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Comment by paganel | Hacker News Reader

> The many studies done on this subject show that testosterone makes a huge impact on muscle growth

Genuine question: Why this emphasis on increasing "muscle growth"? What benefits does it bring us (men)?

I do power lifting (non-competitive), and while I'm noticeably muscular and lift more than most people at my gym (no competitive lifters there, so doesn't say all that much), I'm not nearly at peak muscle volume nor do I look nearly as big as body builders much smaller than me - leanness makes a huge difference to perceived muscle size. Still, from an hour 2-4 times a week (2 times a week at the moment), with no steroids, these are some of the benefits I've noticed that makes the time investment well worth it for me:

- More attention from people I'd want to find me attractive (and from some I don't...). E.g. after I started lifting weights I got my first "wow" responses when people saw pictures of me. I also saw a massive difference in how people responded when I went out to bars/nightclubs, ranging from comments to people suddenly opting to slider their hand on my stomach or chest when they wanted to get past me instead of tapping me on the shoulder, as well as getting my butt pinched. For the first time I had a woman pick me up from a club.

- Being able to do a lot of movements that I'd struggle with before without thinking about it, and lifting heavy stuff, whether it is sliding that 40kg sever into rails above head height without having to get someone to help me keep it stable, or casually lifting my son up or playing with him in ways that I couldn't have if I didn't have the strength I do (he's nearly 6 - he likes to climb onto my back when I'm sitting on the sofa and stand on my shoulders and jump down; people think both of us are crazy and that he'll hurt me, but it feels nice).

- Far fewer situations makes me feel tired or makes my muscles feel fatigured. E.g. I sprint up stairs where I used to walk up slowly (in fact, when I first started exercising, my knees were so weak that it had started to become painful for me to walk up a single flight of stairs, at age 25, because I was sitting all day and used elevators both at work and at home).

- Feeling safe in a lot of situations I'd have been scared in before. Just a few weeks ago someone was assaulted near our house, and I felt safe enough to run out and confront the guy while we waited for police (I'm in the UK, guns are not a concern; I was aware of the risk of knives, though, and made sure to keep my distance until I felt sure)

I don't know about your first point, but definitely all the rest apply to me. I don't look like a body builder, but I definitely feel and look more solid at 43.

Basically for the cost of a few hours a week you can +1 or +2 you strength and consitution scores.

I also notice calming and de-stressing effects from working out as well. I work long hours normally but I would still much rather go to the gym and workout then go home and lie on the couch, as I'd go insane at the lab if I didn't.

Yeah, definitely, but there are drawbacks too. if you already have a woman by your side that you want to spend rest of your life with (and judging by your comment about son, you should be there) - extra ladies attention is annoying as hell. If you are actually mentally a grown up, this ain't an impressive result as it might seem :) (Yes, been/am there, but to impress ladies you don't need to be creepy muscular type. Just a sporty one. Especially if you care about quality of your partner, not just quantity).

as for strength - I find it much better to have real world-usable one, combined with endurance. Examples you describe are OK, but better use cases for me are - being able to climb that mountain (or just hike it), full day of of-piste skiing (its damn hard on quads) etc. In many sports, too much muscles has negative impact. For high altitude, common knowledge is that gym type muscular types struggle more up there. For climbing same. But that's me. It also brings freedom in eating - keeping huge amount of muscles while doing some 3-week effort on Aconcagua... not really possible.

I do agree that the extra attention can be unwanted and negative sometimes. For example, I've worked out the whole time I've dated my girlfriend of around ~5 years. However, at the start we were in high school and I was super lean due to MMA and rugby. Now, that I'm older and lifting has finely started to obtain noticeable results/ having lost a bit of baby-face my girlfriend started to become a bit jealous/insecure with herself. No matter what I said, she wouldn't believe that I found her more attractive then everyone else. She understands its irrational but its hard to fight insecurities. At this point she has started going to the gym and is a much harder worker then me there.

With regards to fitness, I definitely agree that I prefer a practical definition of fitness level. I may not look gigantic compared to some of the guys in the gym, but I can both lift a lot of weight, run fast sprints and long distance runs. Its that type of fitness that is great for rugby.

>to impress ladies you don't need to be creepy muscular type. Just a sporty one.

This is setting up a false dichotomy. Women (and men) generally don't find an inflated look attractive.

The parent was talking more about strength, rather than muscle volume "I'm not nearly at peak muscle volume nor do I look nearly as big as body builders much smaller than me".

I'm 150 pounds, but I can lift 250. I look strong, sure, but I'm even stronger than I look. I do barbell training, which I'm guessing is what the original comment's author does too.

Women seem to find this lean strength primally attractive. It's true the female attention could cause a problem, but this kind of strength will also make you more attractive to your partner, which is hardly a bad thing.

Strength is versatile too. I can hike a mountain, ski, run, and do pretty much any physical activity you can name. Chronic pain disappeared too. I'm sure I'd lose a bit of strength on a three week trip, but who cares? You can always get that back.

I can't comment on high altitude performance, but it sounds like you're referring to the inflated types there too.

He has a son, probably also a wife, he probably has a steady job. And he goes to the gym 2-4 times a week, for 1 to 2 hours each time. Lifting weights is one of the best things he can do, exercise wise, to his health. A 3-week effort on Aconcagua? When do you think the parent does that, and how often? Does he take his 6 year old son with him? I don't really see any drawbacks from him being powerlifting strong.

Testosterone has a benefit in endurance sports too. It can help with the growth of both slow-twitch (lean, endurance muscles) as well as fast-twitch (bulk, power muscles).

Even if you ignore the muscle building, it can help with recovery which leads to being able to recover from harder (endurance) training sessions.

That's often the reason that endurance cyclists use it (illegally of course).

See http://www.outsideonline.com/fitness/Drug-Test.html for a amateur cyclist and journalist who took testosterone (along with HGH and EPO) to see what it would do.

Increasing muscle mass, and maintaining that muscle mass, will/may:

- decreases stress on tendons and ligaments

- protect delicate or complicated joints from injury

- help maintain healthy weight and body fat levels

- improve bone density, and help maintain bone density

- increase stamina / reduce fatigue

- support attention

- get up out of the bathtub or off the couch when you're older

- improve sleep

- improve mental health

[1]: http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-living/fitness/in-depth/st...

[2]: http://www.cdc.gov/physicalactivity/growingstronger/why/

Not to mention that a large percentage of females find muscle mass attractive when combined with a low body fat percentage in males. Indirectly this can lead to a boost in self-confidence levels in an individual, which has other positive spinoffs.

This. Times ten. I can't stress this enough to my non-lifting, skinny, geek friends who wish they were more attractive to women. I always tell them that the number one thing they can do is to begin lifting weights. They'll look healthier, more athletic, manlier, and their self-confidence will go up. Oh, actually weights are number two. Number one is to ditch the anti-girlfriend geek t-shirts with programmer's inside jokes (you know, the 'only 10 people who know binary' stuff) ;-)

Benefit to everyone, not just men, is running my back muscles occasionally at 200% percent safe capacity in general daily life, lead to punishing pain though I was still a teen at that time. Under advice and monitoring of the docs, following all the trainer recommendations, good form and trainer approved plans etc, I bulked up to the point that daily life occasionally peaked my back muscles at maybe 50% of safe capacity. You can guess the effect on my quality of life. Sometimes simply not feeling pain anymore is a gift from the gods. I suppose it was either lift, or start a life long opiate addiction.

On the other hand, I know most of the guys at the gym with me were just addictive personalities. Rather than wanting that lvl80 in WoW, or feeling the uncontrollable desire to get drunk, they wanted to bench 300. There certainly are worse grind addictions than lifting.

There are studies that show an inverse correlation between lean body mass and all cause mortality.

So the tongue-in-cheek 'strong people are harder to kill' has some actual data behind.

The problem is of course stats 101, correlation =/= causation. It could simply be that genetics or some other factor X increases lean mass and decreases all-cause mortality.

Pragmatically speaking though, quality of life in old age is a big deal that benefits from more lean mass.

[edit: http://www.reddit.com/r/AdvancedFitness/comments/1bo5xm/asso... this has a study link and comments and links to previous HN discussion]

"Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general."

Rip?

Strength is significantly correlated with life expectancy. See here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2938886/ and here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2453303/

Many women find physically strong men more attractive than weaker men. The benefit this brings men is allowing their DNA to replicate.

Well, muscle growth normally means being more strong, and being more strong is generally better than being less so.

Something others haven't mentioned is better quality of life as you age. One of the biggest causes of decrease in life quality in the elderly is reduced mobility. As you age your muscle mass decreases. By increasing your muscle mass when you're younger (and able) and maintaining physical activity you will have a much better life when you're older.

increased metabolism meaning your less likely to get fat.

Genuine answer: Feeling better about our self-image / placating the fear that we're "not manly enough".

I also find that being strong(er) is more useful in my daily life than increased aerobic capability i.e. picking my nine year old daughter up and carrying her on my shoulders, moving heavy stuff in the garden etc.

Another reason to dismantle the patriarchy and gender binary.

The self image is derived from feedback in society so for straight men, blame other women.

more eyes

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