This article bounces back and forth between the idea that exercise is good and exercise is not good, and it's quite frustrating. Exercise is good. Too much exercise is better than no exercise, but...
Exemplary
exercise alone won't save us
sustained, low-level activity is the key
This article bounces back and forth between the idea that exercise is good and exercise is not good, and it's quite frustrating.
Exercise is good. Too much exercise is better than no exercise, but worse than "the right amount of exercise". Genetics play a huge role in longevity of life.
This article falls into the same trap I see in a lot of weightlifting circles - spending far too long analyzing the data to figure out what the "perfect" amount is. How long should I exercise, which exercises should I do, how many rest days should I get, what's the correct amount of sleep, what nutrients do I need to get, how do I split up muscle groups effectively, how do I avoid overtraining, etc. etc.
I've found that people like this tend to spend far too much time and energy on the planning phase and far to little time and energy on the execution phase. At the end of the day, unless you're a fringe case (olympic athlete, for example) more will be better, so just go out there and spend more time doing and less time planning.
It's much easier to sit at a desk or on a couch and think about exercising than it is to actually get up and go exercise. It's the same reason diets are always so popular. It's easy to read up on...
just go out there and spend more time doing and less time planning.
It's much easier to sit at a desk or on a couch and think about exercising than it is to actually get up and go exercise. It's the same reason diets are always so popular. It's easy to read up on how to eat better than to actually have the self discipline to cut the crap foods and eat healthy. We look for justifications/rationalizations for our laziness.
I'm not quite sure this is analogous. The weightlifters I referred to are in many cases quite active individuals who are getting in plenty of time at the gym. They are at a point where they can be...
I'm not quite sure this is analogous. The weightlifters I referred to are in many cases quite active individuals who are getting in plenty of time at the gym. They are at a point where they can be considered amateurs, in some cases verging on being pros, but they believe that by "working smarter, not harder" they can eke out the extra gains they are looking for. The reality is that there comes a point where you're already working smart enough that while you may be able to optimize further, you're chasing optimization within what matters for maybe 5% of the picture.
When they started lifting, their form was poor, they didn't know how to program, they didn't understand nutrition, etc. At the beginning dialing in these factors gave them phenomenally quick progress and success because there was so much for them to optimize. Because of this they think back and realize how such small changes brought about such progress and believe they can continue to gain similar success by doing the same.
The reality is that you need to continually re-evaluate all factors. You must ask yourself, what is the gap between my performance, and the performance of someone at the level I wish to be. Sure, an elite athlete might be micromanaging the timing of their nutrients whereas you are only managing macros and dismissing the timing, but an elite athlete is also probably spending 20-40 hours a week in the gym whereas you may be only spending 4-8.
I see the same kind of thinking going on in the author of this article. They lead you through the research on exercise, and paint a picture that follows the same investigative lead I expect most people who study health and fitness have gone through - you start by looking at papers on total time exercising versus health. Papers that look at athletes and how long they live compared to your average individual. How obesity and other factors contribute. Then they learned of papers that extolled the virtues of standing desks, counting your steps, and other more "passive" exercises. They lead you through the history of more active societies that lived before today's comforts and examine subsections of cultures living today that live for extended periods of time. Through this navigation their perception exercise and being sedentary is changed because they learn of "alternatives" to exercise and strategies to keep active but don't seem particularly active (such as walking); they learn of how being sedentary is associated with negative outcomes, sometimes even in the face of added exercise.
What the author is missing, however, is a larger picture of what everything here is bringing to the table. Sure - when comparing people who log a lot of steps to those who don't, the ones who do seem healthier. People who live in areas where they must walk regularly seem to live longer too. And yes, athletes seem to live slightly longer lives. They try and compare these studies on a level ignoring the statistics and population math going on - guess what, some of these people who log a lot of steps do so because they sit around all day; it's quite possible for one factor to offset the other - sitting isn't the devil, an overall lack of movement is! The fringe cases and the historical relevance are conjecture and the reality is we simply don't know enough to say that x minutes of walking offsets y minutes of sitting (or that it can't, for that matter) so don't focus on it and focus on what we know. In every piece of data examined there's a clear trend - more exercise is better than no exercise. For the majority of us, that's enough, so let's promote it and lets promote its diversity because quite frankly its already hard enough for people to find something physical that they enjoy.
This article bounces back and forth between the idea that exercise is good and exercise is not good, and it's quite frustrating.
Exercise is good. Too much exercise is better than no exercise, but worse than "the right amount of exercise". Genetics play a huge role in longevity of life.
This article falls into the same trap I see in a lot of weightlifting circles - spending far too long analyzing the data to figure out what the "perfect" amount is. How long should I exercise, which exercises should I do, how many rest days should I get, what's the correct amount of sleep, what nutrients do I need to get, how do I split up muscle groups effectively, how do I avoid overtraining, etc. etc.
I've found that people like this tend to spend far too much time and energy on the planning phase and far to little time and energy on the execution phase. At the end of the day, unless you're a fringe case (olympic athlete, for example) more will be better, so just go out there and spend more time doing and less time planning.
It's much easier to sit at a desk or on a couch and think about exercising than it is to actually get up and go exercise. It's the same reason diets are always so popular. It's easy to read up on how to eat better than to actually have the self discipline to cut the crap foods and eat healthy. We look for justifications/rationalizations for our laziness.
I'm not quite sure this is analogous. The weightlifters I referred to are in many cases quite active individuals who are getting in plenty of time at the gym. They are at a point where they can be considered amateurs, in some cases verging on being pros, but they believe that by "working smarter, not harder" they can eke out the extra gains they are looking for. The reality is that there comes a point where you're already working smart enough that while you may be able to optimize further, you're chasing optimization within what matters for maybe 5% of the picture.
When they started lifting, their form was poor, they didn't know how to program, they didn't understand nutrition, etc. At the beginning dialing in these factors gave them phenomenally quick progress and success because there was so much for them to optimize. Because of this they think back and realize how such small changes brought about such progress and believe they can continue to gain similar success by doing the same.
The reality is that you need to continually re-evaluate all factors. You must ask yourself, what is the gap between my performance, and the performance of someone at the level I wish to be. Sure, an elite athlete might be micromanaging the timing of their nutrients whereas you are only managing macros and dismissing the timing, but an elite athlete is also probably spending 20-40 hours a week in the gym whereas you may be only spending 4-8.
I see the same kind of thinking going on in the author of this article. They lead you through the research on exercise, and paint a picture that follows the same investigative lead I expect most people who study health and fitness have gone through - you start by looking at papers on total time exercising versus health. Papers that look at athletes and how long they live compared to your average individual. How obesity and other factors contribute. Then they learned of papers that extolled the virtues of standing desks, counting your steps, and other more "passive" exercises. They lead you through the history of more active societies that lived before today's comforts and examine subsections of cultures living today that live for extended periods of time. Through this navigation their perception exercise and being sedentary is changed because they learn of "alternatives" to exercise and strategies to keep active but don't seem particularly active (such as walking); they learn of how being sedentary is associated with negative outcomes, sometimes even in the face of added exercise.
What the author is missing, however, is a larger picture of what everything here is bringing to the table. Sure - when comparing people who log a lot of steps to those who don't, the ones who do seem healthier. People who live in areas where they must walk regularly seem to live longer too. And yes, athletes seem to live slightly longer lives. They try and compare these studies on a level ignoring the statistics and population math going on - guess what, some of these people who log a lot of steps do so because they sit around all day; it's quite possible for one factor to offset the other - sitting isn't the devil, an overall lack of movement is! The fringe cases and the historical relevance are conjecture and the reality is we simply don't know enough to say that x minutes of walking offsets y minutes of sitting (or that it can't, for that matter) so don't focus on it and focus on what we know. In every piece of data examined there's a clear trend - more exercise is better than no exercise. For the majority of us, that's enough, so let's promote it and lets promote its diversity because quite frankly its already hard enough for people to find something physical that they enjoy.