Why don’t you lift weights?

In My Humble Opinion
1161

Good ole DOMS! And yes most famously triggered off by the novelty of the exercise and by eccentric exercise. Adding in plyo hits both!

I don’t mind it too much. I just do a bit lighter for a few days. No, it doesn’t need to hurt to be working, but sometimes a little hurt is not a bad thing. Sort of like your point somewhere earlier in here - pay attention to the twinge that is there warning you, but just smile a bit at the little ache that you perceive is earning you! :slightly_smiling_face:

But again, heads up to pay heed to the “slow and low” adding this to anyone else thinking of adding it to whatever they do. I just got a bit of DOMS but yeah easy to get more hurt starting up too much too fast.

1162

@enipla’s post got mentioned in the “What were you thinking?” Pit thread, and discussion there, @thorny_locust’s belief that physical activity done as work gets dissed, and this one, for example:

got me thinking about the healthspan disconnect between occupational physical labor and recreational physical labor. So did some digging. Not “sneering” here.

The idea that “I lifted heavy things for a living and don’t want to now.” is of course a valid reason for not wanting to lift weights as a form of exercise. Less defensible of course as a reason to avoid all exercise if you are interested in a long healthspan, but people make their choices.

And fitness accumulated before retirement is in the bank. Doesn’t prevent the withdrawals from starting, with aging, especially with decreased activity.

But the specific about the difference between occupational physical activity and recreational is still real. Not just as an SES marker:

MACE is major adverse cardiovascular events.

Higher leisure time physical activity associates with reduced MACE and all-cause mortality risk, while higher occupational physical activity associates with increased risks, independent of each other. …

… The main criticism to previous studies finding an increased risk for cardiovascular morbidity and all-cause mortality associated with high occupational physical activity has been the potential risk for insufficient adjustment for confounding factors, such as socioeconomic class.24 To meet these limitations, we did a sensitivity analyses with adjustments for a long list of potential confounding factors in the association between physical activity and health, such as age, sex, BMI, smoking, years in school, diabetes, systolic blood pressure, blood pressure medicine, dietary preferences, alcohol intake, LDL cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, triglycerides, resting heart rate, vital exhaustion score, COPD by GOLD stage, occupation, cohabitation, marital status, and household income. This did not change the main finding. Moreover, we found consistent decreased risk associated with higher levels of leisure time physical activity and increased risk associated with higher levels of occupational physical activity across strata of 20 potential lifestyle, health, living condition, and socioeconomic confounders. For both leisure time physical activity and occupational physical activity, we found no convincing evidence of interaction with the 20 lifestyle, health, living conditions, and socioeconomic factors and the health outcomes on risk of MACE and all-cause mortality, indicating that the overall findings did not differ across subgroups. Furthermore, the risk estimates remained similar when excluding participants dying within 1, 3, and 5 years of follow-up, suggesting no major influence of reverse causation on our results (Figure 5).

Reasons may overlap with the reasons why the benefits of strength training appear to top off, or even go away, after much more than an hour per week, by some studies anyway.

Occupational hard physical labor does not allow for recovery, and tends to be repetitive. This recent study puts it like this:

a recent study found leisure time physical activity to be beneficially associated with the systemic inflammation marker high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, but occupational physical activity to be associated with detrimental levels.22 The physical activity paradox is suggested to be explained by the different characteristics of physical activity during work and leisure time, where leisure time physical activity primarily comprises dynamic activities of higher intensity and shorter durations, while occupational physical activity is composed of more static and constrained activities of lower intensity and long durations.14

Again not sneering.

What were you THINKING?
1163

It makes sense that this would lead to issues down the road.

One of the things that people who work out should be mindful of are muscle imbalances. Usually, for every muscle that moves you there is another muscle that moves you in the opposite direction (e.g. push versus pull). It’s important to train both. If you overdevelop one set of muscles and neglect their antagonist, you increase your risk of strains or other injuries (pulled hamstrings are a common example).

Physical labor doesn’t usually allow for that type of holistic training. Instead, I imagine that some muscles get plenty of work, but others don’t. And over time that imbalance can be expected to cause nagging injuries and chronic pains.

…

Meanwhile, I heard a portion of this show today. It’s sort of an homage to the wonder of our muscles. Possibly interesting to those who read here.

1164

I respect physical work and understand it can be exhausting. In most cases, it is not comprehensive enough to include CO2 work or all major muscles and movements. Indeed, workers are more likely to have imbalances (some muscles much stronger than their antagonists) and suffer from back and joint pain and repetitive strain injuries. Exercise can often prevent and alienate this - Stuart McGill discusses three easy bodyweight exercises that reduce and prevent chronic back pain.

Exercise takes time and effort. Most don’t do much. Current research does suggest exercise to be more beneficial than the vast majority of medicines. It reduces depression, dementia, pain and chronic disease. It improves mood, quality of life and longevity. At the cellular level, exercise makes you younger.

1165

Lifted weights for back exercise this morning. But just two 10 lb dumbbells. So not really ‘lifting’ did it in my robe. Only takes 10 min or so. Seems to help my back.

Walked the dogs and built two cairns at the dog park, just for fun. Someone else is doing it too. I hope we start a trend. Someone else in the dog park knows what it is.

It’s kinda cool, there is the 4pm group at the dog park.

Later I need to drag an extension ladder out to change some light bulbs. I’m waiting for my wife to get home before that (safety), she’s on a ~30 mile bike ride.

1166

Of course it is. Strength training covers a wide range of approaches. Including no weights at all.

1167

Oh. Please be careful on the ladder!

1168

I agree. Work is lifting/moving, doing something. My wife and I are working on a garden. I’d rather grow veggies, than pump iron (which I find very boring).

1169

I don’t know if those doing the study accounted for lifestyle changes in those who did physical work all their lives. Speaking for myself as someone who did do physical labor throughout my life when I retired, I quickly fell into doing nothing, because for the first time in my life, I experienced being pain-free. It felt so good that leisure quickly became a habit. After 6 or 7 years of doing mostly nothing, I got into very bad shape, where I knew I wouldn’t live much longer. My body is badly broken up from work. I have to be careful doing anything I do now.

1170

I hear you @HoneyBadgerDC . I started hard labor at 11 years old. But then ended up on a desk. But still had to do a lot of hard work at home.

At our new home my wife and I are staying active. Physically and mentally. We mow our grass, we play chess. We walk the dogs. Ride bikes.

I’m pretty much done with programing in a “OK whatever” kind of way. I’m done with that. Already climbed that hill, there is always another hill. There is never is a horizon. So I chose to retire.

1171

Thx, I appreciate your quality posts in this thread

1172

Interesting thought. If I get your point maybe it is that those who worked hard physically and retired went to no exercise at all, while those who did not get a lot of hard physical activity at work hit retirement and minimally kept up with their recreational exercise, if not increasing it. It was an age group closing in on retirement age. Plus maybe those who do hard physical labor retired earlier and had negative health impacts of that?

They did find that the higher recreational activity positive impact and the higher occupational activity negative impact were independent of each other, but I don’t think such rules out your speculation.

(And thanks @Al128!)

1173

Did they correct for the health hazards of physical labor jobs, aside from those of repetitive motion? Because those also certainly affect “cardiovascular morbidity and all-cause mortality”.

Farming is one of the most dangerous occupations in the country; due not so much to the physical labor involved, although there’s still a good deal of that, as to PTO equipment, silos and grain bins, livestock, and for conventional growers chemical exposure. Construction workers also work with hazardous equipment, and often in positions risking falling. Warehouse workers work with ladders, forklifts, pallet jacks, and in many cases chemical exposure. Groundskeepers work with hazardous equipment and chemicals. And so forth — in general physical labor jobs come with more health risks than desk jobs.

In addition, are they claiming that there are studies showing that adding weightlifting for the sake of that particular exercise to the routines of people already doing considerable physical exercise in the process of getting something else done, whether at paid work or active hobbies or unpaid household, childcare, volunteer, etc. work, accomplishes anything useful and does not reduce the amount of other activity done?

1174

This thread seems all about why I lift weights and why I should lift weights. It really is a worthy question because nearly everyone would like to feel better, look better, and be stronger and more active. Despite all the benefits, only about 20% of the population engages in any kind of strength training, and less than that do weights. Additionally, the number drops even lower after the age of 44. I think it is safe to say that the value proposition is lacking, or at least the perceived value proposition.

More awareness helps, and better equipment has brought more into strength building, but the number is still incredibly low. This points to a glaring niche in the population that has not been filled. Considering that 20% workout, 20% can’t workout and 60% can but don’t. That is a huge market and I have to wonder why that has not been filled? I know it has not been overlooked so that means the people who address these types of things have failed miserably in this particular niche.

While I have been developing my piece of equipment, I have only thought about 1 thing: people who don’t work out. I completely ignored what appeals to people who do work out but I did not ignore what works for them. The first most important feature is that all exercises are performed in the sitting position. A lot of proponents of working out would say this is not good, but it does have a massively favorable appeal to people who don’t work out. Sitting is their favorite position. Everything about weightlifting is hard and takes some preparation. Not my machine, you just sit down and go to work. Weights and elastic bands require a commitment you can’t change once you start, you are holding weight. I actually have a pretty long list of items that a weightlifter would prefer and others would not prefer. The big difference is the resistance itself and how the user experiences the resistance.

Weightlifters tend to use sets and reps. The reps wear you down until the final rep is at or near failure. On my machine, you pick out the rep you want to work at ( based on 10 reps) I might pick a 7 or 8 level of effort, and I can stay with that as long as I can stand it. You never hit failure! Your effort goes up as you wear down, just as it does with weights. It is also a push-pull so you cut the time in half. It delivers an incredible “ pump” along with muscle and strength growth in a very short amount of time. 30 min over the course of a day is a long workout. 20 min a week can be very effective. Today I added a squat feature to it that worked out very well. A little way from complete but I think I am almost there.

What are your thoughts on why people don’t work out?

1175

Not directly. Whatever level of recreational activity they had, more occupational activity had more MACE and overall mortality at ten years out. Could that be explained by an association of more occupational activity with job site risks that lead to major adverse cardiovascular events ten years out? Not impossible. But a stretch.

Yes.

Whatever level of occupational exposure they had, adding recreational exercise decreased risk of MACE and overall mortality at ten years.

Other studies amply cited in this thread yes specific to strength training, to lesser degree than adding aerobic but biggest gains when both. Including added to large amounts of aerobic activity. All age groups. Across populations benefits adding modest amount of strength training; albeit again to be noted that it seems to top off at modest amounts. But relatively few in these studies hit the large amounts so may be statistical fluke. No apparent point of no additional gain from more aerobic but biggest benefits incurred front loaded with diminishing returns per additional unit added.

Some people really hate it. It exhausts some. They do other things. They haven’t found an exercise that is fun for them. Inconvenient. Have things they want to instead. Did physical labor in the past and it isn’t fun to do it for fun. Some don’t believe the benefits of a little bit really are as huge as they are. Intimidated in a gym. Don’t feel like they can afford the time. Lots of reasons.

1176

Exactly! So system and equipment developers tend to work within the existing market, hoping to expand it a little by addressing some of these reasons. New forms of resistance come out now and then, but a lot of them are very expensive. Is no one willing to take the risk of targeting a new market? That’s what it sounds like to me.

I am practicing my pitch a little here and trying to learn how to talk about it as I have gone public with it now and find myself having to talk about it.

1177

I think it is more that a commercial product would have to have a particular market segment identified and a good reason, preferably with supporting data, for how this product (or service) would be bought by the segment.

Some have, just with celebrity/influencer endorsements. But a product that sells those who don’t exercise on exercise? That’s a hard sell. I doubt the limiting factor is often that the right product is not available?

1178

Logicaly I would agree with you, but the gap is just too large, there is too much potential profit, it is like a lake with no fish. The demand is there, just not at the price they are willing to pay. Force-driven resistance is currently in a category of it’s own when it comes to a full-body workout. I believe it could be a game changer for those who don’t like weight.

1179

let me be cheeky here …

that niche has been filled … by FB, Netflix, IG, cable (possibly porn) and so on … one of the reasons even young people hardly play ball games/team sports (compared to 30 or 40 years ago) … ist b/c there is now just so much more competition for your spare time - and some of those even use addictive-making-mechanisms as we all learned this week AND sits in your rear pocket.

Oh wait - I gotta go - my whatsapp is beeping

1180

I just graduated from 1 lb weight to 2 lbs at my physical therapy sessions (3x per week). I’ve been doing pt for about a year and a half. I know weight-wise it’s not much, but I’ve been on maintenance pt via my cardiologist after a heart attack and then rhabdomyolysis. I am a field ornithologist, and when catching birds, I did a lot of walking, and so was in pretty good shape prior to the heart attack. Little steps but always moving.