Walking for exercise, where there is not much/often stopping at intersections works amazingly well. Your heart rate builds up in a different way.
And all that continuous walking gets a little faster and faster after a few months and can turn into jogging/running on it's own, except you have learned how to maintain your heart rate a bit more.
Definitely, but I did manage to seriously injure my back doing some deadlifts for light strength training, so the space probably isn't as wide as you might think.
Deadlifts are also famous for having a high injury rate. I wouldn’t recommend them to anyone who doesn’t have a base core strength and a coach of some sort to teach proper technique.
For things like walking and running the safety margins are much bigger. Then again maybe not, I had my sister who trained track in high school teach me technique before I started running more seriously.
If it helps you feel better, I know people who were lifting heavy for years, even competing in bodybuilding and threw out their back moving an empty bar because they didn’t think of it as a deadlift and used poor form
It seems to me that it is important to communicate that you can injure yourself easily if you do deadlifts wrong. With any weightlifting exercise it is important to start with an easy weight and make sure that you are confident that you have good form before adding weight.
Deadlifting can be done safely which is evinced by the many people who have done it without injuring themselves. I feel for you that you got bad advice. I do agree however that with good form, it should be difficult to injure yourself seriously deadlifting. The rub is that not everyone has the ability to self-assess and some coaches are also bad. If you are not very confident you will not hurt yourself, you absolutely should not deadlift heavy weights.
But that's like saying "you can play Russian roulette safely if you do it properly". Sometimes you get injured no matter how good your form is, and sometimes you get lucky and are fine even if your form is poor.
But in terms of the actual empirical risk, they're extremely safe when programmed intelligently with appropriate load selection and consistent technique.
Are you me? Did the same in Jan last year, and by September I needed a microdiscectomy to remove a pea-sized piece of disc that had broken off and was poking my S1 nerve, giving me painful sciatica all down my right leg.
That said, I'm still 22kg down from Feb 2022 when I started, from 107kg then to under 84kg today. There is a lot of positive benefits to becoming a completely stubborn asshole with yourself when it comes to diet, regular cardio, and strength training. But I won't go near heavy deadlifts again.
People say this and it’s always a head scratcher for me because deadlifts are the easiest compound lift to get the form right on and if you have good form, warm up, and only add 5-10lbs per workout it’s basically impossible to hurt yourself with deadlifts. So I actually recommend them as the lift to do if you only do a single compound lift. They take the least amount of time (you only need a single work set 2x/week) and you get the most everyday benefit out of them. Plus everyone has room for a barbell and plates in their home, even if they don’t have room for a squat rack.
> and if you have good form, warm up, and only add 5-10lbs per workout
Most beginners I’ve seen do not take the 5min it takes to learn proper form. And even if they do, they lack the proprioception to know when they’re doing it right.
You really need a mirror or someone to keep you honest, preferably both, for the first few sessions. Someone needs to tell you what correct looks like on your body. It’s very hard to get right on your own if you don’t have a history of working with a coach who developed your proprioception.
I’m what you would call a grinding amateur. After 10+ years of daily workouts it takes me only a few hundred tries to do what a coach tells me. My sister has been a competitive athlete since 4 years old. It takes her 2or3 reps to perform exactly the movement a coach gives her (even in a new sport). Just because her body control is so much more developed than mine.
The challenge of barbell deadlifting is that most people have poor hamstring mobility that deeply compromises their ability to reach the bar without back bending. Back squats have the "advantage" that even if you have mobility issues, you can at least start in a safe position and limit your range of motion (though they also have huge challenges and injury potential). To adapt a barbell deadlift you need to raise the bar off the ground (not hard, but also annoying, and a lot of people don't do it).
In any case, I'd say most barbell exercises are actually quite advanced and challenging motions to learn. Just look at how many videos there try trying to teach you "how to fix your deadlift", aimed at "experienced" lifters and athletes. The reality is that the barbell deadlift is almost unique amongst exercises in how much you are working around your equipment. You literally have to learn how to sequence your lift to make sure you don't bash the bar into your knees (body geometry dependent).
To riff on that even more (and to link back to the article) - if you were going to program in only a single lower body exercise, I'd probably pick the lunge (+dumbbells) for its relative safety, greater balance amongst muscle groups (major and stabilizing), being somewhat dynamic (especially if you step into it), being unilateral.
Everyone should learn a proper deadlift because those who don't increase their chances of injury living daily life. For example, picking up a gallon of milk or their kid/grandkid.
Being able to deadlift and squat a 45lb kettlebell should be the minimum everyone strives for.
To elaborate, my deadlift was 120kg (264lb) and I also had some overvigorous leg stretches done during a massage later that day, and that's when the piece cracked off painfully. Suffice to say I think I actually had a lower back injury from when I was a teenager and I was 48 at the time I did this injury. It was either the deadlift or the massage or both that were the final straw for the disk between my L4/L5 vertebrae and it happened while working on form with my trainer.
Not disagreeing with you, I'll happily deadlift only up 25kg but it still only six months after my surgery so ...
It's 15 years ago now, but I was increasing my weight by 2.5 kg every session. It was close to my 5-rep max, but presumably not my one-reply max.
My form was correct, as far as I know, I was looking forward, legs spread apart, back straight, etc. I lifted, and I felt a pop, and my back hurt for a week.
Afterwards, once a year or so, I'd make some small movement, like trying to lift a bag, or just misstep when walking, and my back cramped again and I couldn't move for days. Nowadays it's just permanent.
Thank you! I'm thinking about starting strength training again, it was really good when I did it, but I'll definitely do less weight and be much more careful about injuries, as I'm past forty.
It sounds like it's pretty essential for maintaining good muscle density as I age, though.
Just remember that SS is only for your first 2-6 months of training.
Once the weights start getting moderately heavy and progress slows, you're better off moving to a more sustainable form of programming. (I'm a fan of the Tactical Barbell books personally.)
Their experiment seems to not be conclusive to my reading. They layered eccentric exercise after four weeks of walking exercise. They compare four weeks of walking exercise to eight weeks of walking exercise plus four weeks of eccentric exercise and don’t control for the fact eight weeks of walking is twice as much as four.
That said there’s a lot of evidence eccentric contraction is crucial for strength gain. But this experiment isn’t convincing alone.
It sort of makes seems reasonable in some vague and non-scientific sense that we’d be optimized for walking across slightly rough terrain (with logs, little streams, and rocks to amble across), rather than perfectly flat roads.
Dirt paths look nicer than sidewalks anyway, so I guess we’re just going to have to tear up the streets and stroads all together, rather than trying to staple on walkability!
Be a bit wary of that book. While I can't speak to its main thesis, people have found serious faults with claims about various cultures/groups having great health outcomes due to their walking. Apparently some of them have very poor health outcomes (perhaps unrelated to walking, but you get my point).
That article seems entirely centered around the dangerous around cuts and bacteria, with no indication it's bad for muscle or bone.
While some fundamentalists might go completely barefoot, I've always heard people talk about that book in terms of using light sole shoes instead of heavy shoes, not ditching protective footwear entirely. Even the subject of that book often wear thin moccasins during long distance runs.
Not really about thin soles, but from what I can tell, there's been a general shift among a lot of even hardcore hikers to trail shoes from boots. I have a delightful pair of custom-made leather boots that I basically don't wear any longer because they're so heavy.
I used to always go barefoot when bush walking as a kid in qld. Looking out for snakes and spiders (literally) keeps you on your toes.
I remember once bushwalking with a group and there was a sudden torrential rainstorm, and you could see all the little leeches sticking their heads up from the mud. By the time we got back to the van, I was the only one without a single leech on me.
I only ever had issues with cuts etc in town on the bitumen or gravel (but I suppose it could be quite dangerous in some parts of the world).
The barefoot running trend is decidedly not behind us. There are more barefoot shoes (zero drop, wide toe box) from major shoe makers than ever, and you see them way more at races than in the past. What’s behind us, maybe, is the vibram 5 finger (each toe in its own slot) which seems to have waned in popularity significantly.
The vibram ”5 finger” watersport model is brilliant shoe for swimming in natural lakes summer & winter (works even for ice swimming) but running in such a shoe is not something I would consider.
For what its worth, I ran many many many miles in my fivefingers and loved them. But I was a lot younger then, I prefer more cushioning on the balls of my feet, and I mostly walk anymore. My cardio of choice has moved to biking, it's just more fun (for me, YMMV)
Barefoot Shoes is a common reference to shoes that have zero drop (flat between heel and forefoot), a wide toe box (there are a variety of benefits here) and relatively thin soles to enhance proprioception.
So yes, while it sounds like an oxymoron, it is actually just an industry term of art (you’ll see major companies advertise certain of their shoes as barefoot - Merrell comes to mind with their VaporGlove and Trail Glove, both of which are fantastic shoes).
The other nice thing about barefoot shoes (since I find myself in full on sales mode) is that due to the lack of padding, they last significantly longer than traditional mass market shoes. My trail runners (the Merrell’s) are in season 5 now, when my old trail shoes by Saucony lasted one season Max, and my mileage has increased substantially from when I used to wear the Saucony’s.
A good rule of thumb is anything in social sciences that was very popular 15 years ago has been debunked (as others are claiming here). Is there a definitive takedown somewhere that someone can link please? Curious which portions don't hold up.
I have to walk daily, and purely flat is nice at first but after some time your blood flow (depending on your condition) might be a bit stuck compared to walking in the wild where you have to lift your feet more, have different mechanics, this seems to reduce blood stuck in lower limbs and helps flushing this. It also feels nicer mentally because it's a bit more diverse.
ps: all in all it's just another point in the fact that modern life is really mediocre
That last point about it feeling nicer mentally rings true for sure. I much prefer to walk over uneven terrain such as through a field rather than the super flat (former railway line) path to the side of it.
Every so often I do hit a wonky patch that I'm surprised didn't cause an injury or sprain but so far so good. That's mostly on me for combining the enjoyment of uneven terrain with an enjoyment of nighttime walks haha, but does happen during the day too now and then.
Good to hear it might be a little bit beneficial too! Yay for eccentric walking!
My best walk for hills is (sort of) literally storming a castle haha. Infinite dopamine when I trek up that way, fully agree with that hypothesis!
A little bit deadly if it's been raining but if it's dry out it's a heck of a workout going directly up/down the pictured desire path rather than following the proper path round and up. Usually I'll go up the steep and down the regular path rather than risk breaking my neck in public, that would be embarrassing.
Loads of steep but this-side-of-possible hills around the local castle ruins - built on a hill as pictured, plus where the former moat was, and plenty of hills and valleys around the immediate area :D
When trailrunning, my worst injuries happened on flat and groomed paths, when I was not expecting potholes. When the trail is rough, I concentrate more and nothing happens, even if it is (at first sight) much riskier.
Now I think about it the only times I've almost rolled or sprained my ankle has been during a bit of my usual walk that is "the flat bit" in my head, but has changed on me e.g. after rain softens up the ground plus a horse has gone thru leaving footstep holes which have then dried solid.
I'll have to mix up the path I take around that bit to keep my brain awake and aware! Good shout!
I usually follow tractor tyre lines as it was until recently working farmland (I'd never want to damage the crops!) but it's just regular grass this year so I can walk wherever freely - I think the farmer sold the land so the council can run a road through the middle of it.. trying to get the most out of it before it's paved over and I need to find a new regular trek haha
Some construction company with actual resources get on making "wavy sidewalks". I'll consult as a former hiker. Honestly, probably wouldn't be that hard to make matching tile edge sidewalks with semi-randomized central wave patterns. Games do it all the time.
doesn't even need to be a wheelchair, my father has a bad hip and walks with a cane.
"flat sidewalks are too flat and not enough fun to walk so lets make erratic sidewalks instead" has got to be one of the dumbest takes I've seen on HN.
Just go to any city that planted a lot of trees and ignored them until the roots pushed up all the surrounding sidewalk. It lulls you into a false sense of security until you wipe out on a random two-inch drop.
Have an upvote, but more seriously - there seems little point in suggesting a method of exercise (however great it might be) that literally no one is going to take up because you look like a loon doing it…
Since the road accident a few years back, paired with a coxarthrosis, I can't walk much as I used to, but found drumming practice to be very useful to keep in shape and have lots of fun without carrying high loads. I still carry on the stairs groceries, wood for the fireplace and sixpacks of 2lt water bottles, but that doesn't happen every day thankfully.
1. The title sucks. This article is basically about adding lunges on top of walks. Conclusion: "Yes, adding lunges is good". Again, the title and the setup for this article completely misrepresent what it's saying.
2. My opinion, nothing to do with the article, though a lot to do with the misleading title: Overall, walking for 30 mins to an hour a day is huge and will increase fitness an incredible amount over nothing. Of course, it can replace neither intensive cardio, weight lifting, or mobility work. But throw a few hills in there, and it's probably sufficient to stay healthy.
They found that introducing exercise increases fitness/health outcomes. That doesn't solve the problem that the vast majority of people don't exercise.
TL;DR:
"We found no significant changes in any of the outcomes in the first four weeks when participants walked conventionally. From week four to 12, we found significant improvements in muscle strength (19%), chair-stand ability (24%), balance (45%) and a cognitive function test (21%)... The sample size of the study was small (N = 11), so we need larger and more comprehensive studies to verify our findings"
I experienced acute lower back pain after walking for 30+ minutes. I searched the whole internet to find a solution but only found advice saying, "if you have back pain, walk!" which was ironic since my pain occurred while walking. Then it dawned on me: I sit most of the day, cycle a lot, and drive my car, but I wasn't walking regularly. Now, I walk the dog for 40 minutes a few days a week, and the pain has disappeared!
Walking gets pushed aside in fitness conversations, but it is a very good, low-impact, medium-cardio, and completely maligned exercise that is very sustainable and can go a long way for many people.
(People like doing higher-impact activity to feel like they put in the work. Which they did! But many of those health benefits could be realized with daily long walks, daily stretching, and better dietary choices, and I say this as someone who literally wrote this while eating cheesecake LOL. It was a small size though! And I track calories!)
Here's why I think walking is completely maligned.
First reason: Suburbs.
The biggest issues that I have with American suburbs is that there is nothing interesting to walk to, most of the jobs can only be reached by car and walking infrastructure outside of housing enclaves is nonexistent. So you're either walking at work (good luck if you have an office job) or making time to walk at home.
Given that the cheapest housing in most of the US is in the suburbs, this problem will only accelerate.
Second reason: HOKAs.
Walking is further compromised by massively popular footwear that is terrible for the kinetic chain.
A lot of people wear running shoes for walking. These are plushier at the expense of unwanted shock compensation at the ankles, knees, and hips.
However, minimalist footwear that exploded in popularity after Born to Run and xero on Shark Tank wasn't good either, as runners got injured like crazy trying to heel strike with shoes that are designed to prevent exactly that.
Sneakers in the 70s and 80s were low-drop and low stack. I prefer zero drop with barefoot stack (soles less than 6mm thick) but I wish we could return to those, as those are so much safer.
Third reason: Fucking flip flops.
I also wish we could completely ditch flip flops for proper sandals with heel support. Flip flops are unsafe (no support if you slip) and are a huge contributor to plantar fasciitis (imagine your toes trying to grab onto something for support...on every step...for MONTHS at a time!). They're fine for extremely short distances, like walking from the beach to somewhere inside, but they are a huge problem for everyday footwear!
I’ve worn flip flops daily since 2005 (yay startups that don’t care about dress code). High have no foot problems, arches are normal, my toes are strong and it helps with balance. The only time I wear socks and shoes is hiking and the gym (or fashionable shoes for going out). Retired in 2016 and started walking at least ten miles a day… in flip flops. Recently need a goal and got to a little over twenty. Ymmv
I'm using a stepping-machine in my home-office. I guess that is much like walking but doesn't require me to go out into the rain or walk on the side of dangerous freeway.
Stepping in-place is not too much fun but the act of deciding to do say 100 steps gives me a psychological jolt of feeling I can do it, I have the strength, I can do anything!
I've also started to lift my arms up and down while doing the steps, which is good exercise for my arm-muscles.
Good on you for exercising, but this is really sad. We don’t live on Mars. I hope your city / district can find a way to create pleasant outdoor spaces.
Add elevation sand modify terrain to hike, as weight to ruck. Just walking is great and there's fun weight to keep it interesting as boredom can kill habits
Walking is an excelent entry point for obese people.
Instead of killing yourself and getting immensly frustrated at the gym, it gives you incredible initial gains.
Being really out of shape is a downward spiral - the worse it gets the harder it is to perform "normal" excercises, like gym, jogging, or even bike riding. And it's really annoying, remembering how easy these were for you just few pounds earlier.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 127 ms ] threadAnd all that continuous walking gets a little faster and faster after a few months and can turn into jogging/running on it's own, except you have learned how to maintain your heart rate a bit more.
For the rest of us we probably didn’t do enough when younger.
There is a wiiiiiide space of healthy activity levels between couch potato and 100 mile per week future Olympian hopeful.
For things like walking and running the safety margins are much bigger. Then again maybe not, I had my sister who trained track in high school teach me technique before I started running more seriously.
The "no true Scotsman" of "if you got injured, you were doing it wrong by definition" didn't help.
Deadlifting can be done safely which is evinced by the many people who have done it without injuring themselves. I feel for you that you got bad advice. I do agree however that with good form, it should be difficult to injure yourself seriously deadlifting. The rub is that not everyone has the ability to self-assess and some coaches are also bad. If you are not very confident you will not hurt yourself, you absolutely should not deadlift heavy weights.
That said, I'm still 22kg down from Feb 2022 when I started, from 107kg then to under 84kg today. There is a lot of positive benefits to becoming a completely stubborn asshole with yourself when it comes to diet, regular cardio, and strength training. But I won't go near heavy deadlifts again.
Well, I've got some MRI images that disagree, sadly.
Most beginners I’ve seen do not take the 5min it takes to learn proper form. And even if they do, they lack the proprioception to know when they’re doing it right.
You really need a mirror or someone to keep you honest, preferably both, for the first few sessions. Someone needs to tell you what correct looks like on your body. It’s very hard to get right on your own if you don’t have a history of working with a coach who developed your proprioception.
I’m what you would call a grinding amateur. After 10+ years of daily workouts it takes me only a few hundred tries to do what a coach tells me. My sister has been a competitive athlete since 4 years old. It takes her 2or3 reps to perform exactly the movement a coach gives her (even in a new sport). Just because her body control is so much more developed than mine.
In any case, I'd say most barbell exercises are actually quite advanced and challenging motions to learn. Just look at how many videos there try trying to teach you "how to fix your deadlift", aimed at "experienced" lifters and athletes. The reality is that the barbell deadlift is almost unique amongst exercises in how much you are working around your equipment. You literally have to learn how to sequence your lift to make sure you don't bash the bar into your knees (body geometry dependent).
To riff on that even more (and to link back to the article) - if you were going to program in only a single lower body exercise, I'd probably pick the lunge (+dumbbells) for its relative safety, greater balance amongst muscle groups (major and stabilizing), being somewhat dynamic (especially if you step into it), being unilateral.
Being able to deadlift and squat a 45lb kettlebell should be the minimum everyone strives for.
Not disagreeing with you, I'll happily deadlift only up 25kg but it still only six months after my surgery so ...
My form was correct, as far as I know, I was looking forward, legs spread apart, back straight, etc. I lifted, and I felt a pop, and my back hurt for a week.
Afterwards, once a year or so, I'd make some small movement, like trying to lift a bag, or just misstep when walking, and my back cramped again and I couldn't move for days. Nowadays it's just permanent.
It sounds like it's pretty essential for maintaining good muscle density as I age, though.
Once the weights start getting moderately heavy and progress slows, you're better off moving to a more sustainable form of programming. (I'm a fan of the Tactical Barbell books personally.)
Injury risk comes down to doing things your body isn't prepared for through inappropriate load and fatigue management.
That said there’s a lot of evidence eccentric contraction is crucial for strength gain. But this experiment isn’t convincing alone.
Dirt paths look nicer than sidewalks anyway, so I guess we’re just going to have to tear up the streets and stroads all together, rather than trying to staple on walkability!
https://time.com/6284245/walking-barefoot-health-risks/
While some fundamentalists might go completely barefoot, I've always heard people talk about that book in terms of using light sole shoes instead of heavy shoes, not ditching protective footwear entirely. Even the subject of that book often wear thin moccasins during long distance runs.
I remember once bushwalking with a group and there was a sudden torrential rainstorm, and you could see all the little leeches sticking their heads up from the mud. By the time we got back to the van, I was the only one without a single leech on me.
I only ever had issues with cuts etc in town on the bitumen or gravel (but I suppose it could be quite dangerous in some parts of the world).
Now that's an oxymoron if I ever saw one!
Though, in a certain way, shoes can be said to be barefoot from the start: they aren't wearing any shoes themselves.
So yes, while it sounds like an oxymoron, it is actually just an industry term of art (you’ll see major companies advertise certain of their shoes as barefoot - Merrell comes to mind with their VaporGlove and Trail Glove, both of which are fantastic shoes).
The other nice thing about barefoot shoes (since I find myself in full on sales mode) is that due to the lack of padding, they last significantly longer than traditional mass market shoes. My trail runners (the Merrell’s) are in season 5 now, when my old trail shoes by Saucony lasted one season Max, and my mileage has increased substantially from when I used to wear the Saucony’s.
ps: all in all it's just another point in the fact that modern life is really mediocre
Every so often I do hit a wonky patch that I'm surprised didn't cause an injury or sprain but so far so good. That's mostly on me for combining the enjoyment of uneven terrain with an enjoyment of nighttime walks haha, but does happen during the day too now and then.
Good to hear it might be a little bit beneficial too! Yay for eccentric walking!
A little bit deadly if it's been raining but if it's dry out it's a heck of a workout going directly up/down the pictured desire path rather than following the proper path round and up. Usually I'll go up the steep and down the regular path rather than risk breaking my neck in public, that would be embarrassing.
Loads of steep but this-side-of-possible hills around the local castle ruins - built on a hill as pictured, plus where the former moat was, and plenty of hills and valleys around the immediate area :D
http://share.cohan.dev/1rRbH.jpg
I'll have to mix up the path I take around that bit to keep my brain awake and aware! Good shout!
I usually follow tractor tyre lines as it was until recently working farmland (I'd never want to damage the crops!) but it's just regular grass this year so I can walk wherever freely - I think the farmer sold the land so the council can run a road through the middle of it.. trying to get the most out of it before it's paved over and I need to find a new regular trek haha
"flat sidewalks are too flat and not enough fun to walk so lets make erratic sidewalks instead" has got to be one of the dumbest takes I've seen on HN.
https://marathonhandbook.com/retro-running-backwards/
Health is not the same as strength.
2. My opinion, nothing to do with the article, though a lot to do with the misleading title: Overall, walking for 30 mins to an hour a day is huge and will increase fitness an incredible amount over nothing. Of course, it can replace neither intensive cardio, weight lifting, or mobility work. But throw a few hills in there, and it's probably sufficient to stay healthy.
(People like doing higher-impact activity to feel like they put in the work. Which they did! But many of those health benefits could be realized with daily long walks, daily stretching, and better dietary choices, and I say this as someone who literally wrote this while eating cheesecake LOL. It was a small size though! And I track calories!)
Here's why I think walking is completely maligned.
First reason: Suburbs.
The biggest issues that I have with American suburbs is that there is nothing interesting to walk to, most of the jobs can only be reached by car and walking infrastructure outside of housing enclaves is nonexistent. So you're either walking at work (good luck if you have an office job) or making time to walk at home.
Given that the cheapest housing in most of the US is in the suburbs, this problem will only accelerate.
Second reason: HOKAs.
Walking is further compromised by massively popular footwear that is terrible for the kinetic chain.
A lot of people wear running shoes for walking. These are plushier at the expense of unwanted shock compensation at the ankles, knees, and hips.
However, minimalist footwear that exploded in popularity after Born to Run and xero on Shark Tank wasn't good either, as runners got injured like crazy trying to heel strike with shoes that are designed to prevent exactly that.
Sneakers in the 70s and 80s were low-drop and low stack. I prefer zero drop with barefoot stack (soles less than 6mm thick) but I wish we could return to those, as those are so much safer.
Third reason: Fucking flip flops.
I also wish we could completely ditch flip flops for proper sandals with heel support. Flip flops are unsafe (no support if you slip) and are a huge contributor to plantar fasciitis (imagine your toes trying to grab onto something for support...on every step...for MONTHS at a time!). They're fine for extremely short distances, like walking from the beach to somewhere inside, but they are a huge problem for everyday footwear!
(Edit: spelling)
Stepping in-place is not too much fun but the act of deciding to do say 100 steps gives me a psychological jolt of feeling I can do it, I have the strength, I can do anything!
I've also started to lift my arms up and down while doing the steps, which is good exercise for my arm-muscles.
Instead of killing yourself and getting immensly frustrated at the gym, it gives you incredible initial gains. Being really out of shape is a downward spiral - the worse it gets the harder it is to perform "normal" excercises, like gym, jogging, or even bike riding. And it's really annoying, remembering how easy these were for you just few pounds earlier.