of maintaining good form because they will have suffered, and recovered from, injuries.
P.s. I know a trainer who can DL over 500lbs - though he trains mostly women, he does get them deadlifting. They dont do anything like SS because they have different goals.
I have been lifting for five years and I can conclusively state that you are grossly misinformed about this issue.
Fact: the vast majority of trainers out there are shitty. The problem with relying on them as a beginner is that you cannot recognize the shitty ones from the good ones. Simplest example: most trainers will tell you not to go below parallel when you squat, which is just wrong advice. But as a newbie, you aren't in a position to question them. So you will learn wrong form and will be more likely to develop muscle imbalances and injuries.
Therefore, your advice of relying on a trainer to show you good form is potentially far more harmful than using the book as a reference.
There are some good trainers who can help, and there are certainly many who are worse than useless.
As for the book, it has hundreds of pages explaining in great technical detail exactly how each exercise is to be performed and some useful photos are also included. There's no reason why you can't get the form down properly using the instructions in the book, and maybe even have a friend record your form so you can check it against the photos.
My numbers should be better, 2.7 years, 185 BW, 400 lb deadlift, 275 bench, 275x5 squat, 150 OHP. All thanks to crappy form, not understanding how to do the exercise properly. People with hunchback posture have a lot more to think about than those with good posture. I got to 375x5 deadlift within 1.5 years. But my form was already crap at 245 and I had no idea because I only checked with video at 225. Also filmed myself and couldn't tell what I was doing wrong, looked ok as far as I could tell at the time. But it was wrong. My idea of how to deadlift/squat/OHP was fundamentally wrong at 1.5 year mark. Bench needed major corrections.
You might be doing it wrong too, you can get away with it for a long time.
A trainer at some globo gym like Planet Fitness, Bally etc. won't promise correct form for 300 lb deadlifters, even if they pull 500 lb themselves. They're just there to make total novices feel comfortable.
If you want proper training you need to find a freeweight focused place like a powerlifting gym, maybe crossfit and pay whatever obnoxious price they charge for personal attention. Train a few months there to get started. Or hope you're not as dumb as me and rely on youtube and books.
Save the money, skip the trainer, watch some of Rippetoe's videos, record yourself, and improve. Of course if you have the money to spend, and will feel more confident with a trainer, then by all means do that. But be responsible for your own health and still do your own homework.
It was definitely a worthwhile investment. After a month and a half of coaching with a personal trainer, I feel a lot more confident with going to a gym or using my own equipment now. I'd still be going to the same trainer if I could fit it into my schedule.
The article also has a strong style over substance aspect wrt "photographs were so poorly shot". No they're actually pretty awesome if you're trying to learn how to do this safely. Its like complaining that an engineering blueprint of a perfect engine camshaft doesn't capture the fluffy marketing message of the car, well, yeah, that's kinda not the point...
Its interesting how SS has taken over the field. I've been lifting on and off (mostly off) for about 30 years and will certainly start back up again sooner or later, and its interesting watching how the field has almost universally crystallized on SS for the noobs. In like, the 80s, there was a lot more variety and a lifter might start on machines or freeweights fairly randomly.
I believe that's because it's pretty widely accepted now that free weights are more effective than machines. And, the difference is large enough that even people outside of weight lifting circles have a vague awareness of this. In the 80s, it was still really popular to use machines because they were "safer" (which is not necessarily true), they isolated specific muscles for training (mostly true, but not actually optimal), and they seemed easier than learning proper form for lifting free weights (it's still pretty easy to do it wrong with a machine).
That said, my first exposure to weight training was via a Gold's Gym book that I got at a garage sale, which also focused solely on free weights. I think the gym rats have always known iron was superior to rubber bands and elaborate systems of ropes and pulleys.
I don't buy that. The people who say that stuff are the same ones who go on about stabilizer muscles, when there's no such thing. Machines are safer than barbells. For overhead and pull-down stuff the good machines minimize dangerous shoulder stress. Barbell squats and deadlifts quite simply are somewhat dangerous and even very experienced people manage to tweak their backs.
Outside the machine, I have personal experience that your shoulder, leg, and arm muscles might be able to trivially lift a mere concrete block but your back muscles (luckily in my case not a ligament) were not strengthened by the machine to a similar level leading to quite a bit of pain and damage. Which is the short version of life experiences explaining why I'll probably never go back to machines in the future.
Given an infinite number of machines, presumably one for every muscle or so, and an infinite amount of knowledge such that you strengthen your back to always be 5% stronger than your arms or whatever, then machines would be safer than free weights. Of course given spherical cows I'd have the same level of knowledge and safety of free weights.
You certainly could hurt your back without any relationship to strength training at all. Or even hurt yourself after freeweights. But it is more likely after machine work.
There is also a practical matter of scale. Lets be realistic. A really bad day of lifting won't be much worse than naturally happens to fat couch potatoes every day, so its no really big deal. On the other hand a "really bad day" of bicycling means getting turned into grease under the wheels of a truck, or a "really bad day" of hiking means hunters find your body after a couple months. Its not in practice a serious concern, compared to other human activities.
Not that opposition to machines is some kind of amish / historical re-enactor philosophical opposition. Not using a squat rack when squatting is probably an excellent way to hurt yourself. Someone should invent a machine or technique to do bench presses safely while alone.
I also didn't say the deadlift has no athletic benefit. I said it is fetishized and its usefulness is blown out of all proportion. It's seductive because a beginner can rapidly increase loads. But mostly it builds mass that is not very useful for real sports and impairs endurance. Always betting against the puffed up fighter has been a reliable betting strategy.
If you want to spend your training capacity building up to a 500# deadlift, go for it. Just don't kid yourself that it's particularly impressive or will help you do much else other than deadlift.
As for the deadlift, I get your point. I do think that you are making it an either-or thing, in that you're either piling on mass with the deadlift or your not getting stronger. Athletes don't do starting strength, they should be using the deadlift as part of a well-rounded training routine rather than trying to set PR after PR. I agree with you that a singular focus on deadlifts/squats for most athletes is detrimental, but that doesn't mean it has no place whatsoever. I'd also bet against the athlete who focused on it in such a way.
Anecdotally though, I've found the deadlift to be very functional for me. And who are you to say that someone moving from 135 to a 350lb deadlift, and then maybe to 500lbs isn't impressive? I'm impressed with anyone that can motivate themselves to some sort of physical goal.
I think it's your derision that I find most off-putting. Deadlifting is hard work that takes time, so kudos to anyone that sticks with and improves themselves in a way that makes them happy. Yeah, almost everyone can do it, but most people don't. Is running a marathon impressive? What about a triathlon? Biking a century? Or are the only things worth being impressed by the things genetics make impossible for the masses?
One of the first things it does it clarify the difference between exercise vs training. Exercise is just "working out", whereas "training" is a long term plan to improve certain aspects of the body's ability.
Unless you are specific about what your goals of changing your body and your body's abilities are, then it will be hard to get "results" since "results" is not well defined.
Some example results:
* Get bigger chest and arm muscles
* Be able to run long distances
* Be able to perform certain feats of strength: Lift heavy things, do certain gymnastics poses
* Have certain muscles or muscle groups be defined
* Any sport specific activity: climbing, rowing, golf, basketball, etc
Applying this context to any fitness article I read has clarified a lot for me.
My favorite quote from the book is from the very first page (which is probably very relevant to the HN crowd):
A weak man is not as happy as that same man would be if he were strong. This reality is offensive to some people who would like the intellectual or the spiritual to take precedence. It is instructive to see what happens to these people as their squat strength goes up.
It's as simple as that. No miracles required, just a bit of patience.
Personally the solution I've found works best for me follows two simple rules:
1. Never be hungry and never be stuffed.
2. Do a simple 15 minute bodyweight routine 3 to 4 times a day. Do nothing every 4th day.
When conditions are right (I'm living in Ljubljana) I will also add boxing training 3 to 5 times a week and I've been running every day lately because I can't do boxing. It works really well. I look bloody amazing naked.
edit: The only problem I have with this much working out is that when I can't do boxing for an extended period of time I have too much energy and become edgy. Like, things just make me angrier than they should and I have trouble sitting still. The running helps, but isn't quite strenuous enough.
edit2: The BEST part of working out this much is all the food you get to eat. And with much greater delight than if you're not working out.
I'm afraid we are going to need to see some pictures to verify that.... (kidding, please don't post pictures:)
Seconded on edgy when not enough exercise. The same thing happens to me. I notice this goes away if I ignore it and just don't exercise for a long time though. But then I don't feel as good and start having a much more negative attitude on life.
I'm only asking out of scientific curiosity to "looking bloody amazing naked" of course ;)
I started with this: http://imgur.com/gallery/v49W4
Now I just continue with the same -> 100 pushups (4 different types), 130 situps, 200 crunches (4 different types), then either 100 side-to-side, 70 leg-lifts, or an alphabet (spelling out the alphabet with extended legs), 2 minute plank (2 different types), and 60 squats.
If I am pressed for time I can squeeze that into some 13 minutes. If I don't stop chatting on whatsapp/skype/fb it takes about 20 to 25.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...
It is not for the protein in the milk. It is not for the added calcium. It is a straight up calorie per dollar play.
A gallon of whole milk is 2400 calories, and costs about $3. It's basically the best dollar to calorie ratio that exists at the grocery store.
Why do you need the extra 2400 calories? For recovery. SS operates on a linear progression. Every other day, you lift a few more pounds than you did the day before. In order to achieve that (safely, and sustainably), you need to be fully recovered by your next workout.
There are many aspects to recovery, but the primary bottleneck is fuel. Which is calories. So the rationale behind GOMAD is to remove the bottleneck. Give the body more fuel than it could possibly use in a day to spend on recovery.
If your typical diet is 3000 calories from food (not unusual when on an aggressive exercise plan), GOMAD will up that to 5400. The exact upper bound on calories your body can actually burn in a day on recovery is variable - depends on the person, the day, the workout, etc etc etc.
But the usage ceiling is definitely lower than 5400 calories. So we give the body more fuel than it could POSSIBLY burn, to give it the ability to recover as much as it is humanly possible between workouts.
You do have to do something with those extra calories. It DOES turn into fat. You do gain a little fat when doing SS+GOMAD. But you have to chose one - lose weight or build muscle. It’s incredibly difficult to do both, while also demanding gains in a reasonable amount of time. So typically once someone finishes a SS cycle, they switch to IF (Intermittent Fasting) or something to cut the extra weight.
Then you end up much stronger, and leaner.
Hope that was helpful in clearing up the GOMAD diet, and the rationale behind it.
After a ton of research, the only thing that worked for me was bodyweight workouts and barbell training.
To drop my weight I followed bodyweight programs at home. 20 minute short sessions with squats, push ups, etc. Far more challenging than it sounds! You can see pics of how I dropped 20 lbs in this post:
http://micho.biz/post/74209049445/leaving-teambox-back-to-sq...
Then I jumped onto barbell training, complemented with bodyweight sessions.
Starting Strength has been the best resource I've followed so far. For a small time investment a week, I've been progressing in technique and strength steadily over the last months.
The fitness field has been a huge motivation personally for me, which ultimately made me leave my previous startup and found http://8fit.com to help people like me follow that learning path.
People get hurt using barbells all the time. It is easy to mess up and tweak something and then be a bit injured for a few weeks, even if you know what you're doing. It is much harder to mess up with the good machines. The barbell doesn't have any special advantages. In fact, loading up the plates is a nuisance.
I feel like supplements are similar to personal trainers in terms of that "client confusion". I've taken a lot of different supplements and doing research online versus talking to someone at GNC will return offensively differing results in what you should take for which reasons.
I found that 5x/week led to an overtrained state.
And yeah, just keep doing the same thing on a regular basis. I have a chin-up bar in my bathroom door. Almost every time I pass that way, I try a few times. I've gone from "can't get off to the ground" to "can easily lift and lower myself". Now I'm trying to work on more reps.
Does he know why he wants this?
From a biological perspective, a specimen might want to be able to do this to signal to potential mates that he is worthy of reproduction (the reason why we do alot of the things we do that no one ever quite explains). But at age 40, this is a suspect answer... without knowing any details of his personal life it seems unlikely that he's finally looking to settle down and start a family. Besides, if he is a late bloomer, the success of his career and his paycheck matter much more than body fat percentage. A male's ability to provide benefit to a female just doesn't lean much towards the "fighting off sabertooth tigers" anymore, nor even in the western world towards "fighting off other males".
I'm continually surprised how much time, effort, and money people will waste on these activities that seem devised to attract mates when they want few or no children, when they already have mates, and at times even when they have mates superior to any they're likely to acquire in the future. It's almost as if even as the desire to reproduce erodes, their desire to attract reproductive mates increases.
You should try and get a 150lb bench press and then see if you would want a 200lb bench press and then a 235lb bench press. You might be a "male specimen" that sees no logic to strength, but neither should you be dismissive of people that like to be strong. (Some are women, by the way.)
You've made a lot of assumptions about his motivations. In Starting Strength, Rippetoe basically makes the claim that these exercises are the most effective way to improve someone's overall health and fitness. His attitude is probably best summarized by the following quote:
>Humans are not physically normal in the absence of hard physical effort.
Now, I'm not going to argue with you about whether humans need exercise to be healthy or if so, which kinds. But for the people who do come to that conclusion (that apparently includes the author), there's plenty of motivation beyond attracting mates.
This doesn't explain anything, however. It's tautological... he wants to increase his fitness, to increase his fitness?
> Now, I'm not going to argue with you about whether humans need exercise to be healthy or if so,
To what end? To eke out another 3 years at the end of his life, probably in a nursing home?
If he was trying to avoid diabetes, that makes sense to me, that affects anywhere from 10-40 years of your life, and is a very extreme quality-of-life factor.
This doesn't explain the ever-present fitness craze.
Sure and two of the biggest factors in preventing/treating diabetes are exercise and weight maintenance.
>This doesn't explain anything, however. It's tautological... he wants to increase his fitness, to increase his fitness?
Nope. He is performing weight bearing exercise to, not only become better at performing those exercises, but also with the goal of achieving better body composition, bone density, stamina, mental well being, etc. These have huge impacts on quality of life. You've established that you don't value longevity and quality of life, but it shouldn't be hard to understand why others seek that out.
60 years ago, your grandfather's generation had no problems with this at all. They didn't go to the gym.
While exercise is a factor, these people have taken the required level of exercise and kicked it up 10,000%.
> Nope. He is performing weight bearing exercise to, not only become better at performing those exercises, but also with the goal of achieving better body composition,
Better in what sense?
Again, you're being tautological.
> mental well being
Huh? The only way it increases his mental well being is that he believes that if he doesn't meet some abstract ideal he'll have failed... an ideal which he chose in the first place.
The hamster doesn't run on the wheel because it thinks that being a fatty is deplorable, but because it's become mentally ill trapped in its cage.
> You've established that you don't value longevity
My maternal grandfather weighs 300 pounds. He turns 81 this year.
How much longevity would it buy me? Any number of years (realistically more like months) that I'd get will be at the end of my life, when it matters little.
> and quality of life,
My life's quality is already pretty high. What is it that I'm missing? Being able to hike up a mountain?
My grandfathers generation got a lot of daily exercise. My grandfather was a farmer and was on his feet for 10+ hours every day.
>Huh? The only way it increases his mental well being is that he believes that if he doesn't meet some abstract ideal he'll have failed
?? Regular exercise has dramatic effects on stress levels and general cognitive ability.
> My life's quality is already pretty high. What is it that I'm missing? Being able to hike up a mountain?
You can have an amazing quality of life without ever reading a book after high school...
You can have an amazing quality of life even if you are born paralyzed from the waist down...
You can have an amazing quality of life if you are deaf or blind...
You can have an amazing quality of life despite being in massive debt...
Wild mice actually enjoy running on exercise wheels:
http://www.theguardian.com/science/grrlscientist/2014/may/21...
Also, the article calls it a craze but what, objectively, is a craze? Google tells me it's a widespread but short-lived activity; a fad. This is certainly true of specific fitness programs, but the general desire for people to not be out of shape is anything but short-lived.
Yes, you are exactly right. And the brain knows that. Yet, our evolutionary selection criteria, eh....let's just call it what it is... the desire of people to have sex with you, hasn't caught up yet. There is a reason big breasts and biceps arouse desire when they logically shouldn't.
And this primitive holdover alone is good enough reason for some people to try to gain sexually desirable (although admittedly kind of stupid from a practical perspective) traits.
I disagree. There is a tremendous selection pressure going on, constantly.
I always chuckle when I read something by some disaffected 19 yr old whining about how girls don't like him. And what does he do? He talks about going to the gym. Even if that were to work, how likely is he to stand out among all the other thousands doing the same, some of which are almost certain to be more advantaged than he (genetics, whatever) ?
He'd do better to get a good job and start looking responsible. So few do, that even if he isn't perfect at such, he'd succeed just because he's in a seller's market (in that niche, at least).
> There is a reason big breasts and biceps arouse desire when they logically shouldn't.
There is. But I contend that this is because of a psychological defect in the human species: we want what other people want. Why do we want this?
It's advantageous. Let's assume that there is a guy called "Bob". He's not very bright, and while he does have his moments where he figures out something clever, these moments happen on a year-to-year basis, rather than a second-to-second basis (or even hour-to-hour). Figuring out what to want is a difficult intellectual problem, with thousands or millions of factors to consider.
So if Bob tries to figure this out himself, he will have to expend enormous effort to do so. And even then, he might make the wrong conclusion.
He can instead just "want what everyone wants". This takes minimal effort. You observe what seems to be popular, and want that. And even though it requires very little effort, the results are very, very close to as good as those had he expended enormous effort himself.
And so, we want what others want.
In small hunter-gatherer societies, this is very optimal. It almost never backfires. But as societies get bigger, this behavior becomes odd very quickly. We get runaway feedback loops in short order.
This doesn't mean that the behavior is now disadvantageous... in many scenarios, it works as well as it ever did. So the selection pressure to tamp this behavior down is lowered or suppressed completely.
So, if even a few people want something, with the right timing and the right random events, everyone will start wanting it. The novelty can even help, at first.
And everyone else wants it because they thought others did at some point. And as soon as they decided they wanted that thing (gym muscles) they added to the perception of others that this should be desirable. And the more people buy into it, the more extreme the desire becomes... after all, the only way to stand out among all the rest is to be the most X, for whatever X is.
The hilarious part though is how sterile this behavior is. None of the people participating in it are particularly successful from a reproductive point of view. Hell, how would they go to the gym if they had a bunch of brats to take care of?
Oh, I don't disagree with you. We seem to have no shortage of psychological defects as a species. 100,000 years of evolution and we are still selecting for big breasts and dominating non-cooperative personalities. Fortunately most of our "selection" doesn't actually result in procreation anymore.
Now, about all those "increase your penis size" ads in my spam folder....
Also I develop software so getting any kind of exercise and workout is important with all the desk-job health problems, so even without a "why bench 235?" I think this kind of strength is still a great value for general quality of life. You don't need a specific reason or goal for this to be good for you.
Looking good/feeling good are nice side-effects as well, and there's no better medicine than diet and exercise (for most people) for long-term better health over a sedentary life style.
That being said this article has been written before: http://www.mensjournal.com/magazine/everything-you-know-abou...
Edit - I should also add I am not trying to get huge, just maintain general strength and flexibility - currently squat 220, bench 175, press 105, row 170, deadlift 265. Body weight 180.
>"Strength training has been shown to improve insulin-stimulated glucose uptake in both healthy elderly individuals and patients with manifest diabetes, and likewise to improve muscle strength in both elderly healthy individuals and in elderly individuals with chronic disease."
>"Low muscle mass is correlated with not only lower functional capacity, but is associated with a higher risk of falls, fractures and mortality."
>"Despite the fact that ageing is associated with a decreased muscle oxidative capacity and a reduced muscle function, a major part of this decline can be counteracted by physical activity, especially by resistance training."
Basically: muscle eats glucose. High blood glucose is bad for you. More muscle = less frail in general. It's a damn good idea for him to be doing strength training at his age.
There are very strong reasons for wanting to lose weight and get fit, based on health reasons. I see absolutely no reason for a person working at a desk job to develop massive muscles which are literally only used in the gym.
Taking the deadlift as an example, Rippetoe spends pages describing the proper form, and why you need to do them. This is not because he wants you to necessarily get 'big', but because the muscles involved are used on a daily basis.
"The deadlift is more functional in that it’s very hard to imagine a more useful application of strength than picking heavy shit up off the ground. "
http://startingstrength.wikia.com/wiki/Wit_and_Wisdom_of_Mar...
http://www.bmj.com/content/337/bmj.a439
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17398228
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10795731
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16456196
PS: Obviously the question of causality remains contested. Are healthier people just stronger or do strong people get healthier?
That seems like a pretty big confounding variable. Fit people are generally both healthier and stronger. I highly doubt strength training, in itself, is the most effective way to increase longevity.
You are surprised that people will spend 3-4 hours per week to look good, stay healthy, stress less, feel better, and increase the number of fun activities they can safely enjoy?
The average American spends 35+ hours/wk watching TV!
It's something you can't understand unless you try it.
I started 5/3/1 with absolutely no background or experience in lifting, but I've spent a lot of time focusing on making sure my form is good. That said, you "do" start pushing a lot of weight pretty quickly once you calculate your 1RM. I do admit it was a bit intense at first, but I've actually really liked the process. I really like Week 4 and how it makes you take it easy (finally get a bit of a rest!), and the slow addition of weight to your monthly iterations.
However, doing the same week every week just isn't very fun.
Most of the problem with being and staying in shape is the lack of interest in it.
The author enjoyed weightlifting because he had never done it before and he saw himself getting stronger, which is very fun the first time you do it.
The most important part of a fitness program is interest and motivation. A close second should be safety, but generally you can get into decent shape doing almost any sport or activity.
For me, this article's fitness program, Starting Strength, sounds insanely boring, but that is because I have been doing these lifts off and on since I was 15 years old. And I did them a lot in college for football, so, it no longer appeals to me.
I say, find something that is interesting to you and do that thing. It can be yoga, martial arts, soccer, basketball, walking, whatever, as long as you really enjoy it you will do it hard enough to get in shape and improve your health.
In my experience (which is not universal), the workouts aren't boring though. Running on an eliptical for an hour is boring. Getting into the gym, warming up, doing my workout, cooling down, taking a shower, changing my clothes, and walking out of the gym in 45 minutes isn't boring - it's awesome.
But, boring is very subjective and I think weightlifting is boring because I did it for so long and I have done all I can do with it.
My point isn't that this particular program is boring or not, I just think interest trumps content in regards to fitness.
So, if you like it, then do it.
You know how many reps you got with what weight the last time, you shoot for one more rep or 5 lbs. heavier, and you get it! And you know you didn't have it a week ago. You just got stronger!
So you start chasing your own progress in that "boring" lift, and it becomes far more exhilarating than any wobbleboard kettlebell juggle variation-of-the-day a personal trainer pulled out of her ass.
I have lifted for strength too much is my point.
I don't want to do it anymore. As I have gotten older, I have found that the most important part of my fitness plan is to do something that is interesting to me.
Interest in an activity is more important than the activity itself.
This goes along with the article, which debunks the new trendy fitness regimes in favor of a classic program.
I also, without fail, include 30 minutes of cardio in every session. This appears to be critical if you are like me and prone to anxiety attacks. I'm still progressively overloading, but if I can't do 3-5 sets of 20 repetitions at a given weight, I don't do it at all. And I've seen others in my gym who have unbelievable physiques doing the same. So it does work, so long as you keep increasing the weight as your body adapts.
I started with physiotherapy and once the range of motion was back I slowly moved onto weights (using Starting Strength). It went well, but I can't claim to have loved it like I do snowboarding.
A friend suggested going to a Krav Maga[1] class he attends. I haven't looked back since, and do between 2 and three sessions a week. I dropped the weights and Rip's diet advice, and went back to eating like I always do (pretty healthy, good mix of red meat and pasta and potatoes, vegetables).
I've put on weight (always been slim), strength is back to what it was, and I've not been this fit since I was conscripted in 1988.
Whilst I'm sure weights would do more for how I look (secondary for me, I've always been good with girls anyway), Krav Maga does more for how I feel. I guess there's no silver bullet that works for everybody. You try a few things on, and keep what suits.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krav_Maga, and https://www.wittenburg.co.uk/Entry.aspx?id=ce9c6cf4-6b3e-419...
I worked out with weights for years and occasionally would do some cardio. I think the logic was... cardio doesn't make you look good in a swimsuit like lifting weights does, and at the time impressing ladies and intimidating other guys was priority (lets don't lie to ourselves about motive here!).
Then, I got a little older and impressing ladies became less important and general health and a sense of well being more important. I read an article that made me realize many of the same principals of weight training can be applied to inner muscles as well. A knowledgeable person wouldn't go to the gym and lift 5 pound 300 times and expect to get stronger. Instead they would lift 80% of what they could 5 times in sets. This is what builds strength.
The same principal applies to interval training for heart and lungs. Rather than getting on a treadmill for 45 minutes at a slow slog you push yourself to a percent of max heart rate for like 3 minutes in sets (the same as weight training). The workouts don't take that long and I found they greatly improved my feeling of health and general vigor. There are a number of studies on the benefits of improved heart stroke volume etc. from interval training which I can't find at the moment.
> , and at the time impressing ladies and intimidating other guys was priority (lets don't lie to ourselves about motive here!).
Let's not project, either.
hehehe
Well, I was just speaking from what I remember as a 20 something... I doubt I'm unique in this regard but probably it doesn't apply to everyone.
In my humble opinion, it's best to just jump right in, create a routine, and start learning from experience. Refer back to videos online for proper form in trying new exercises, and from first-hand experience you will see what works and what doesn't.
Those are two, three, maybe four different things. The typical marathon runner, for instance, is fit, not fat, but also not muscular, and may or may not be healthy; a sumo wrestler is surprisingly fit and muscular, but also fat, and a body builder is muscular, but need not even be strong (world champion weight lifters look quite different from body builders)
The optimal training program depends on what you want to achieve. That's also what this NY Times reporter seems to be confused about. Training programs focussing on getting fit (especially those focusing on endurance fitness) may have a side effect of looking better in the mirror, but if that is your goal, there are better/faster ways to get there.
I would like to see an iPhone application that tracks your progress in the Starting Strength routine. The app StrongLifts would be a great starting place. StrongLifts has a fitness regime that is similar to Starting Strength, and is executed beautifully. I love the idea of combining a fitness program with a smartphone application.
I found some routines online and and created an interactive version with videos [1] so I could make it easier to get started.
If you're looking to get started at home and don't have barbells accessible, I highly recommend bodyweight fitness. It's working well for me, and it's actually quite fun. As an added benefit, you gain new skills with your body (such as handstands).
http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Cutting-Breaking-Mental-Buil...
He details the workout he used to transform his body for his role of Alcide (a werewolf) on True Blood.
There are also a few chapters dedicated to motivation and mental approach. They're well-written and he doesn't pull any punches. Highly recommended.
Diet.
Starting Strength is a great strength program, however if you are eating garbage you are still going to look like garbage. Someone doing a fad exercise routine and eating right is going to have better results than someone doing an optimal training routine with a poor diet.
However, not many sports can give you those huge muscles people get from a proper strength training with high protein diet.
Also, olympic lifting might look like brute force, but it's actually as tricky and interesting as swimming or gymnastics.
Really. Only your body and the space to use it.
No two people respond the same to the same exercise.
No two people respond the same to the same diet.
Period.
I stopped reading about here.