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Comment by hellofunk | Hacker News Reader

I think sustained cardiovascular activity is the best thing. Not weight lifting, but running, swimming, or fast walking, biking, any of those things. Seriously, it works. Also, getting the blood moving in that way tends to inspire many great ideas; many influential people throughout history associated active body movement with good ideas.

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> Cardiovascular is the best thing. Not weight lifting, but running, swimming, or fast walking, biking, any of those things.

What makes you say this? I always feel fantastic and motivated after a hard session in the gym. I agree that long runs or walks yield more creative thoughts than time in the gym, but few things are as energizing and motivating as successfully grinding out heavy sets of squats or deadlifts.

Hm, the OP asked what would I do to overcome lethargy. I personally would not lift weights, preferring instead the other forms of cardio activity I mentioned... so that is why I answered the OP's question as I did.

Great, but that's not how your post reads. Your post comes off as you stating that cardio is inherently better that lifting w.r.t OP's goals. You don't say anywhere that you are presenting an opinion or what happens to work for you.

I didn't read his comment that way and I agree that prolonged cardio, sustained and focused breathing, and sweating out toxins over a longer period of time is more conducive to affecting a negative mood than aggressively knocking out high weight/low rep sets. With it comes, also, the added benefit of a repetitive "zone" where you can do some greaaaat thinking and get used to having your body functioning on a higher level. Energy begets more energy.

Thriptic, you didn't bring to the table any thought that isn't criticism... which is fine but you also don't back it up which is what you are criticising this fellow for.

FYI the above is my opinion.

Parent poster thoughtfully edited their comment in response to the comment you are critiquing, which is why that comment comes off as strange and negative; it is out of context.

Yes, I prepended the words "I think" to my comment to make it clear it was an opinion. The original question was clearly opinion-based anyway, so I took it as assumed that people would respond with what works for them personally.

> Hm, the OP asked what would I do to overcome lethargy. I personally would not lift weights, preferring instead the other forms of cardio activity I mentioned... so that is why I answered the OP's question as I did.

This comment was heavily edited relative to what I responded to

This has been empirically shown http://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/april/walking-vs-sitting-...

Weight lifting is a form of cardiovascular work.

Weight lifting is rarely a sustained form of heightened heart activity in the way the other examples are. Yes it works your heart, but there are usually many relatively motionless pauses between short sets, as opposed to the constant push on your heart that accompanies more traditional forms of cardio work. Not a knock against weight lifting, just emphasizing a different type of heart activity.

Aren't those pauses usually people standing around trying to catch their breath, with their pulses coming down from the 180 they hit while doing a set?

Isn't weight lifting more like doing a 40m sprint, then slowly walking back to do it again?

My recommendation to the OP, since it was asked, is to engage in sustained cardiovascular activity, where the heart rate is elevated at a consistent rate. I'm not saying weight lifting doesn't have its strengths (no pun intended!) but it's not the type of cardio activity that I'm suggesting, for the same reason as what you've just mentioned: the idea is not to push your heart to an extreme and let the pulse "come down"... it's to get your heart to an elevated rate and keep it there consistently for a long stretch. For that type of activity, weight lifting is not the answer. For other types of goals, it very well may be.

It really depends on the lifting. Heavy squats, deadlifts etc? Sure. The pseudo-bodybuilding a lot of people do when they hit the gym? Not really.

You've clearly never lifted weights seriously. From a medicinal point of view different types of heart activities don't even exist.

Different types of cardio workouts definitely exist, and most trainers will tell you that a well-rounded health regimen requires a mix of many different types, including weight lifting juxtaposed with more cardio-centric exercises. But this thread is not about how to give your body the best workout.

Cardiology tells you it doesn't.

Do you really want to go down that road? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

Lifting doesn't burn the muscle mass though.

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