True and even working in farms is exercising. Lot of farm workers look jacked including those farm workers in the 1950s and 1960s. Lifting weight became popular in the 1970s 1980s and 1990s with all the body builders and pro wrestlers.
The history of strength training actually goes way back.
But yes as part of popular American culture it is more recent … but more likely can trace to Charles Atlas in the ‘30s with his isometric programs. But then running as a popular culture activity is recent as well!
There is an interesting paradox btw with those who do hard physical labor daily. My understanding is that you wouldn’t look to that population for a group who are living long functional healthspans.
To me it illustrates the importance of dose and recovery. Daily large doses accumulate excessive stress both locally and systematically.
Interesting that Ancient Greek, ancient India and Māori culture practiced weightlifting.
I doubt that’s due to the exercise. There’s an enormous correlation in the US between wealth and longevity.
I’m less sure.
Didn’t directly control for SES but did for educational level.
Matching for lower education level a correlation between poorer function climbing stairs with cumulative heavy load carrying as part of work.
And another which gives a review in the intro
Maybe all explained by SES but it would surprise me if so.
In November I decided that I was going to start hitting the gym regularly. I am seeing a personal trainer 3 times a week. It is going to take a lot longer to get into shape than I imagined. Of course I am 56, so it was going to be a battle anyway.
The trainer I am working with is great. Before every session he makes sure that my hips are even and they are almost there and there is a lot less lower back strain. I feel much better than I have in a long time. I don’t want to be an old man who shuffles around and am willing to be at the gym at 8 AM twice a week to make it so.
I do wish I had started doing this 25-30 years ago.
The key, in my opinion, is to learn to enjoy the process; results will indeed come, but over the course of months and years.
(For me, that means enjoying the energy of the gym. I like seeing fit, healthy people in skimpy clothes. I like listening to the music. I enjoy chewing my gum. I like it when my muscles feel taught, and sweat is dripping down my face. I feel more alive in the gym)
Also, when you work out, it’s even more important that you eat well. Be sure you are supplementing the exercise with sufficient protein and other quality foods.
Just an opinion: trainers are often good as a “buddy” to talk to when you work out, or somebody with more knowledge who can show you proper form and how to do exercises, but I think that you can outgrow a personal trainer, since so much of a successful workout program depends on your individual experience with the exercises.
Meaning, gain as much knowledge as you can from this person, but also check out other sources of credible information, and eventually consider whether you can get just as effective (if not a more effective) workout on your own.
Personally, I’m at a point where I wouldn’t want to work out with a trainer - I do what I do because it works for me, and I’d end up spending all my time just explaining why I’m working out the way I am (I.e. exercise selection, rep and set ranges, et al)
Wow, people are different. I don’t like exercising. I hate feeling sweaty. I hire a personal trainer because otherwise i would not exercise regularly. Paying her creates a social obligation for me to show up. Yeah, she helps my form. But mostly i just wouldn’t do it without that social obligation.
For sure I can see this. I’m at the stage where I need help to ensure my form is correct. Doing weights without good form is not going to do me any favours. And like Puzzlegal, having the obligation, via paying, to show up is helping me get into the mindset of going to the gym regularly. In the past when I have half-assed exercise, there was alway an excuse to not go to the gym. I want to get to the point where I find excuses to go to the gym.
When I was 16, I worked as a pool attendant (okay, towel boy) at a hotel in South Florida. One of the guys I worked with was in his late 20s, and had been a competitive bodybuilder. He’d encourage me to go to the sparse gym downstairs at the hotel after work. I’d join him (I wanted big biceps, too, after all), but his eagerness and enthusiasm (“do more reps!”) annoyed me.
Then one day he invited me to workout with him and a friend at a “real” commercial gym.
I’ll never forget US-1 fitness. When I showed up (probably about 7 pm on a weekend), it gave off the vibe of a nightclub - bright lights, high tempo music, lots of people milling about. Except these people weren’t addled by drink or drugs; they were clear eyed, happy and upbeat. The men were muscular, and the women had tight bodies, and they were wearing skimpy clothes.
As I joined the fray by trying to keep up on a leg day, and saw my muscles shine with sweat, the more I felt absorbed into the vibe.
It’s what grips me today. Sure, I’ll work out in an empty gym, but what I really like is the atmosphere at a place where I see impressive feats, or beautiful people, or enthusiastic effort. As an introverted person, I don’t have to personally interact with these people, but I like being in that zone of positivity.
In fact, I joined that gym and worked out there on my own for a few years. There was a trainer - a big muscular guy - who would bark like a dog between sets. It wasn’t an intimidation thing; he was gregarious and would glad hand people. It was just making it fun.
Even now, sometimes, before or after a tough set, I might let out a “woo!” or a “come on, light weight baby!” (that was a catchphrase of Ronnie Coleman, a ridiculously strong Bodybuilder, but to do it right you have to say it in a high pitched voice)
I know it’s goofy: that’s the point. I’m a very shy, solitary person. This is a way to be bold that I rarely get elsewhere.
In trying to describe the feeling of a good gym, I thought of an analogy. Imagine wanting to read a book, and going to a library where lots of other people were sitting in soft chairs reading books, as opposed to doing it alone at home. Some of them are laughing or crying at the passages they read, some of them are reading very long tombs or are clearly speed readers. You might even see an inspirational sight of somebody getting help first learning to read, or find a room with a book club in it. Immersed in that atmosphere, you might be more inspired to finish your chapter. I don’t know if that analogy holds, but it’s what came to mind.
So do I, when I’m not in the right place for it. It’s one of the reasons I hate Florida’s humidity. Being sweaty in dress clothes, or just trying to go about your day in shorts and a t shirt, drives me insane.
But in the gym I’m dressed in clothes to get sweaty. And it’s something that builds in the workout - by the time I break a sweat, I might be 15 minutes in. But at that point, I’m feeling my target muscles getting tight, which creates some sort of endorphin effect, because I enjoy it.
And so the continued sweatiness goes hand in hand with that “pump”, and the two combined help me get to a sort of psychological place where I’m not thinking about other things - I’m feeling my body, and focused on it, and therefore not stressing about all my other typical neuroses. It’s an escape.
Part of that escape manifests from how I feel at the time, but it also comes from looking in the mirror. I’m somebody who is not vain, but rather tends towards insecurity in my appearance, but when you are sweaty your skin is also flush, and you just look healthier. So being sweaty - at that moment - is a byproduct of the aesthetic that I see, if only for the brief time I’m working out.
(That “pump” I mentioned, by the way, and which Arnold Schwarzenegger often talked about, is indeed a huge part of the appeal of a workout. Having muscles engorge with blood after you exercise them feels good. But it only really comes about effectively if you eat properly and are sufficiently hydrated. Otherwise, it’s not nearly as pronounced. And that, I suspect, is why some people don’t enjoy lifting weights - they don’t quite get the endorphin experience of a more dedicated lifter)
I definitely didn’t mean to suggest that trainers don’t have their value. I even mentioned the training buddy part, because I think it’s a very valid reason to hire one. I’m just of the opinion that, if you stick with this for years, you may get to the point where you outgrow your personal trainer.
That was basically what happened to me. The bodybuilder guy I mentioned above led me through workouts my first year or so I worked out, but I eventually started exercising on my own. After doing that (and learning as well about other training methods and techniques), I wouldn’t return to somebody dictating workouts to me.
The only two things that really matter are consistency and pushing yourself to some degree, preferably sometimes hard. To a lesser extent, switching things around if you get too efficient at something you have done for months (unless you have very specific goals)…
Trainers are helpful but that depends on what you are hoping to accomplish. There is always someone who knows more than you and is more objective than you. That does not make every trainer an expert, and I generally prefer to do my own thing having done it for so long. But if I competed I would want and need one. And I have incorporated a thousand tricks from various sources, including trainers, taking advantage of whatever knowledge I found helpful.
Nothing wrong with doing whatever is required for motivation. CrossFit has its drawbacks, but it will get you into a high level of conditioning quickly by leveraging the advantages of peer pressure and encouragement. Trainers can do this as well, as can fitness classes or workout buddies.
All of which illustrates
For me exercise is my valued alone time.
I don’t want a trainer. I don’t want a group or camaraderie or a club. I don’t want a class. I don’t want to be in a healthy nightclub with the beautiful people. I don’t want to talk to or interact with anyone. I don’t want the temptation to compare myself to anyone other than my own past and my own future targets, my goal for the day. I don’t want to be thinking about anyone judging what I am doing even though I realize no one else thinks about me at all.
My brother in law’s husband pays for a trainer three times a week long term and swears by the trainer adjusting his goals and workouts. It works for him and more power to him. I briefly biked with the serious cyclists group, while training for triathlons. Desperately trying to hang onto to their rear wheels while they chatted to each other was not for me long term.
Yup. People are different!
I was a gym rat, in my youth. I started lifting just because I was small, then for wrestling, then body building… Now I just don’t want to spend that much time.
There is also the fact that my goals have changed. I now work out to help control my diabetes and as a form of meditation.
I find regular weight lifting so boring. I prefer more ballistic exercises or things that involve multiple muscle groups, for example Turkish Get-Ups. I was shoveling some heavy snow and ice today and I thought, this is the perfect workout. Outdoors, using most major muscle groups but not to the point of exhaustion. My kind of exercise. I’ve tried putting myself through grueling one hour strength training sessions and I never sustained it.
I lifted free-weights when I was a teenager, then stopped when I went off to college. I started back with machine weights when I joined a gym in my mid-30s. I enjoyed the benefits of weight-lifting, but life intervened and I stopped after a few years.
When I joined the gym, my dad asked to come with me as a guest, before joining himself. He lifted weights for years in the basement when he returned from the army air corps, after fighting in the European Theater during WWII. I was anxious to see his reaction to modern weight machines. He was ~75 at this time. He even bought gym clothes and a red bandanna (this was the 80s, after all) for the occasion.
Dad started on the bicep curl machine. He put on too much weight to start, and after a few reps he felt a stabbing pain in his right upper arm, and his bicep bunched up proximally in his arm. He had torn his biceps from its insertion, and it retracted like a rogue window blind. That was the end of his senior gym days.
Dad passed away long ago, but I still feel terrible for allowing him to put on more weight than he could handle.
Ooof. A strong and sad cautionary tale reinforcing the message that DrP has been repeating: the need to build over enough time that tendons can strengthen too.
Sorry to hear that. It should be emphasized, of course, that no one in the gym cares how much weight you are using and it does not matter at all if you start with very low weights. Start low and increase surely but gradually.
Even experienced weightlifters run into this problem after injury or taking time off. Start with an empty bar anyway. Modern thinking is there is no need to do much static stretching, but mobility exercises and using light weights or assistance exercises as warmups is still good practice.
5 posts were split to a new topic: Discussion of outliers (spin-off from “why not lift weights”)
That hurts just to read.
When I was a teenager I trained at the same gym as Vince Taylor (below). I never saw him lift heavy. The weights I saw him use were almost absurdly light.
In fact, the most badass gym goers I often see are young woman (teenage or early twenties). They aren’t afraid of getting “bulky” by building muscle, but they have no ego about how heavy a weight they use. So they go in and do a hardcore workout with perfect form. It’s usually quite impressive - more people should aspire to lift like a girl.
I too find lifting weights to be very boring, but I’m happy to lift and carry things if there’s some constructive purpose to it. I work at a small hardware store. Twice a week, a truck delivers several pallets of merchandise. I’m the only employee that wants to unload and sort it. Doing so takes 3-5 hours and works every muscle I have. Once it’s sorted and carted to the sales floor, I move the heaviest stuff (cement bags, etc) again, from the carts to the shelves, so other employees don’t have to. When I go home I’m tired but I give myself a pat on the back for being 60 and doing tasks that 20 year old employees can’t or won’t do. When I was 20, I couldn’t do this.
Side benefit: Management loves me, because when I’m not around to unload the truck, they have to do it.