I've noticed a correlation with programmers that train. The crazier the languages they like the better grapplers they are, yet DevOps types lean toward striking. Don't think it makes any sense though.
However, deanproxy seems like the kind of guy who can tackle anything and throw in a few ounces of obsession to make it work. For the regular Joe standing desks might just be the one tiny thing they can do. They've become super popular at cubicleland here at HP and our facilities people will come and set them up for free.
Kelly Starrett has a lot of great information about mobility.
[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=-ZX...
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3404815/
Which states that sitting a lot is bad, even if you are an individual who exercises. And this does not imply that people want to replace standing with exercising, which is a false dichotomy proposed in the article.
http://www.amazon.com/Convict-Conditioning-Weakness-Using-Su...
You sit. That's it. There is almost nothing you can do about it. It's called work. Anyway, it's NOT dangerous.
Get a coffee, go to the men's room, get lunch, stand for a while, go to the silent reading room... That's automatic and stops you from being seated more than an hour at a stretch.
Add 30 minutes of walking every day (7 minutes to the office, 7 minutes home, 7 minutes to get lunch, 7 minutes to get back and then maybe to and from a meeting) and you should be OK as long as you don't stuff yourself with cheeseburgers and fries everyday.
If you on top of that add 4 hours of weight lifting (actually 1 hour lifting and 3 hours resting) you can get extremely fit; Gladiator contender or Fear factor kind of fit. Like I am.
Also, don't forget intermittent fasting everyday 16:8-style.
One statement I take issue with is this line "I put on 40 pounds of muscle one year alone...". This is essentially impossible barring a malfunctioning thyroid. I don't doubt that he put on 40 pounds of weight in a year but I can guarantee it wasn't all muscle. If you are 17-20 and finishing up puberty, using anabolic steroids, working out incredibly hard 5-6 days per week, and eating 4000+ calories per day every day _maybe_ you could put on 30 pounds of muscle in a year. If you are in your late 20s early 30s as he was, not using steroids (I assume), and working out hard your max muscle gain in a year might be around 20lbs. For a normal 30 year old working out 3x a week it's closer to 12-15lbs/year after newbie-gains have ended. I say this not to discourage but rather to give people realistic expectations, I believe the most common reason people fail at exercise is they are overly ambitious and burn out quickly when they don't look like Hulk overnight.
If someone was looking for a good starting point for fitness I recommend scooby1961 on youtube, he has been around a long time and has a ton of videos on fitness and nutrition aimed at newbies, and takes the perspective of an engineer looking at the body as a machine.
As someone who has been into this for a while my advice would be:
1. Start small and ramp up, if you do nothing currently start with walking 20 minutes per day.
2. Do not spend a bunch of money on fancy equipment, like all hobbies until you get deeper into the game you won't even know what you should get.
3. Avoid injury, esp your lower back and shoulders. The best way to do this is perfect form. Always have perfect form, cheating with bad form to get one extra rep is only cheating yourself, the goal is to work the muscle to failure, not hit some number.
4. If you want to do a home gym you can work 95% of your muscle groups with dumbbells, a barbell, and a pullup bar. The only thing you cannot work out well with these is your quads. For that you need a leg press machine or a squat cage (ie: a gym).
5. Most suppliments are unproven snake oil that waste your money at best, and at worst destroy your kidneys/liver or give you heavy metal poisoning. The only supplements I consider proven effective with minimal side-effects are caffeine (pre-workout) and creatine. I will not recommend any brands but look for ones that are quality tested by independent labs (like USP).
6. Cardio with resistance (weights) is best, but if you only have time for one make it cardio. This is more important for your long term health.
7. Sticking to a routine is not about will-power, it's about habits. The first time you work out with weights it's intimidating as hell and you feel like a bumbling idiot, you do that 2 or 3 times a week for a few weeks and it feels like a chore, you do it for a year and it happens on auto pilot, you don't even think about it.
A wonderful post, Dean. Thank you.
I'm tired of this type of condescension. I guess because the author writes to a community of programmers, or nerds, or whatever, he feels that he can address them as if they are all sloths. I have not had the impression in the overall debate about this standing/sitting business that people are saying that they are going over to a standing desk in order to not exercise. One can perfectly well imagine that the people that are going over to a standing desk because they think that it brings benefits that are a good complement to an overall healthy lifestyle, like eating and exercising properly (I notice that you say that you don't eat healthily, deanproxy... does this mean that you willingly do this because you think that an exercise routine can fully compensate for a bad diet...?). If someone vows to try to have better posture in their everyday life, does that mean that they think that it is a replacement for something like a good exercise routing for the back muscles? No. So this is standing/sitting contra exercising is a false dichotomy.
In fact, this whole standing/sitting discussion was partly propelled by studies that showed that sitting a lot was bad for ones health, also for active people [0] :
> Even when adults meet physical activity guidelines, sitting for prolonged periods can compromise metabolic health.
To turn deanproxy's baseless condescenscion towards "standers" and their supposed lazyness on its head: deanproxy is simply trying to rationalize his sedentary habits by asserting that having discrete blocks of activity time during the day counteracts his sedentary existence for the rest of the day.
To get the whole picture and in order to be in a position to assert that standing is inconsequential, deanproxy should also have experience with a lifestyle in which he exercises and stands/walks/is somewhat active in his day job. But it does not seem that he does. Perhaps not too surprising when his whole argument rests on standing CONTRA exercising in your free time. And what all of this shows is that the zealots (imaginary or not) who vow to NOT exercise BECAUSE they stand during their day jobs are leading an inferior lifestyle because deanproxy exercises and is able to do WITHOUT standing (and eating healthily... ). So deanproxy can claim victory here, the victory of being an exercise-zealot over the standing-zealots.
I don't feel I have time (which I know is wrong) and I particularly do not like gyms, but I cycle to work (2 miles) and on the way home I'll take a detour and add an extra 5-10 miles to my trip home. It clears the cobwebs. Cycling can be very meditative as well.
I am extremely lucky to be living in a place that allows me to do this on car free routes (Bath->Bristol cycle path and the Two Tunnels Circuit).
If you live within 12 miles (and potentially up to 20 miles) of where you work (about an hour of easy riding), you should consider 'building' exercise into your commute. Even if it's twice a week to begin with. Be crazy and park your car 5 miles from work and cycle in from there and build it up.
FYI before starting this I weighed about 310lb and have got myself down to 275lb within a year without focusing too much on what I eat.
HIIT is an old, popular technique; it's basically intervals of intense cardio separated by rest. For an introduction, see Couch-to-5K or the Zombies Run training app. Bodyweight exercises can be done anywhere. One reasonable introduction is You are Your Own Gym, but there are others.
If you raise your exercise intensity high enough to force your body to adapt, you can do a lot in 20 to 30 minutes several times a week without a health club membership. I'm not saying this is optimal-I'm not at all an expert—but it's certainly better than nothing, and I generally see far better gains doing this than when I do long, lower-intensity exercise.
HIIT would be more like (sprint for 30 seconds, jog for 30 seconds) * 8
Our bodies respond well to extreme variation in exertion, and HIIT strength training is another way of accomplishing that besides HIIT cardio.
Other than my 8-10 hour days at work, I have a teenage daughter, a wife and two dogs I have to attend to. I practice guitar daily, practice martial arts weekly, kayak regularly, read/study daily for my job, started learning more about F.A.C.S and Body Language and like to get in some gaming every now and then with the daughter.
I've found that I have at least 30 minutes I can spare even with that load. It's not much, but it's better than nothing sometimes. It's awesome you can find the time with your cycling! Keep it up!
I guess the rule about time management applies even when asking yourself to do something.
A few catches: it does help strengthen your core, to an extent, but you aren't working your arms and upper body much. Also, I'm in Canada, and riding during most of the winter isn't possible here on a road bike.
Gear makes a big difference.
The usual warnings apply: It is asymmetrical and, for God's sake, buy a good racket or you will get tennis elbow (good dampening of vibrations virtually eliminated tennis elbow, but only the good material does it right)
On the contrary to my previous job where the route was mostly car-free, my current cycling doesn't clear anything and adds to stress instead of relieving it. Walking is fine, but feels so... slow, and inefficient.
Keep it up!! Every incremental pound gets harder as your body gets smaller, but it's still worth it!
Still I only fill the car up with fuel once every 6 weeks now.
Alright, off to the gym.
I'm unfamiliar with the name "Two Tunnels Circuit" but I may have seen it.
Through the Two Tunnels out to Midford and back along the canal path to Bath. I work in Locksbrook, live in Bear flat so it's an awesome if slightly bumpy ride (canal path). Although I recently bought a cyclocross bike and that has made a world of difference compared to a road bike.
At the moment I'm heading out to Saltford, then back Up to Midford (and sometimes Wellow). It's a really good burn.
If I want to hurt myself I'll pop over to Radstock although that one is a little bit lumpy for my liking and some of those lanes don't give you a lot of room should you meet a car coming the other way.
You should do whatever makes you happy [within reason]. You should probably not drink 10 sodas and 5 bags of chips a day. But if you feel like having one, fuck it, life is short. If you feel like standing at your desk, go to town! Don't expect it to fix your problems. Just enjoy yourself.
If you feel like lifting weights, do that too, but if you don't feel like it, ..... you get the picture. Be active, be healthy-ish, but in terms that you can enjoy in life. Some people like dancing. Some people like running. Some people like kicking the shit out of a heavy bag. That's the only real secret to health & fitness: learning to enjoy it and be happy.
(Personally, the only thing that made me adopt an active lifestyle was group exercise. Now that i'm more used to the routines I work out by myself or do sports. But if you find yourself having trouble getting started, try signing up for a group class with people who seem nice and a good instructor)
Regular workouts don't decrease death risk if you're also a couch potato -- http://www.nbcnews.com/id/38385104/ns/health-fitness/
People who sit for most of the day are 54 percent more likely to die of heart attacks -- http://health.yahoo.net/experts/menshealth/most-dangerous-th...
Sitting shuts down the circulation of a fat-absorbing enzyme called lipase -- http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2008/0610-stand_up_for_yo...
It essentially focuses on just the squat, deadlift, press, bench press, and (later) power clean, devoting around forty pages to each, and explains why you really don't need much else. They're quite difficult to get right, but the incredibly in-depth explanations will especially appeal to programmers who like understanding how things work.
I say this just because the book completely changed the way I approach the gym, and it mirrors what the article author says about the exercises he used.
[1] http://www.amazon.com/Starting-Strength-3rd-Mark-Rippetoe/dp...
Hence doing sports after 8 hours of sitting will not necessarily counterbalance all the negative effects involved. I am not so sure working standing would be better, either. I think a good practical recommendation that is great in many aspects is to take a short break every 2 hours or so and get just 5 minutes of exercise done, just enough to get the heart beating a bit faster and the blood circulating, it can be just basic stretching or isometric contractions, whatever you are able to easily execute in your office environment. It makes the work day much more productive, too.
I'm curious if standing desks make taking breaks much more accessible. Like many others, I use a program that basically notifies me every 30 minutes to take a 2 minute break. Even then, I find myself "skipping" them often as I'm typically in the middle of intense focus and I honestly feel like it's too much effort to get up and walk around at times.
But how I work matters too. I feel better if I take breaks and move around, or if I alternate between standing and sitting. And my hip flexors are worse if I sit all the time.
Personally, I have always been active and fit, but the reality of getting older and being part of a startup have made me fine-tune my regiment. I'd never been a gym rat, but having the time in school to spend 1.5-2 hours preparing for my sports seems ever the luxury today. Since the New Year (and the purchase of a road bike), I've been following a pretty consistent routine of biking to work (ranges between 4 and 6 km depending on the route I take), lifting at the gym for 30-45 minutes, and attending yoga classes at least twice weekly (one weekday evening class and one weekend morning class typically). I also play in a men's basketball league one night a week for most of the year. This provides the core of my activity; I can usually be found hiking, surfing, playing pickup soccer or basketball, and pretty much anything else active at various points too (which the core work supports and enhances).
My gym sessions consist of 20 minutes of mobility exercises, moving all the joints in all the ranges of motion they should enjoy, followed by a focused "workout", usually 10-15 minutes long. They are almost exclusively full body movements, sometimes done with low reps and heavy weight (such as double kettlebell clean and jerks, 4 sets of 5), sometimes complexes (such as 4 sets of (3-5 pull ups then 10-15 pushups)), and sometimes Crossfit-style workouts (5 burpees, 10 kettlebell snatch (5 per arm), 15 mountain climbers, and 20 kettlebell swings (10 per arm); repeat until you can't).
For my training, I have three simple steps (stolen from Dan John): 1. Do Something 2. Adjust 3. Perfect
Anyway, that's my me-too to add to the OP.
The solution is to get up and move around often, i.e. every ~20 minutes or so.
Exercise is still good even if you stand/move around often. And standing all day also has its problems, like others have mentioned.
[1] http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21829233.200-dont-take...
(edit: wording)
source: http://m.runnersworld.com/health/sitting-is-the-new-smoking-...
Because there is only one sample. You have no way of disentangling the effect of the condition being tested, from the effect of everything else. You'd need like a hundred people for that. There are never 100 people.
For the past month, I've added shoulder stands to my workout, and also been feeling really energetic. It would appear they are amazing. That, or it's due to the weather being sunnier, and being on a nice project at work. I bet a blood test would show my cortizol levels are lower, which would give this headstand thing the appearance of science.
These N=1, test my blood, wear a skin salinity tracker for no reason experiments are playing at science, rather than achieving science. Like paintball is expensive but still doesn't kill people.
If this guy wants to write about his subjective experience of doing situps while doing sitdowns, it's not any less scientific for lack of a blood test.
"Adding to the mounting evidence, Hamilton recently discovered that a key gene (called lipid phosphate phosphatase-1 or LPP1) that helps prevent blood clotting and inflammation to keep your cardiovascular system healthy is significantly suppressed when you sit for a few hours. "The shocker was that LPP1 was not impacted by exercise if the muscles were inactive most of the day," Hamilton says. "Pretty scary to say that LPP1 is sensitive to sitting but resistant to exercise."
Sitting allows people to spend a lot of time moving very little, in addition to time spent sleeping. Standing involves a fair amount of effort.
Just because using a standing desk often is a sure way for a person to not be sedentary doesn't mean it's the best idea. In fact the most sedentary people are probably going to have a hard time adapting to using a standing desk full-time.
The scientific evidence is you can not undo the damage from sitting extended periods by exercise or anything else known.
Current scientific evidence is you can only not sit.
Like all things there is some science that says hey maybe it's not true but the trend is going towards not sitting.
Also a perk of living in a city (such as San Francisco) is I can walk EVERYWHERE, including work and I do. Like the OP, walking to and from work and hitting the gym most days has vastly improved my quality of life and it doesn't even take away from much of my evening.
If you need something to get you motivated, grab a Fitbit tracker and/or scale and track yourself. It'll only work in the beginning, but if you use that to your advantage to get out of your lazy slump, it should carry you forward.
How is it related to living in a city? At least in the Bay Area you can walk/cycle pretty much everywhere if your work is close enough to your job. And cycling in suburbs is usually safer/healthier than e.g. in San Francisco.
You're out of luck if your job is far from your home though. But one will have the same problem in city as well in that case.
This depends on location. In my area, the suburbs (designed as they were in the 1950s-1970s) tend to be very pedestrian and cyclist unfriendly places, particularly in those areas with business parks. If you want to get around without a car, then you really need to be in the city.
Your second point, however, is right on. I've always made it a point to find jobs within 10 miles of my home, so the bike commute is reasonable (having briefly done a 40 mile round trip commute, I can say that it took up too much of my time).
Or cycle. It's somewhat faster and more fun. (I like city life, too, for exactly that reason.)
Obviously if you exercise it doesn't really matter if you sit or stand at work. The question is how to handle the case when you can't/won't exercise and still need to work.
Sitting for long periods tightens the hamstrings and cuts off circulation to your legs. Even if you exercise. Standing for long periods may give you varicose veins. Not sure there's a real solution here, other than to periodically disrupt any form of immobility.
I started running casually a few years ago but began to notice a real difference when I began training for a half-marathon with a local team. The training only required a couple half-hour runs during the week and a longer run with the group on Saturday mornings. Having a goal to run a real race and support of team runs motivated me to follow through and I lost about 40lbs over the course of training. Since then I have run the full LA Marathon and in a couple of months I will be running the Chicago Marathon, and I can honestly say I'm in the best shape of my life. I never was a runner before but I can say I am one now.
It's not the running itself though, I think it's having a training goal and a team that supports you that can make it work. (btw my training group is Team World Vision, which has groups around the USA that run for causes). I would suggest the same result can come from biking, Crossfit, or other workout program where you have a clear goal and a group that supports your effort.
In the evening, the kids are at home and we cannot leave. And all the lazy office guys drift in the pool and this is annoying, if you want to swim.
I am 48 now and have zero health issues. No back problems, no blood pressure problems, not an ounce overweight. Same with my wife.
I can only whole-heartedly encourage everyone to do the same. It sets a standard for software developers and life is so much more enjoyable.
The only useful conclusion in this post has nothing to do with standing desks. It is simply that exercise will help you feel good and improve your health.
Standing isn't so much a panacea as an alternative to the aforementioned sitting.
Our forefathers didn't formally "exercise" in a gym - they moved around. As a practical matter, standing allows desk workers more movement than sitting does.
And how did I injure my back? Exercising with too much weights at the gym!
Absolutely nothing. Provided that I eat appropriately to my activity and my chairs are always somewhat uncomfortable.
But if I spend a year working from chair as deeply reclined and comfortable (and position fixing) as this one: http://www.healthyback.com/products/Humantouch/Pc095-perfect... I get back pains because small muscles around my spine get weak and can be overstretched and damaged when I lift a fridge or something or just twist rapidly in some unusual direction.
What's interesting is that now I don't have any cravings for potato chips or candy bars whatsoever. In fact, just the thought of eating something like that is mildly repulsive. I drink water all the time now because most of the juices are too sweet for me (coconut milk is ok though), and eat unprocessed foods most of the time, not for some ideological reason, but because they tend to offer a MUCH more satisfying meal. Every now and then I'll eat a pizza, but I've found I end up feeling queasy afterwards. The high salt content (at least I'm guessing it's the salt content. You can certainly taste it, there's so much of it!) in most restaurant food leaves me with hours of a constant feeling of thirstiness that won't go away no matter how much water I drink.
The thing is, it wasn't something I decided I should do because it's good for me; it's just me following my body's cravings.
Yes, life is short. Therefore you should avoid things that will make it even shorter.
I always hear stuff like "whatever man, you only live once." It seems so irrational to use that to justify bad habits. If you only live once, should you not try to increase the length and quality of that life by trying to be in the best health possible?
Trying to be in the best health possible would make me miserable. If you find it rewarding, then go do that. But please remember that others are entitled to live however they want (and preferably without someone telling them how unhealthy and short their life will be). I'll probably be dead by 70 from being too happy, which is okay with me.
The second doesn't derive from the first.
If anything, "life is short, so don't obsess about its duration" is a better guideline.
>I always hear stuff like "whatever man, you only live once." It seems so irrational to use that to justify bad habits. If you only live once, should you not try to increase the length and quality of that life by trying to be in the best health possible?
"Bad habits" are some of the most quality time people get to have.
"Hitting the gym every day might do little to decrease your risk of death if you spend the rest of your time sitting down, a new study suggests." (I've emphasised the weasel words)
In the realm of health you can find a study to say anything. I've seen ones that say standing all day is an improvement over sitting, others that say it's the same, and even some that say standing is worse. The thing to look at is summary studies that look at a wide range of well conducted studies to see what the prevailing outcome is.
For example, according to a BBC news article[1], you can make "significant and measurable changes" to your fitness by exercising 3 minutes a week. So if we're debating using news articles, we're at an impasse.
"The results show the time people spend on their derrieres is associated with an increased risk of mortality, regardless of their physical activity level." No weasel words.
Yes you can find a study to say anything, that does not mean all studies are inherently untrustworthy. There are lots of studies showing that long-term sitting is unhealthy. This idea that it is a major risk factor regardless of other additional activities is not new.
Unfortunately, as people who are tied to their computer screens for most of the day, we have very few options. One is to exercise. My story is one of being in better health than I was when I was in a job moving around all day just to give some perspective to this topic.
From the last of the three links I posted:
"They found that standing up engages muscles and promotes the distribution of lipase, which prompts the body to process fat and cholesterol, independent of the amount of time spent exercising. They also found that standing up uses blood glucose and may discourage the development of diabetes."
Notably, if you have a tendency toward tension in your hip flexor muscules, standing rather than sitting for a few hours a day will really help that. It's less of an artificially compressed position than sitting.
Treadmill desks have been growing in popularity lately for this reason.
"When combined with a lack of physical activity, the association was even stronger. Women and men who both sat more and were less physically active were 94 percent and 48 percent more likely to die during the study period"
Compared to 37% and 18% when they did workout.
I would call that a pretty significant improvement, and a stupid conclusion. Did you read the article?
As others have mentioned here, science reporting tends to be sensationalist and inaccurate - sometimes less than other times - and I find it's generally more useful to at least skim the abstract of the paper referenced.
(And if possible, look for big obvious holes in the methodology too.)
2 years ago I was pretty weak and had a lot of lower back and knee problems. I did Starting Strength for about 6 months (as a beginning linear progression program, it's not meant to be done longer than that) and then I switched to Jim Wendler's 5/3/1 program which is a more intermediate program with cyclical progression and monthly deload weeks.
In that time, I have gained over 20 pounds of muscle mass, added over 100 lbs each to my max squat and deadlift, my posture is much better, and my back and knee problems have almost completely gone away.
http://www.amazon.com/Mass-Made-Simple-ebook/dp/B006HXPR66
Both books are really good.
CrossFit 6 days a week, 2 hours a day. Come into work ready to take on the world!
bodybuilding.com about diet and how to work with macros.
I went from 45lb on the bar for all lifts to:
350 squat
475 deadlift
260 bench
290 powerclean
180 snatch
225 c&j
315 front squat
(the last 4 lifts are because I starting getting seriously into pure olympic lifting).
In under a year. I didn't use any drugs, but what I did do was post a massive wall-wide calendar on my wall, and in each day were checkboxes for: daily 5g creatine, daily sleep , daily macros (protein/fat/carb), daily fish oil.
I used a calorie counting application to make sure that without fail, every single day I got 300g protein, 400g carbs, around 150g fat (300x4 + 400x4 + 150x9 = 4100~ calories). I gained about 90lb, gained a ton of strength, then did a 2000 calorie cut still while powerlifting and then sprinting twice a day every day to cut weight fast.
Absolutely changed my life. I unlocked the greatest super power of all: controlling how I feel day in and day out. No more irritation, no more snappy emotions, no more all nighters and wasting 2 days recouping. I am able to put on weight whenever I want, and cut it whenever I want.
It's really incredible the shift you notice when you nail your diet and exercise down to a solid routine. You are much more stable throughout your daily tasks.
In the end, paying extreme attention to the trifecta and literally never once straying from it for a year (sleep/nutrition/exercise), it locked me into a proper mindset that I am able to sustain and not wane off of. Meaning I wouldn't have a new goal every single day, I wouldn't waste one day feeling extremely down in the dumps like I used to (used to be suicidal/suffer from extreme depression). No episodes, just focus.
Start getting strong, it will absolutely change your life and empower you.
It would depend on the exercise. If you by "exercise" mean superflous human movement for the purpose of wasting excess energy, I would agree it doesn't do much to counter sitting the rest of the day, it's basically just a break from sitting.
If you instead mean methodical heavy barbell training for the purpose of invoking physiological adaptations in the form of increased muscle and strength, it would probably do a great deal to offset sitting for the rest of the day, especially coupled with the increased awareness and understanding of spinal positioning that comes with lifting weights.
Most of the time when people talk of "exercise", they mean the kind that don't do much for muscle and strength development (mainly the aerobic kind or light anaerobic work), but a lot of people actually do the kind that does.
Use both, if you can.
I agree. One method to force you to walk twice an hour is drinking a lot of water. This will keep your brain fit, you will be much less tired in the evening, when you leave for home. And - yes - you have to run to the bathroom quite often. 2-3 liters of water will do the job nicely.
That is also what my physician recommends (But don't try that with sweet or sweetened drinks).
This should be done if you have a standing desk as well.
Also: Getting out the door is good: Five minutes of "green exercise" turns out to be good for your mental health[2].
[1] http://money.cnn.com/2006/03/16/news/ecanomy/annie/fortune_a...
[2] http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/pressroom/newsreleases/201...
(That being said, I wonder if the extreme types of workout many people promote is actually good, or if it does more damage than good in the long run. I guess some people believe that one extreme can out-weight another extreme.)
I also do not go several months without working out often. I did it during a shoulder surgery recovery and again earlier this year. I agree that is not a good idea, but life does get in the way sometimes and I was just pointing out that I'm no different than other people in that aspect.
I also wouldn't advocate that my way is the one true way. I will say that my results are probably pretty typical of what most people may experience when they actually decide to exercise.
I do. It is moving for the sake of moving rather than to achieve some productive effect. To me exercise is riding my to a place where I need to go rather than going by car if the distance is about right and the weather on the way out not too brutal. Walking, playing with the kids and so on. Lifting weights would indicate that I have calories to burn that go towards nothing else that helps. Usually at the end of the day I'm tired enough that I long for a bed rather than for more movement, especially not movement involving weights bought for the specific purpose of making that movement harder.
If I really did have energy to burn after a full day I'd probably take up some sport or spend that time and energy improving the place that I live in.
Also, since I'm a lab scientist almost my entire time working is standing up.
There.
However, I will mention, I'm not blessed with great genetics by any means. I would say I am an average/below average individual when it comes to "good genetics". My entire family is riddled with health issues. My father died at the early age of 56 due to heart disease, his brother at 60. His father at 52. When I found I had cholesterol issues, this is what made me start my exercise routine, so I didn't end up like them. So far, it has helped me tremendously.
I have started people off on a single round of Tabata which is only 4 minutes (minus the warmup/cool down periods) and it leaves them laying flat on the floor if they push themselves to their limits.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Fixx
Quote: " "Jim" Fixx (April 23, 1932 – July 20, 1984) was the author of the 1977 best-selling book, The Complete Book of Running. He is credited with helping start America's fitness revolution, popularizing the sport of running and demonstrating the health benefits of regular jogging. Fixx died in 1984 at the age of 52."
Heart attack.
Even basic things like push ups become challenging again on the rings. And you'll be so proud when you work up to your first muscle up.
Or, it's like the idea doesn't have the magic of an idea that you can't do right now but won't require any effort when the time is right- like "I could get up every few minutes and stretch and walk around already! That can't be it... I need to buy a standing desk and that'll make me stand all day so I'm healthy."
Like a device giving you electric shocks every 10 minutes to make you remember to change your posture.
And maybe I am a pessimist as well, but I see your statement as simply a realistic one. :)
Plenty of very experienced and intelligent PTs have repeated the statement I simply regurgitated as well.
But yeah, since I kicked wheat and starch (kicking sugar alone did not help), I've lost two inches off my waist, with no exercise. I just wish I would have taken some more scientific before numbers.
edit: google william banting if you haven't heard of him before, for some low carb inspiration.
Nevertheless, I will still hold my position that I was once "Fat", with high cholesterol and could barely hold my own body up. With what I have stated in my post, I am now healthy and can do things that most 20 year olds can not do. So, I guess it works for me pretty well.
When I was working for a startup I could show up sweaty and grimy (or looking like a Mad Max extra in the winter).
Now I'm in a management position in a larger company, so while I still cycle to work as much as I can, I usually have to bring a change of clothes with me (dress shoes, shirt, etc) so weather (heavy rain or just generally cold/snowy) affects my choice much more now..
I wish I lived somewhere that was a steady 23 degrees year-round. ;-)
But it can be downright unpleasant. Dressing right is the hardest part. If you don't do it right, your core will overheat at the same time you get frostbite on your hands. I had to wear ridiculous getups sometimes like touque, tube, heavy gloves, winter boots... and a t-shirt.
Don't need more distractions at the office, damn'it!
I took up resistance training a few months ago and it required I increase my daily calorie consumption by about 500kcal. I only realized how little I was eating after using an phone app to meticulously record everything I put in my mouth on a daily basis for a few weeks.
Since I started it really forced me to learn a lot about human physiology (because you can injure yourself if you do it with bad form), nutrition (because I want lean mass gain and optimal recovery), I sleep more (recovery) and stopped smoking. There's an amazing euphoric feeling after a heavy weightlifting session when you've got a good pump going. It can be quite a "technical" sport once you start factoring in all these things. The actual process of lifting a heavy object is the easy/least time consuming part.
Just yesterday I completely changed my sitting posture after I was having trouble with my infraspinatus muscle (bad posture at the desk). Now I'm finally sitting up straight at work because it negatively affects my weight lifting if I don't. Man there are so many benefits...
I don't mean to put words in your mouth, but this smacks of the whole calories-in-calories-out theory of weight gain that always comes up in diet threads in HN.
The reason I mention that is because I think programmers have a tendency to view things abstractly and quickly generalize. Sometimes this comes from an obsessive quality that makes us want to avoid spending any time thinking about anything that is not interesting work (witness the Soylent guy). However when it comes to the human body and our health reducing things to a simple equation comes at our own risk. Animal bodies evolved to survive and thrive under varied physical conditions and stresses.
If you don't like weightlifting then by all means do something else. But for all the people I hear complaining about RSI, and knowing what a combination of aggressive mountain biking and moderate weightlifting did for my RSI issues, I think it definitely comes with some very tangible benefits for programmers.
Resistance training does go to something. It goes to conditioning your muscles and building bone density which are both incredibly important the older you get.
I also agree one should do other things, which is why I mountain bike, do martial arts and kayak.
"Resistance training" gives you muscle mass so you can live longer. It gives you strength so you can do more in your daily life--lift a heavy object and without injuring yourself, for example. Having good leg strength can help prevent knee injury when you're out hiking with your kids.
Are you chopping and stacking wood at home? Lifting anything heavy (as trite as that sounds) at work? Or anything physically challenging that requires strength throughout the week? Chances are, like many of us geeks, the answer is no or very little. Lifting weights is a way to fix that. If you were working a physically demanding job, you wouldn't need to lift weights.
And anyway, don't interpret lifting weights too literally! Don't buy weights, use your body: pushups, pullups, etc. You can do pullups off the edge of a desk. Dips off the edge of a chair. Lunges and squats and "jumpy" versions thereof will give you plenty of leg and hip strength without any weights.
Doesn't increasing your muscle mass increase your metabolism? That is, your body's base calorie burn rate increases when you have more muscle to maintain.
Few things leaves you feeling more physically exhausted than being in bad shape.
Note: SPRINTING, not steady state cardio. As intense as you can for 30 seconds, then walk. That's all.
When they turn right, they often can't see what is next to them, and they are deceptive because they appear to be going straight but then suddenly veer right, and can easily knock an unsuspecting cyclist down under their back wheels.
If you are a cyclist you should _never_ be next to a truck while crossing an intersection. Even if they are slow off the line, always follow behind, it's just not worth it to try to pass them..
The golden rule (unless you're in highschool and rancid with hormones).
It really does take dedication. I had every day, every meal planned, at what time, at what time i wake and sleep, etc.
Allocate X amount of meals you are comfortable with eating per day (I like to eat four). Buy 7 x 4 containers. I like to eat two snacks a day too at work. 2 small containers x 7. So I got containers, 28 large, 14 small (for yogurt + fruit).
Protein - lean meat (beef, chicken, turkey, salmon, various fishes)
Fat - honestly just straight olive oil poured into my meal, makes it all nice and wet and makes it go down easy.
Carbs - anything carby, though I abided strictly by sweet potato for carbs. I want more carbs? Weigh out more sweet potato mashed, so easy for carbs. That and bananas are my two go to source.
4 meals a day, 4000 calories. 1000 calories/meal. 1 meal consists of 3 macros. Fat has 9cal/g, carb has 4cal/g, protein has 4cal/g. 75g pro, 100g carb, 30g fat. That's per container. Now I have 4 of those for every day + 2 snacks of whatever I want (this was my "cheat" meal, so fruits or some sort of yogurt, or some celery to be dipped in nutella, etc, something to keep me sane).
That's all there is to it. Then gym 3x a day, and monitoring my sleep with Sleepcycle every night and sleepyti.me.
Exercise hacking! I might do another full year of strict dieting and lifting while documenting it all.
> Then gym 3x a day,
Did you mean 3x a week? Also, did you do much experimentation with your macro levels? And how would you adjust things given feedback from your sleep tracking?
Thanks again for this anecdote, it's really inspiring.
I started at 2000 calories for two weeks. Noticed weight loss, kept adjusting 300 per two weeks to see fluctuations. 2300 still losing, 2700 still losing, 3000 I gained a bit, 4000 I gain a lot of fat. When working out intensely, biking, and sprinting, I only gain a bit on 4000.
During this time I ate zero sodium outright, only whatever the food contained. No condiments, just fresh cooked without spices or anything to get true calories and weight down.
Does that hold for strength, or mostly for building muscle? Does training the central nervous system really rely that much on nutrition as opposed to exercising/lifting?
"While on maneuvers, Schwarzenegger and his fellow soldiers would use the hot spots (areas of metal over the tank’s engine) as a makeshift cooking stove, grilling up steaks and frying eggs. The eventual Mr. Universe continued his bodybuilding training even while off base, having stowed his workout equipment (plate weights, barbells, and a collapsible bench) in the tank’s tool storage areas."
In his book he talks about getting up an hour earlier than everyone else so he could get a training session in during his military service. Talk about "making time" for something.
Their complaint was that his genetics are exceptionally rare. That very few people, like 1 out of 10,000, could ever hope to come anywhere close to achieving the same physique. That by becoming a sort of fitness idol he set up everybody else up for disappointment and often giving up because it is literally impossible for the rest of us to do what he did.
As an aside, if you ever watch his first movie, a documentary of sorts called Pumping Iron, he says that smoking pot was a part of his regimen. He even lights up on camera.
If you want an achievable natty physique look up "Zyzz" on youtube. Dude teched as a shortcut, but his physique is easily attainable in 3-5 years, if you do it right. Like Arnie, he has inspired many people. And then to say that the people that are too weak-willed to follow through on workouts deserve to blame these men? That's just silly.
Not if "physique" means not being obese. If "physique" means "photogenic," then yes -- they're pretty much unrelated.
> Bodybuilding may be a way to get fit, but working out in general does not require it at all.
Very true, and if people thought they had to build up muscle and look like Arnold, it would set the fitness movement back.
Where do you get your information? They couldn't be more related. I GUARANTEE you that any physique model you see on stage or in a magazine is far more "fit" than someone who sits around all day. No, having a great physique doesn't mean that you could run a 4 minute mile, but saying that they aren't related is just ignorant.
>Very true, and if people thought they had to build up muscle and look like Arnold, it would set the fitness movement back.
So, people trying to get in shape and look good at the same time is bad for the fitness/health movement? Are you trolling?
> Where do you get your information?
You misunderstood me. I didn't mean that physical fitness can't lead to a photogenic appearance, only that they're not strongly correlated to a dispassionate third party, over all cases in the population. For example, there are any number of very highly paid, photogenic models who are not only unfit, but who suffer from anorexia and other ailments, and there are any number of people who benefit from a modest fitness regimen but who do not look any better because of it.
> So, people trying to get in shape and look good at the same time is bad for the fitness/health movement?
Ah, I just got it. You misunderstood me on purpose.
> Are you trolling?
I just demonstrated who's trolling. Being physically fit, and being photogenic, are unrelated, i.e. not correlated. That doesn't mean that one won't lead to the other, only that the absence of a photogenic appearance doesn't demonstrate a lack of fitness.
I can see you're not a deep thinker, so let me explain this more precisely. Let's call engaging in a fitness program X, and a photogenic appearance Y. The fact that X can lead to Y (and it certainly can) doesn't assure that outcome in all cases or even a majority, because the absence of Y by no means implies an absence of X.
But the impressive part of Arnie's physique from a modern standpoint is the symmetry and attention to detail, not really size. We have steroid-driven monsters like Ronnie Coleman that makes Arnie seem like a starving child these days...
I think the bigger problem with bodybuilders as an ideal is that most people don't understand that Arnie didn't look like what he looks like in most of his published photos for more than a few minutes on stage every year. E.g. at his peak shape, yet cut as much as possible, dehydrated, pumped, oiled, artificially tanned, and flexing to the max.
That's not what Arnie level bodybuilders look like if you meet the on the street, or in the gym...
I like to point people to Conan, as in the actual movie rather than the posters. That was Arnie in the kind of shape that let him win Mr Olympia in 1980, yet if you look at the movie rather than the posters and pictures most people are used to seeing of Arnie, his seems big but his shape doesn't seem all that unachievable - that's the difference that competition prep makes...
People also misjudge size of bodybuilders in pictures massively, I think, and seem to believe they're huge giants mountains of muscle. Consider that Arnie at his peak was roughly 105kg, at 6', and with a 34" waist. There's tons of untrained guys larger than that - bodybuilders like Arnie just looks massive because of their shape and low body fat.
Of course most people still won't achieve Arnie's physique, especially not without steroids, but you can get "close enough" to his day to day appearance much easier than most people think.
In general though, you're right. Nobody to this day has looked as good as he did.
In fact that's one thing I find quite annoying about fitness these days, everyone tries to play down exactly how much work is involved in getting fit, especially if you start from a really bad position (massively over/under weight).
It's hard hard work and saying it's not devalues everyone who has made it.
“Everybody wants to be a bodybuilder, but don’t nobody wanna lift no heavy ass weight.” – Ronnie Coleman
He seems very despondent about modern bodybuilding and the obsession of getting as BIG as possible without regard to the aesthetics (HGH/roid gut). He said they should make the vacuum pose a mandatory pose in all pro bodybuilding competitions to weed out this kind of crap.