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- Hacker News
- I looked into the return on investment of exercise in terms of hours spent exercising and expected hours of waking life you gain. In short, it's a good investment, especially if you do vigorous exercise (both cardio and resistance training). It's an even better time investment if you can do it at home and cut out the commute time to the gym. You don't actually need more than maybe a couple hundred dollars worth of equipment.
- Lift weights. Do it multiple times a day and chase that pump. Do it for stress relief. Do it to help you fall asleep. Do it to wake up.
It's not all about cardio. Your muscles are such a significant part of your metabolism and far too many people avoid strength training. A ton of problems that arise while aging are ultimately hormonal. Even your skin improves. Cardiovascular health begins here. People are literally running before they can walk.
That's the realistic answer for most people under 65 trying to make it to at least 80 with a decent quality of life.
by sublinear - Lift weights, but like 30-60 minutes 3x a week is plenty. You definitely don't have to do it multiple times a day if that would be inconvenient.by loeg
- > far too many people avoid strength training.
Yes, because it hurts.
Lifting weights is sore and exhausting. You're never going to persuade rhe plurality of people to improve their physical condition by enduring pain, it needs to be engaging and appealing.
by dingaling - Folks should be getting out for a brisk >20 minute/1mile/2km early/late walk everyday when its cool outside, and if you have a dog it is 2 to 3 times a day with shorter <10min sessions if you value the carpets.
Many that complain about neck or back problems are almost always suffering from stress/burnout, RSI, and or a sedentary lifestyle. Take it slow at first to avoid injuring yourself, and head home if you feel out of breath each journey. And remember to stay hydrated with normal clean water.
Getting outside regularly will help most folks live better longer lives. Have a wonderful day. =3
by Joel_Mckay - Find something you enjoy doing, then "hack" it to make you participate more.
For example, I play a lot of ultimate in the summer. I play with a lunchtime pickup group, so there is a forcing function to play. I like to bike, and helping coach my daughter's high school mountain bike team ensures I get a lot more miles than I would otherwise. In the winter, I have friends that I ski with. I also enjoy exercising on my own, but some activities are better as a group.
When I worked in an office, I played a lot of ultimate (lunchtime pickup), but also would do walks with colleagues. Great way to combine debugging, learning, and exercise.
- I love to run, and even in winter, in the dark, in the rain, I will get home from work at 6pm, eat a small dinner, and head out for a 40-60 minute jog or interval session a few days a week. I do a aerial circus class once a week, too.
I am single and have no children or care giving obligations yet. I bet that when I (hopefully) have small children one day, it will be much harder for me to fit in 3-4 hours a week of running, especially when sleeping enough to feel rested. It would be nice to know what I can do to keep up my health during that phase of life.
by annzabelle - Buy a jogging stroller. You'll have to accept some loss of sleep though, that's just the way it goes.by nradov
- One thing people out here periodically is how causation is hard to find. Someone who is dying may be not inclined to do anything 'cause they feel lousy all the time.by joe_the_user
- I’ll tell you an easy way to get away with absolutely no exercise: design your life in such a way that moving around is a normal part of it.
Live in a "fifteen minute city." Work someplace that’s either a thirty minute walk or thirty minute bike ride from home. Carry your groceries.
If you get your minimal daily requirement of exercise by just living your normal life, any additional exercise you do is bonus, icing on your cake.
by Eric_WVGG - That's a reasonable start for some people but it lacks the resistance training necessary to prevent sarcopenia later in life. Some people get that as part of their job but most of us need to do at least some weight training. Carrying groceries isn't nearly enough.by nradov
- It may sound crazy, but a properly installed pull up bar on your room doorway is a fun way to apply Pavel Tsatsouline ‘grease the groove’ principle. And it’s both easy and fun. You can do pull ups, and train your abdomen several times a day without getting psychological resistance (from google overview: "Grease the Groove" (GtG) is a strength training method popularized by fitness expert Pavel Tsatsouline. It involves performing a specific exercise frequently throughout the day using only 40–60% of your maximum reps. By avoiding muscle failure and staying fresh, your nervous system efficiently adapts to the movement.")by algoth1
- Less than 5% of the population can do a pull-up. I can after having climbed for a bit and worked towards doing it, but you might be surprised to learn how few this would actually benefit.by elictronic
- Way back, working for the 2010 Census, I had an ex-Navy coworker who did something like that: whenever he was bored in the office, he would do a couple of push-ups before looking for new work to do.by crooked-v
- I'm moving to a new place and my office will have an exposed I-beam and I'm stoked. The healthiest points of my life seem to correlate with industrial architecture that I can hang on directly or with rings!
- A few friends and I did this during Covid. We'd do 10 pushups at the top of the hour all day long. Each effort was pretty easy, but overall we'd end up doing 100ish pushups a day. After a while we'd increase the number per set a bit.
It was a fun way to bond and share in exercise therapy.
by hightrix - My dentist told me I don't have to floss all of my teeth, just the ones I want to keep. You don't have to exercise all of your muscles either.by delichon
- Median age of 61… 4.4 minutes of “vigorous” activity. Hard to interpret this as anything else that if you remain being able to be somehow active in your later years you will be better off.
I find all of the studies of “how little exercise” is needed sad. Instead we should be focusing on how to restructure modern lifestyle to allow everybody to achieve the minimum of cardiovascular and strength exercises.
by yoz-y - Completely restructuring society seems so simple to some people.by BurningFrog
- It's not hard to restructure it at all.
1. Ban overworking. Make it a federal offense. Actually jail CEOs if their employees work >50 hours a week
2. These exercise tracking apps should pay people for the exercise they do. The money will come from health insurance. They pay $1 per mile you run or hike, they save $10 on your future hospitalization.
3. City sponsored exercise events and sports competitions open to everyone, not just athletes. Give tax deductions to those who participate and demonstrate attendance.
The solution is right here, above. Whether the politicians choose to listen, is not something I can influence. But I have given the solution.
by dheera - > allow everybody to achieve the minimum of cardiovascular and strength exercises
Aren't you just asking the same question?
I certainly prefer sitting then doing exercise, I just also don't like the consequences of doing none.
by XorNot - Restructuring the modern lifestyle, allowing people more free time to focus on their health, is unprofitable.
Whereas minimizing the amount of free time people spend on their health, allowing people more time to labor or consume, is profitable.
by RIMR - Agreed. I've figured it out during the drier months in the NW of the States. Plenty of work in the woods, workshop, maintenance, and helping neighbors with the same. But winter and the rains I would inevitably put on 10 pounds and lose my super old guy muscles. My mildly successful campaign against the trend is long rain walks and Convict Conditioning workouts.by ynac
- I'm confused. You're saddened by people researching the minimum exercise needed, but want society to aim to give people that minimum? How would society know what the minimum is?by RugnirViking
- How about you instead of trying to “get away with” as little exercise as possible you found a way to move your body that you genuinely enjoy? One should not optimise away sleep, nutrition and exercise. Yes we live in a ridiculous fitness and gym boom, but weight training might not actually be a good fit to most people. I love having to psych myself to lift big amounts of steel, I’m ok with bit of pain etc. - mostly people are not. There’s thousands of sports and ways to move out there. You don’t like running, well don’t. Go dancing, hiking, play a team sport, do tai-chi, yoga, goddammit change a hobby every two months, it doesn’t matter. Just do it and do it consistently every week.
And what best helps you in that is enjoying what you do, as well as doing it with a friend.
- Some people have disabilities or physical limitations.by JohnMakin
- > you found a way to move your body that you genuinely enjoy?
All physical exertion causes pain and discomfort, otherwise it isn't exertion. That's not ever going to be enjoyable. Tolerable, perhaps, given focus on the goal, but few people would be willing to tolerate it.
Maybe it's a surprise to you but most people's reaction to doing exercise is "when will this end?" rather than "yayy pain and breathlessness!"
by dingaling - I have a deep, visceral revulsion to physical effort in all its forms, with three exceptions: riding a bicycle, swimming and climbing things.
Small doses of psychedelics invert this, and I find myself running and doing push-ups and enjoying it. I have no idea how that works.
by andai - This might be good advice for people who haven't already had the rest of the living optimized out of their lives. But not everyone is so lucky...
Also, the article kind of agrees with what you're saying, even if you don't realize it. Any exercise, even if it's not organized like a weight lifting regimen might be, might be enough to keep you healthy. I think leaning into that could make exercise more genuinely enjoyable for many more people, instead of just an exercise in optimization.
by striking