At my last job, there were people who were shocked that I replaced the latches on my cabinets myself and fixed the toilet without calling a plumber. A lot of people probably wouldn't know where to begin without an expert.
This is only an issue if your apartment comes fully furnished.
I know americans renting stuff in Germany have been surprised they're supposed to bring everything including their own kitchen.
So there's up and downsides to both approaches (fixing your own stuff vs. having to bring it in the first place.).
For things you don't own (broken window, toilet, etc.), not fixing them yourself may be important though because your landlord is supposed to foot the bill.
US-based individual checking in: I've never rented a furnished apartment. My father is a landlord and, to my knowledge, has never rented out a furnished apartment.
In my experience GP's comment stands: if you start fixing shit that isn't yours, you're in violation of most residential leases.
When I tell people in the office I fix my own cars, built a shed in my backyard, replaced the pumps in my hot tub, and do all my home remodeling, they look at me as if i have horns growing out of my head. My old man slaughtered his own hogs for food and built his own house, and his father helped build the Empire State Building. How are we losing practical manual labor skills generation by generation? I’ve vowed that my daughter will learn how to use every tool in my garage, effectively and safely.
Really?? Because when my coworkers and I meet someone like this we are all amazed and respectful. No offense, but I have a hard time believing that people become the worst versions of themselves because of your private behavior. Sorry to be so curt, but I’m tired of this sort of circle jerking going on in HN as of late. what you say may be true, but this sort of commentary is rampant lately.
Nobody turns into “the worst versions of themselves” but a common attitude is: why would you do these things when there are other kinds of people who do it for you as their job? And: you must have a lot more free time than I! No insults or derision, just surprise. It’s definitely different than 20 years ago. Back then everyone I hung out with used to tinker and had a closet full of tools you could borrow. Now it seems nobody’s into it. They even have a special “makers” label for people who like to build things as a hobby.
That's the same reaction I get most of the time, especially when they're closer to my age. Every once in a while they'll respond in appreciation, but the knee jerk reaction for a lot of people is to cock an eyebrow. I guess that's what happens when we code up these apps that allow people to just order whatever they want through their phones and never have to do anything themselves.
Because we have allowed 'the market' to control what skills we value and we have become increasingly specialized, probably to our own detriment. No matter how valuable it may be to have practice in many skills and tools and physical feats, according to the modern market it ain't worth shit if it isn't earning more money than whatever 'specialized' labor you can perform. Self-reliance, sustainability and being frugal are valued less than chasing the market with long specialized work hours and trying to purchase the lost time back through rampant consumerism and selfish convenience, whether that is what you like or not.
Time is at a premium which makes gaining more knowledge, skills, and physical aptitudes outside of your paid labors a luxury. Perhaps if people were working a 30 hour week and making enough to sustain themselves they would have more time to have such hobbys and ambitions, but most jobs that pay enough to thrive off 30 paid hours a week require far more than just 30 hours a week of work to stay employed. And most jobs that do have people working only 30 hours a week usually don't pay enough to comfortably sustain somebody.
I have a pretty fixed amount of freetime in the evening, but good luck doing carpentry or masonry at 8pm to any purpose (I mean, you could probably sound insulate a room enough to enable it as a hobby, but you won't be fixing up your house yourself).
It's great that you have these skills, but it's unsurprising that lots of people don't bother anymore. Nobody really needs to build a shed or fix a car themselves anymore.
I say this having been raised by a loving immigrant dad who was forever tinkering in the garage. We had the worst of both worlds; we were reluctant to ever hire a professional because Dad could fix it, and Dad had an ever-growing list of things to fix, and less energy to fix them as the years piled on. He left us with two half-fixed cars, a half-finished shed, a jury-rigged pump system for rainy season, and an overgrown yard.
"Nobody really needs to build a shed or fix a car themselves anymore."
It's true until it's not. Many well-off people were trying to cut all kinds of costs after their pay got cut or jobs lost during the Great Recession. Quite a few people down here were saving money hunting deer, raising chickens, fixing their own cars/homes, etc. Some of these skills can be good to have just in case.
"Clamshell" plastic packaging is evil and deadly, even when my physical fitness is high. I shudder to think how I will open that stuff when I'm old and decrepit.
The Leatherman wingman had the perfect tool to get the clamshell packaging open. It was almost like a can opener exacto knife hybrid. Cut through it like a hot knife through butter.
Sometimes clamshell packaging is used to make high-value-density, easily shopliftable items like microsd cards and fancy razors too big to fit into people's pockets.
Being impossible to remove by hand is a feature as far as these manufacturers are concerned!
Lack of grip strength would certainly be an indication of corresponding lack of overall body strength. While it is possible to develop strength in isolated muscle groups with specific exercises, it is not easy to develop full system strength without involving the hands in gripping form.
If overall physical strength has some relationship to health and longevity (which I believe is generally accepted to be some indication of), then lack of grip strength would be a simple measure of fitness.
I don't think it's a huge mystery why wealthier groups are physically weaker (and less healthy, and more overweight). There is less need or requirement to do manual labor compared to people in developing countries. Jobs tend to be more white collar than blue collar. Kids tend to have more indoor entertainment options (electronics, computers, toys).
Science fiction has often portrayed advanced civilizations as soft, physically weak beings (gelatin creatures in glass tubes and such) that use their mental gifts more than their physical ones.
However, humans will probably not reach a point of not needing their bodies in order to maintain health and long life. So we really should all be regularly active. Besides, there's ample evidence that good physical fitness also benefits the mind as well as the mood.
I was more referring to developing countries - people farming and building with non powered tools, walking and carrying stuff, playing soccer (and other forms of entertainment that don’t require electricity).
I somehow believe that our need for physical sex will not allow us to become gelatin in tubes. Even the world of Alita seems a bit farfetched. But who knows?
I don’t know... plenty of science fiction has imagined an existence where a drug or brain stimulation tool allows people to experience any form of sex without physical contact, but with the feeling of it.
I'm certainly no doctor, but I think arthritis is a kind of inflammation; and medicine is starting to realize that a lot of human health issues are inflammation-based. The source of inflammation isn't always clear, but I suspect it has to do with chemicals in our environment and our food.
Low or zero THC hemp oil has been demonstrated to reduce inflammation, and some old folks have reported remarkable reductions of arthritis while using hemp oil.
If you can reduce your pain to the point of being able to do physical exercises that are full body, you should give it a try. Squats, dead lift, and bench press are very beneficial when done correctly, and they will improve your grip strength as a side benefit (can't move the weights around if you can't hold on to them!)
I would recommend the writings of FM Alexander[1] for an analysis of the degeneration of human muscle utilization with the advance of civilization. "Lack of exercise" is insufficient as an explanation. A slightly better way to put it is that rational processes have substituted for instinctive balance processes. But overall, the whole process must be, uh, grasped.
Deadlifts work 70% of the muscles in your body, including your forearms and gripping muscles. Your best bang-for-the-buck to help your strength and get in some exercise is to pick heavy stuff off of the ground a few times.
The total muscle mass of involvement with deadlifts is higher than squats because of the lever used by your arms (whereas you support the bar with your back in the squat, the same muscles that keep the bar close to you when deadlifting).
Rather than someone interpret this as "do deadlifts over squats" I'd say "do both because they're both great for your body if executed with proper form and weight."
Deadlifts are great. But people need to know what "heavy" really means. For a deadlift that means at least two times your bodyweight. Many people in the gym just don't try hard enough.
I honestly think it doesn't really matter. I get many pains that are fixed by deadlifting and it doesn't have to be an even vaguely heavy weight to do it, eg 1x bodyweight. I can lift 2x +, but it doesn't feel necessary to keep fit.
"Heavy" means hard-for-the-person (i.e. 3-5 rep maxes). If you found 2x bodyweight a good starting weight, then congrats, but that's not a realistic standard to enforce almost everyone. I've pulled 235kg at 100kg raw (no straps or belt), which is advanced-beginner or pissweak-intermediate, but training to get there involved starting with about 140kg, not 200kg.
Heavy lifting and trying hard is important, like you say, but it's a relative thing to experience, genetics, age, etc. I've seen grannies pull 1.1x bodyweight and I'd say they were lifting "heavy".
Yeah, it's at least intermediate. I pulled 220kg at 80kg BW and that took more than a year of consistent training. I know it's a lot because I was lifting with people who lifted for competitions.
Horrible advice. Deadlifts are a great exercise but can go horribly horribly wrong if you try too hard to lift an amount of weight that is too heavy for you. Instead you should focus on maintaining perfect form on every lift and incrementally add weight the more you progress. If you try and "ego-lift" a huge amount of weight you are risking serious injuries to your back, dont do it.
Also as to what is a heavy amount of what is a light amount - its irrelevant to an individual. You should lift the an amount that pushes you beyond what your comfortable with, but not so much that your risk injury.
Ugh... really? I meant to train yourself to be able to lift two times bodyweight. Nobody can do that without training. Of course I didn't mean that someone should just go into the gym and try it. You should aim for two times bodyweight. Many people just keep lifting the same low weights over and over again.
“A weak man is not as happy as that same man would be if he were strong. This reality is offensive to some people who would like the intellectual or spiritual to take precedence. It is instructive to see what happens to these very people as their squat strength goes up.”
Upper body strength is in decline period and it is major indicator for life expectancy and health. Fortunately rock / gym climbing is rapidly gaining in popularity.
Sport climbing will be part of the 2020 olympics. I love it and look forward to going with a buddy of mine each weekend. Also have grip exercisers in my carry on because I travel so much.
Sports are great, but you're never gonna get most people exercising that way. Most people will consistently exercise, over the long term, only if it's a necessity: like for their job, or for transportation.
It really has to be built into one's daily routine. The Netherlands is a great example here, they have very high rates of active transportation (walking/biking) for the developed world.
Social clubs of various forms have been a part of society for a long time. You could get a long way if sports clubs were a welcoming place to go hang out and socialize instead of just rentable facilities where you have to book a time and provide your own opponents.
It seems to me that in order to be successful exercise cannot be something that one adopts to meet a specific goal (i.e. look better, fit into a piece of clothing, address a health concern). Instead people need to adopt a way of life that includes exercise.
That's why I think the "cult" aspects of CrossFit are a lot of what makes it so successful. Other examples are people that adopt yoga or martial arts as a way of life rather than just an activity.
Judo, which is wildly practices everywhere outside of USA, builds grip strength by constants practice. And at least here in Europe almost every small community have a Judo club where hordes of children attends. And Judo has been in the Olympics for a long time.
Jiu jitsu practitioner here - we also tend to develop grips of iron from constantly grasping the Gi (very thick, coarse kimono worn as a training uniform). Both judo and it’s sister sport jiu jitsu will develop your musculature insanely fast.
I have a friend who trained for a while with an instructor in a traditional form of Scottish wrestling. When he left his instructor gave him a sleeve that had been cut off of a BJJ gi so that it could be slung over a pullup bar and gripped to do pullups.
One could while away many hours - muscles atrophying the entire time - analysing people’s need to pop up in the comments here with some variation on “not MY grip strength”.
I have a dynanometer, and I get it to show Error with my right hand. Left hand is about 85kg. I can squeeze (on good day) #3 Iron Mind (right hand), and #2.5 (left hand). Been gripping (but mostly that) for the last 3-4 years, though lots lots of muscle while diagnosed with diabetes II, almost year+half ago, and started low-carbo/keto diet (now I'm from 11 -> 5.6 without medication).
Don't feel super-strong, can do few pull ups, few dips, dozen of push ups and I'm more than 40. Also hate running, hate it since the army...
Point is, I'm skeptical of grip training ~ health. Or maybe if you've over-trained for that aspect, it may be lying...
Grip strength is an indicator for overall fitness since it will improve from a range of activities, weightlifting being an obvious one but even something like cycling will have an improved grip compared to someone who doesn’t do anything.
Improving your grip strength specifically won’t really improve your performance or overall fitness though (unless you are into rock climbing!)
I'm seriously thinking of starting with deadlifting, but need to find someone to do it, show me proper. Right next to a 24th fitness, where I work, just need to set my mind for it.
The article itself stated that specifically training your grip strength won't magically give you better health outcomes - like you surmised, over-training that aspect breaks this metric. I think the causality runs the other way - untrained grip strength is a great indicator of a lot of useful things.
Probably a good mix of neural and tendon and muscular stuff, not just a "let's go test a bunch of random people's flat bench press score and find out who's been hanging out in the gym a lot".
Never tried the Iron Mind numbered grippers, but I have an Ivanko Super Gripper. I use it cautiously as years of Judo and BJJ have given me "high mileage hands".
lol, my wife found my "Ivanko Super Gripper" the other day, and she was like - 'wtf is this thing'? lol, another one of your toys! I find the grippers easiest to use while driving, taking my dog out, and during long computer sessions, I call it "lazy-gym".
74 comments
[ 2.1 ms ] story [ 121 ms ] threadI wonder how many people alive today have never swung a hammer to real purpose, and if the same could have been said of their parents.
Broken cabinet? Gotta call the landlord; If I tried fixing it myself I'd technically be breaking my lease.
I know americans renting stuff in Germany have been surprised they're supposed to bring everything including their own kitchen.
So there's up and downsides to both approaches (fixing your own stuff vs. having to bring it in the first place.).
For things you don't own (broken window, toilet, etc.), not fixing them yourself may be important though because your landlord is supposed to foot the bill.
In my experience GP's comment stands: if you start fixing shit that isn't yours, you're in violation of most residential leases.
Time is at a premium which makes gaining more knowledge, skills, and physical aptitudes outside of your paid labors a luxury. Perhaps if people were working a 30 hour week and making enough to sustain themselves they would have more time to have such hobbys and ambitions, but most jobs that pay enough to thrive off 30 paid hours a week require far more than just 30 hours a week of work to stay employed. And most jobs that do have people working only 30 hours a week usually don't pay enough to comfortably sustain somebody.
I have a pretty fixed amount of freetime in the evening, but good luck doing carpentry or masonry at 8pm to any purpose (I mean, you could probably sound insulate a room enough to enable it as a hobby, but you won't be fixing up your house yourself).
I say this having been raised by a loving immigrant dad who was forever tinkering in the garage. We had the worst of both worlds; we were reluctant to ever hire a professional because Dad could fix it, and Dad had an ever-growing list of things to fix, and less energy to fix them as the years piled on. He left us with two half-fixed cars, a half-finished shed, a jury-rigged pump system for rainy season, and an overgrown yard.
It's ok to have somebody else mow the lawn.
It's true until it's not. Many well-off people were trying to cut all kinds of costs after their pay got cut or jobs lost during the Great Recession. Quite a few people down here were saving money hunting deer, raising chickens, fixing their own cars/homes, etc. Some of these skills can be good to have just in case.
Being impossible to remove by hand is a feature as far as these manufacturers are concerned!
Let’s not make it seem like mowing a lawn or doing some minor handiwork around the house is more than a little kids job.
If overall physical strength has some relationship to health and longevity (which I believe is generally accepted to be some indication of), then lack of grip strength would be a simple measure of fitness.
I don't think it's a huge mystery why wealthier groups are physically weaker (and less healthy, and more overweight). There is less need or requirement to do manual labor compared to people in developing countries. Jobs tend to be more white collar than blue collar. Kids tend to have more indoor entertainment options (electronics, computers, toys).
Science fiction has often portrayed advanced civilizations as soft, physically weak beings (gelatin creatures in glass tubes and such) that use their mental gifts more than their physical ones.
However, humans will probably not reach a point of not needing their bodies in order to maintain health and long life. So we really should all be regularly active. Besides, there's ample evidence that good physical fitness also benefits the mind as well as the mood.
https://www.stateofobesity.org/socioeconomics-obesity/
Low or zero THC hemp oil has been demonstrated to reduce inflammation, and some old folks have reported remarkable reductions of arthritis while using hemp oil.
If you can reduce your pain to the point of being able to do physical exercises that are full body, you should give it a try. Squats, dead lift, and bench press are very beneficial when done correctly, and they will improve your grip strength as a side benefit (can't move the weights around if you can't hold on to them!)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._Matthias_Alexander
Rather than someone interpret this as "do deadlifts over squats" I'd say "do both because they're both great for your body if executed with proper form and weight."
Heavy lifting and trying hard is important, like you say, but it's a relative thing to experience, genetics, age, etc. I've seen grannies pull 1.1x bodyweight and I'd say they were lifting "heavy".
Also as to what is a heavy amount of what is a light amount - its irrelevant to an individual. You should lift the an amount that pushes you beyond what your comfortable with, but not so much that your risk injury.
― Mark Rippetoe, Starting Strength
Sport climbing will be part of the 2020 olympics. I love it and look forward to going with a buddy of mine each weekend. Also have grip exercisers in my carry on because I travel so much.
It really has to be built into one's daily routine. The Netherlands is a great example here, they have very high rates of active transportation (walking/biking) for the developed world.
That's why I think the "cult" aspects of CrossFit are a lot of what makes it so successful. Other examples are people that adopt yoga or martial arts as a way of life rather than just an activity.
Don't feel super-strong, can do few pull ups, few dips, dozen of push ups and I'm more than 40. Also hate running, hate it since the army...
Point is, I'm skeptical of grip training ~ health. Or maybe if you've over-trained for that aspect, it may be lying...
Deadlifts are great, but mix in some other types of resistance training to maintain balance.
Probably a good mix of neural and tendon and muscular stuff, not just a "let's go test a bunch of random people's flat bench press score and find out who's been hanging out in the gym a lot".
Never tried the Iron Mind numbered grippers, but I have an Ivanko Super Gripper. I use it cautiously as years of Judo and BJJ have given me "high mileage hands".
I don't know how wide spread that fad was but if that was when the norms were established, it might bare considering.
If nobody else is gonna suggest its possibly environmental chemicals then I guess I get to be that guy.
[1] https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/92/1/196/2598434