I kind of get it, the title is a little off-putting.
Reminds me of the smugness associated with crossfit when that was the rage.
If I was part of that thread, I’d report that post for threadshitting. Also, what’s even more interesting is that the post in question starts off with:
“Well, I have not read this huge thread. I find the question insulting.”
But they already posted this a few years ago:
“I’m sorry but the OP’s question is silly to me. Why don’t you play chess? Why don’t you play guitar? Both are very good for people that are aging. Both are exercise for the mind.”
Not just threadshitting, but they seem to have such a big problem with the topic, they forgot they already threadshat and did it again.
I think that’s called “having the threadshits”.
This is why I hate physical therapy (not the therapists, there’s mostly dedicated staff in these places)
My favorite answer when they ask “why don’t you, {whatever fancy workout term}???, Ms. Beck?” is;
“Cannot, ain’t gonna.”
I’m never compliant.
They hate me and flunk me Everytime.
I kinda know one thing if it hurts more than a little bit. I’m out.
I’ve always re-habbed from stuff on my own better than with someone trying to push me.
They’ve never asked whether or not I enjoy board games.
I mean don’t answer the fucking thread. It would be one thing if someone asked him directly but that was silly
I can’t remember whether, back more or less when that thread got started, I came into it to give a long but incomplete list of all the heavy things I do lift but which are not found in a gym.
The OP asked a question, presumably of people who don’t lift the sort of weights they mean, and shouldn’t be surprised to get answers. I agree that coming into the thread twice in that fashion, and without bothering to read it to find out whether 279 people possibly including oneself have come into the thread to give that sort of answer already, is rather obnoxious.
He somehow managed to mention that he and his wife play chess and darts. I had no idea.
To be fair, the thread title as written is a question to the board members. I see it every so often and I am occasionally tempted to go in there and say “I prefer to spend my time exercising running and walking” but thought that that wouldn’t be very helpful to the conversation.
EDIT: I see that Thorny’s said much the same thing previous to me. Oh well.
I had your same reaction to the thread when it was new. And again most times I notice it’s been re-re-re-revived yet again. IOW it’s a true believer demanding answers for why we don’t all share his Old Time Religion. How nice for him; how condescending for the rest of us.
I did resist the temptation to say anything like that in the thread though.
Our pal enipla has recently retired and moved and is understandably quite proud of himself for how nicely his life is suddenly unfolding. I get it. I too probably went through (am going through?) a phase of celebrating my good fortune here more than is seemly.
But that was an odd thread for him to choose to jump up and down in with his size 13 clodhoppers. I suspect, based on my own life history, that he’s suddenly got more time for Doping than there currently is truly fresh content. So he’s forced to dig into the back catalog as it were. We may see a bunch more “I didn’t read the thread, but …” posts in other long running threads.
Well, why don’t YOU play chess and darts? Huh?! Huh?!
Nm…lame
I am a regular in that thread, and have been responsible for bumping it a few times. I briefly thought about putting it here, because this is the place for a typically fine poster’s weird thing to go, but it was quickly pretty clear that he actually wanted to share what he does do. And yes he does strength train and exercise, in his own manner.
DrP was pretty clear from word go what that thread was for. Yes to witness for the huge health advantages of adding even a wee bit of any form of strength training in our routines, of even a modest amount of any exercise for that matter, really to honestly understand why others find it off putting (which can help learn how to better promote it), to mythbust some, to cheerlead more, and along the way to have a place to share fitness nerdom.
Or why to not promote it at all to those not interested?
Should I not promote immunizations to those not interested? Should wearing helmets while riding motorcycles not be promoted to those who say they don’t want to?
Is it maybe potentially useful to understand what gets in the way of many doing clearly healthier choices? I think so.
There is no question that exercise is of huge benefit to healthspan, with more benefit if some of it is strength focused. Promoting that, that there are many ways to do it, and that the smallest investment has huge payoffs, is a good thing.
FWIW I think that many posters here have benefited from the fitness, and in particular lifting, knowledge and encouragement that DrP has offered in that thread. I know it has encouraged me!
Naw, that thread is actually very welcoming of people who lift random heavy things that aren’t weights in the gym. It’s mostly written by and for people who enjoy standing in a gym and lifting stuff just to lift it (yeah, weird) but they encourage other people who lift heavy pets and boxes and sacks in the ordinary course of their day, too.
I was going to reply “Because they’re really fucking heavy”, but decided against it because I would’ve been the first reply and I’d feel like kind of an asshole for making a stupid joke right at the top.
Every time I used to see the topic title (before I banished it by muting the thread), I’d mutter “because I lack the requisite masochistic self-hatred”. But I’d never post an explicitly threadshitty response in the thread.
Whenever I scroll past the “Why Don’t You” thread title, lifting my middle finger in salute, I’m reminded of the great S.J. Perleman’s waspish response to Diana Vreeland’s “Why Don’t You?” column:
The piece was written a decade before I was even born, and Perelman still makes me laugh out loud.
I would probably be more receptive to such arguments if I didn’t live in a society which glorifies exercise done for the sake of exercise, while sneering at physical labor done for the sake of accomplishing something.
Maybe the OP of that thread isn’t doing the sneering. But the society as a whole sure as hell does. And the title carries to me a strong sense of ‘why doesn’t everybody do this specific thing that I like doing? You need to have an excuse in order to not be living in The Right Way!’
(responding to @bobsmom101) Flanders and Swann (musical satirists from the 50s and 60s mostly) have a wonderful song about this kind of magazine advice, called Design for Living.
Here’s a link, if I can make it work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHuc_Nutv-s