Something that might be obvious to some but not to all: "Weightlifting" here means "resistance training" in general, which therefore includes bodyweight training, which therefore is relatively easier to get into, at least compared to the "hassle" of going to the gym.
Another distinction is that “weightlifting” typically refers to the sport of Olympic weightlifting which includes two movements - the snatch and the clean and jerk. It’s not the same as “lifting weights”.
If you mean in the sense of pulling, probably Nordic curls, although they're a pretty advanced movement.
Usually, though, pushing strength is enough for most people for their legs, so if you mean in terms of hard, difficult movements, then working your way up to pistol squats is a good goal for most people.
Barbell squats or deadlifts, squats will hit hams, quads, and glutes along with supporting muscles and spinal erectors
Deads hit mostly glutes and hams, almost no quads, but a bit more back involvement
I recommend doing both, personally
If you want bodyweight only then probably pistol squats but it's difficult to work the legs that much with just bodyweight because they already carry your body weight every day
Something that many people can do is add weights to a backpack. If you have a good backpack and you can add books/water/rocks etc you can squat with that. If the balance of the movement gets a little unwieldy, a slight heel lift block can help. Also, goblet squats with a kettlebell.
I found my pistol squats got better after a few months of just training boxing -- so I think even just hopping around and doing jump-rope is probably pretty decent exercise for your legs.
If you were only ever allowed to do one exercise, I would say the squats is the best.
It hits the big muscles. Forces you to learn balance through the range of motion. And improves flexibility.
The hormone release from training big muscles under heavy weight will echo throughout the body and help stimulate growth everywhere.
Deadlift is more fun, hits the big muscles, and you can go even heavier. But I don’t see the same benefits when I focus on a heavy deadlift cycle as compared to a heavy squat cycle.
Yes. That is totally true. You can feel the CNR stimulation deep in your soul.
I feel great on a DL cycle and my proportions make me relatively much better at deads than squats so I tend to do them more. But I also recognize that for general health and fitness squats are probably better if you were forced to choose.
I never recommend anyone do deadlifts. Deadlifts can cause back injury if not done properly. You shouldn't do deadlifts unless you are a serious lifter who is aware of proper form and paying attention to it.
The correct advice there is that you should do deadlifts and/or variations, but also for every weighted exercise, you should take the weight seriously and learn proper technique. Don't ego lift and let your form deteriorate. Done correctly it should be perfectly safe.
Personally I've found overhead pressing to be prone to to pulling my back, and only do it with a belt now.
As long as we're bringing attention to things. Pull ups on a straight bar are also pretty bad. I have a bad wrist from that and it pretty much never healed.
That sucks..I've been training pull ups for a year now. Making really slow progress. I also have wrist problems but haven't had it for years now. I had some amount of "tennis elbow".. I fixed it with some exercises and can't even remember which ones now. I think it might have been rolling my tricep and elbow on a lacrosse ball. Ever try that? You get numbness in your fingers? Could be elbow nerve..
I ride a motorcycle and play guitar as well. That might be why i have issues. I have tried a bunch of things from time to time including what you said, but never with any regularity. I might give it another shot. By the way chinups on a straight bar are fine. For pullups one of those curved bars is recommended. (Usually one bar can do both).
I don't tell anyone to deadlift unless I'm there coaching them. Even then, I'm not good enough. You should get a qualified trainer if you want to deadlift, and you should make damn sure your doing everything else right first, sleeping, stretching, eating right, etc.
The % of people who are gonna benefit from walking up to a bar and doing a deadlift right now in the West is probably something like 10%.
You think it's not a big deal until you start meeting people who seriously injured themselves..some of them have been working out for years, some just getting started.
> Deadlift is more fun, hits the big muscles, and you can go even heavier.
Since this is in the context of benefits for older people, Stuart McGill, a back expert who has helped lots of power-lifters recover from major injuries, recommends against going for higher and higher PRs as you get older:
(What's not clear to me after watching the video was if just doing moderately-heavy sets of 12 would introduce the same kind of risk he's talking about.)
ETA: The kind of injury he's talking about is decades-long cumulative bone and joint injury that only starts to be noticeable once you're 70. (Unless you're a wordl-class competitive athlete, in which case you notice a lot earlier.). Early in the video he talks about 50-year-old powerlifters coming to him, asking how they can continue to do PRs into their 60's. And he says, basically, do you want to do PRs through your 60's, or do you want to be able to get down on the ground and play with your grandkids when you're 85? Because I can help you do one or the other, but I can't help you do both.
One of the points he makes frequently in his videos is that while bones can get stronger, similar to muscles, the rest time they need to actually recover from being stressed is a lot longer; something like 7 days. And so if you're deadlifting PRs for years and years, with only 3-4 days between maxed-out sets, you're going to be accumulating micro-fractures in your vertebrae, which will eventually catch up with you.
For other people following along -- the second link is a direct response to the video I posted by someone who seems to specifically work doing strength training with older people; definitely worth watching if you want an alternate view.
The first link seems to be in response to a podcast by Andrew Huberman (sp?) about back pain, which also contains some comments about McGill in general; but nothing directly about what he says in the video I posted. People might find it interesting in its own right but not as directly relevant to the question of deadlifts in older people.
I don’t think the general wisdom is to hit those PRs week after week when you move to advanced lifting anyway. As the weight increases that becomes far too taxing on the body (which is their point). You could do waves based training like 531 that moves forwards and backwards through a 3-4 week period, only hitting a heavy set that nears your max once in that period. Unless people are talking about pushing to their ultimate limits which still usually doesn’t involve hitting PRs every week. Hitting PRs every week is a linear progression thing that people newer to lifting experience since the body is actively creating muscle and neural pathways that were somewhat deficient previously. Correct me if I’m wrong!
Yeah, in my 20's I was more aligned with the "Bulgarian method" of PR every day (on a different lift). In my 30's I focused on longer waves - a month of 8's, a month of 5's, a month of 3's and then heavy singles to a PR. Now in my 40's I keep a consistent practice of heavy-but-not crazy (focusing near always hitting a 70% or so) and then in the summer when I have all the happiness that the sun give you I start ramping up and try for heavy singles in September and if a PR is in the cards, I'll give it a try. But my goal now is to never injure myself because I know I won't come back as strong. Consistency, longevity, and keeping muscle mass is my #1 goal and I don't never let my ego jeopardize that.
Ha! Yeah, he’s not wrong. But you do need to keep in mind that his main audience is 18 year old boys with tons of T running through their veins. Us old guys need to make adjustments to his plans.
Consider burpees alongside squats. Bodyweight exercises for lower body benefit from some 'explosive' motion. There's no true equivalent to the pull-up, because your legs routinely carry your body's weight, whereas your arms do not.
See a physio or a trainer to do it right, but in general explosive or percussive movements are supposed to be good for knees. People used to think that jogging was terrible for knees, for instance, but now the consensus seems to be the opposite.
Starting slow and doing good form squats and slow burpees could improve your knee health to the point where you can do regular-tempo burpees. However, don't get medical advice from internet forums.
If you really mean "pullups" for legs and not just leg training in general, then not much comes into mind aside from leg curls or, as someone else mentioned, Nordic curls. I think the Nordic curls is the only one relatively achievable at home with minimal equipment.
At the risk of stating the obvious, everything done single-leg is equivalent to an overload of 100% of your bodyweight, along with recruiting more stabilizers.
It's possible to move from an easier form (simple squat) to a harder one by progressively shifting weight on one leg at a time.
I don't think bodyweight training is relatively easier get into neither to perform.
I really enjoy bodyweight movements and I include them in my routine, mainly splits squats, pushups, pull ups and abs, but I still think one of the best things you can do to yourself is trying to get over what you call "hassle of going to the gym".
If done properly, the gym will teach you periodization and allow you to:
- practice different repetition patterns
- you can't perform useful 6's, 10's and 15's if you can't change the (body)weight variable
- you can't perform useful < 15reps (for strength or hypertrophy) if you can do 100 repetitions of it (like abs or pushups)
- want to work the delts? Just get into a rack and press the bar up, get a minimum weight dumbbell and do some raises, facepull a rope. Now try it in bodyweight movements.
- form a habit (you have to go to the gym, if you hate exercises, being at home will just be a "I will a do pushup and it's over).
It's always about preferences, but honestly, I find that creating and maintaining a bodyweight workout routine will always be harder and a last-case option compared to the gym.
Is more always better? If your routine is maintenance focused and you can do 100 crunches and pull-up and pushups and body weight squats, wouldn’t you be getting most of the brain-health benefits or do they only come by getting stronger and stronger and stronger? Are there not diminishing returns?
>If done properly, the gym will teach you periodization and allow you to: - practice different repetition patterns
Does periodization even matter? Professional fighters are some of the fittest athletes on the planet, functionally and aesthetically, and they aren't worried about weightlifting routines (if they lift weights at all).
Most professional athletes including fighters lift weights or use machines.
If you want to add power to some movement then practicing it repeatedly at full force can work. But you run into repetitive strain injuries, it’s much safer to build power using weights and controlled movements.
Critically these are very focused workouts. A professional wants to build strength in very specific ways as unnecessary bulk is actively harmful in most sports.
The only athletes I can think of that don’t do a lot of weightlifting (in the general sense) are endurance runners and even then it’s on a case by case basis.
I worked for the Blackzillians and American Top Team UFC teams and I can assure GP that they absolutely do a lot of weightlifting. They don’t worry about routines because that’s what their coaches are for. They track their fighters and automatically adjust the training program when they stall.
I think the point is that a regular body weight routine is harder than using weights. If you're sedentary, doing a push-up is like starting out with bench presses that are more than half your bodyweight, finding an inclined surface to do push-ups against is not always possible, and using your knees can be painful, whereas if you're in a gym you can go bench press the 20kg bar or lighter dumbbells and know exactly how much weight you're using each session. Doing a chin-up on a tree in the park means you can't grab an assisted pull up band or use a machine to help you, so you're stuck trying to scramble up the tree with your feet + use bad sideways technique then lower yourself down slowly, which is risking injury.
These concerns are especially relevant for the elderly.
By the same token, a lot of sedentary people with no lifting experience might be intimidated by the idea of going to a gym, and the cost and even just the step of getting to a gym are additional barriers they have to overcome.
Getting started with a body weight routine or simple bands or kettle bell setup at home has huge advantages.
Just a note that swinging kettle bells, à la the simple and sinister book caused medial epicondylitis for me (buggered up the tendons in both my elbows). This is taking a long time to heal and limiting options on other exercises I can do that involve even a moderate grip.
My recommendation would be to rent a rowing machine and try that first.
Both options will require some research to tailor fit which progression level works best for an individual. Taking push-ups vs bench presses as an example, knowing that one can start with either wall push-ups or an empty barbell, I reckon the wall push-ups has much less friction than the other.
To each their own, of course, but there are lots of ways to modify bodyweight exercises to accommodate even the most sedentary. I wouldn't exercise half as much if I had to go to the gym. It's less convenient for my WFH lifestyle and more expensive.
Edit: I should also say that I use weights like dumbbells and kettlebells at home. Not needed to start out, but very helpful.
As with anything about health, a workout routine is always individualised, not just to the person's specific situation but also for the person's goals.
What you illustrated here is perfect for someone who's seriously looking into improving not just their general health but also their strength and, sometimes we have difficulty admitting, their looks. But for the purposes of breaking a sedentary lifestyle and get into a level of general fitness, basic bodyweight exercises is a good start.
When I started working from home full-time in the summer of 2019, I worried about my health because even though I was not working out in my last job, it forced me to walk and climb eight flights of stairs every day. Know what I started with to make sure I don't become sedentary? Just 10 push-ups a day, which then became 10 push-ups every 2 hours after a week. Then I added some squats, then some lunges, and so on and so forth.
Fast forward to 5 years later today, I either go to the gym, where I experience what you expounded on, or play basketball by myself every day. Just last March, I've set a deadlift PR of lifting about 25% more than my bodyweight.
And I attribute all of these progress to that simple "10 push-ups a day" in 2019.
For me, that hassle is essential. It allows me to get into a dedicated workout mindset that I cannot get at home or in neutral locations; I keep it up for one or two or five days, then it fades away. With the gym, I have this dedicated physical location for workouts.
>at least compared to the "hassle" of going to the gym.
Even a small set of weights-in-a-box, or adjustable dumbells, are fantastic supplements to bodyweight exercise. 90% of the population don't need anything else to get fit, and you can do it in your bedroom.
You can do so much with just a couple dumbbells and an exercise mat. This got me through the early pandemic when my regular gym shut down: https://darebee.com/workouts.html
And let's not forget - bands. Very versatile. They saved me during early COVID. But if I were - unwilling to gym it - I'd buy a few bands and use them for all sorts of push and pull exercises as well as mobility, stretching. Highly recommend.
Very subjective opinion: there's something special about deadlift methinks. I used to be an runner and doing all kinds of sports. My health went low, and there's a particular sensation about finally being able to carry more than your own weight off the ground and stand up. No other workout exercises give this (pushups, planks, situps, pullups, you name it) It's probably a very primitve neural pathway and balancing need.. I don't know.
I don't remember my numbers from the last time I tried but I think my squat was higher. I naturally have "soccer player" thighs and lady wrists. I guess I should ride a bike or something :).
Squats and deadlifts are the most effective exercises for strength training, as they involve a large amount of muscle mass, and therefore allow you to lift heavy weights.
I started doing Stronglifts 5x5 (very simple to follow and can be done totally free with the app or spreadsheet) and six months in I can’t believe how much stronger I’ve become. I haven’t noticed a huge difference visually so my poor ego is the only thing suffering.
Increases in strength usually go hand-in-hand with increases in bodyweight. I did Starting Strength, and gained 10kg in a few weeks. Some of it was fat obviously, but mostly it was muscle. Even though I didn't perceive myself much different everyone else did notice. Also I had to buy new clothes.
On a somewhat prominent /fit/ness forum, they consider the pinnacle of lifting to be 4/3/2/1 plates for the big 4 lifts. The bar is 45 lb. Each plate is 45 lb. This equates to
405 lbs for deadlift
315 lbs for squat
225 lbs for bench press
135 lbs for overhead press
If you can do these weights for these exercises, you are in the top 1% for strength.
I used to due weightless squats and for some reason I'd say they don't trigger the same feeling. Maybe it's the added weight, maybe it's the arm involvement and posture.
It's because it literally targets your whole body. The weight is pulling down your arms, which itself is pulling down your back and shoulders. And since you are carrying the weight, it's putting compressive forces on your legs via gravity. Even your neck muscles will hurt if you position your head the wrong way. XD
One of my personal best gym moments is when I deadlifted about 25% more than my bodyweight, which I was not able to repeat since.
Some weeks you'll have the right combo, some weeks you won't. But my general approach is to work toward a PR of some sort every 6 weeks or so. I don't always get there, but, I keep trying!
Is that a goal of yours to hit or exceed that? I’m nearing 3x my bodyweight in DL which I attribute to simply following a program that starts with linear progression then moves to more wave based strength training like 531. I can share more if you’re interested, but it depends on your goals.
Appreciate the offer! I'm actually just lifting for health right now, so most of my goals are to "lift heavier than last week" XD My only specific goal right now is to do more than one slow and proper pull-up. That DL PR, by the way, was also done raw (no straps or belts), so I was thinking I can do more when I do it with straps (or Versa Gripps) later after my tennis elbow heals.
I'd avoid straps or belts until you're at least around ~400lb so you develop your grip and core strength. If you think you need a belt, you could try lifting with a trap (hex bar). That's what I switched to recently and it's more comfortable as someone tall and turning 40.
I've been working out kind of regularly for almost 2 years but I had never done deaflifts. Last couple of weeks I've incorporated them, and yeah, I agree with you. I guess it also feels like a very useful movement outside of the gym as well, and you have to concentrate on your whole body. It feels awesome.
It has easily become my favorite exercise, specially because I could start from my bodyweight, now it's up to 1.3 times. So I really recommend it if you didn't do those before
yeah there's an utility aspect, and everyday you benefit from having strong legs and core stability.
i'm trying to expand to new exercises that train this aspect, any kind of weight manipulation (similar to grocery bags or moving furniture up and down)
I despise the gym. I "lift" heavy weights with a premium, portable resistance band set. You can load it to over 400 pounds of force and do dead lifts and squats.
> which therefore is relatively easier to get into, at least compared to the "hassle" of going to the gym.
I can finish a workout in less time than I would spend driving to and from a gym. Putting hassle in scare quotes doesn't actually dismiss the massively higher friction involved.
I had to put them in quotes because some don't really see it as a hassle... And it also depends on the situation. I for one live 500 meters away from a gym, so that takes away a lot of the normal friction. :-)
This feels rather blogspamish. The numerous benefits of weightlifting are widely known and this article doesn't add any new insights or interesting takes.
It's worth reading to the end to catch an important note about overtraining/lifting too heavy.
Gym/weightlifting culture has an unsurprising amount of 'macho' nonsense attached to it. An example might be doing deadlifts with a traditional barbell vs a hex bar. The latter is a safer lift, because it involves less shearing forces on your spine and the more natural hand positioning. You get most of the benefits, with less risk, but it isn't the traditional lift, so it's looked down on.
If there was a pill that provided all the scientifically proven health benefits of exercise - from life extension to mental health improvements to being more physically attractive to improved immune system and on and on - every single person would take it, and it would be the discovery of the century.
But require physical exertion and effort to do actual exercise, and alas, suddenly people choose to ignore this amazing drug.
I go to the gym more than once a week and have been for years. It is a massive effort and trade-off and no fun at all, and I can definitely see how one might very reasonably choose to live as a blob instead.
No fun at all?? My wife used to feel that way, but she made a couple of changes that have totally reversed her feelings to the point where she genuinely looks forward to going to the gym:
- work out with friend(s)
- start tracking your progress. It’s fun to see growth!
Surprised at this. I love the gym, its the only place I can go and just turn off the rest of the world. Everything goes away. Its just me and the weights. If I fail or succeed, its all on me. Headphones on, music up.
I set myself goals at the gym and then just work towards beating them, my only competition is me.
Used to go religiously before I had kids and then once I had them, stopped going for probably 10 years. Started again a couple years ago and my entire demeanor has changed. I'm calmer, and better able to deal with the stress of life. Nice thing is your body remembers and my strength came back quickly, I'm 45 and the strongest I have ever been.
I feel like myself again. Makes me a better father and husband.
I feel that way about running - I really don't enjoy it at all, but I do it all the same, and there is obviously health benefit and satisfaction from having made yourself do this thing which is good for you (maybe esp. if you have a motivating goal such as weight loss).
I actually enjoy weights - nowadays I just use dumbbells + incline bench at home (basically too cheap to pay for gym membership), but I used to enjoy the satisfaction of progression going to the gym to extent that I used to weight train every day.
I mean, you're effectively saying if things require less time and effort while providing the same benefit then more people will do them. Surely this isn't surprising?
IMHO the benefits are closely related to very fact that it's a hard thing to do. It's hard to go against your will to eat, relax and get entertained all the time. To be able to go against laziness and short term gratification is a power. It naturally reflects on the whole self.
As western society skews older and resistance training becomes even more common as a means to combat the effects of aging, I wonder if more people will adopt creatine as an essential supplement? Combined with weight training, the benefits seem easily worth the relatively low costs (creatine is about as cheap as supplements get). It's very beneficial for older adults:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21394604/
Anecdotally, both my parents are in their 70s and I've finally managed to get them to take creatine (along with regular resistance training in the gym)...the results are really incredible. Both have noticeably improved their functional strength and my mom in particular has had a bit of a transformation. A lot of women don't like creatine (water bloat is generally a much bigger drawback for women than men) but at my mom's age she doesn't care and has really taken to it.
Haven't even considered mental benefits of their training frankly but in retrospect it seems obvious as well.
If you have elderly people in your life: encourage them to take up resistance training...the benefits are undeniable. And just as a bit of lagniappe once you do that, you might also convince them to try creatine.
Ha yes but in context here the elderly are generally less worried about that :)
But for "the rest of us" yes...maybe the closest thing to a consensus out there is if you're sensitive to DHT and have experienced hair loss (common male pattern baldness) creatine could possibly impact you. The effect isn't even universally acknowledged to exist so it seems safe to assume it's minor enough that if you're treating DHT hair loss (finasteride) already it wouldn't impact you.
Just to add from personal experience: creatine is a pain to disolve in water and drink as per the usual instructions on the packaging, but very easy to add to meals when cooking.
Sorry for the late reply...don't check HN on weekends...No he's not. I assume that requires Dr. consultation and hasn't been done. Not sure how that works for someone his age honestly...no doubt it would be positive in some aspects but he has heart issues (AFib) so maybe that's a factor?
I feel like AI healthcare is probably where we will see the largest benefit in the long term. Being able to analyze a large amount of the chemical interactions in the human body, and correlating those interactions to the emergence of disease and disorder seems like a good fit for the technology.
And this is coming from someone who's more skeptical of AIs incoming dominance.
With your body or with fixed weights, you can still progressively push the muscles harder and harder by simply increasing the duration and the frequency of the sets.
The article even states that the benefits don’t require heavy weights, that even light weights will do. This suggests that actually using weights is not so important.
Not a lot of info in here. And no, whoever wrote the title, the results are not surprising.
"Resistance training is linked to boosted brain health, especially in the elderly.
Lifting weights helps balance metabolism, which may reduce Alzheimer's risk.
Regular weightlifting may improve immune health and lower inflammation."
These are all things that other types of exercise also tend to provide. I think it's probably getting too granular to say a specific type of exercise is best. There are tons of studies out there touting one exercise type over another for one reason or another. Moderation and variation doesn't just apply to food (although with food you're generally moderating down, but with exercise most people need to moderate up).
There's also walking which is like weightlifting for your legs. I got a dog after my dad passed away. I've been taking her with my elderly mother for 3km 50 minute walks everyday for over a year now. The exercise has helped my mother lose 20+ lbs and the conversation, sunshine and contact witn nature has helped with mood as well.
I do go to the gym to lift weights, but while it grows muscles also increases my overall appetite and body mass. Not really sure if that's a net benefit for my heart, probably not. Intuitivly Maintaining extra weight is probably not healthy for you even if it's muscle, beyond a certain point.
But walking is free and fun, and humans have been doing it a lot more for all our existence
When I incorporated creatine into my morning routine, after just a week, I felt like a teenager again when exercising. It was a great motivator to continue to push myself, and I still haven't stopped seeing and feeling the impact.
Feeling more capable has driven me to do quite a few uncharacteristic things, lately. I'm not sure this counts as a direct benefit on brain health, but I've been made happier by it.
We always hear about the benefits, but never the etiology. One theory suggested here is insulin sensitivity of muscle mass. Here is another. Leg muscles help to pump blood to your brain. You can actually die from being suspended vertically in a harness with blood pooling in the legs and nothing to push against. Either way, I’d suspect that strengthening the legs captures the bulk of the effect.
So they need a control group of sedentary people who lie in bed all day or own one of those futuristic fully reclining workstations with displays and peripherals that tilt with you.
I know it's liability hell in the west, but I wish we have more junk yard weightlifting playgrounds. There a lot of cheap small resistence cable machines. Would be nice to have bunch of them in a pull up jungle gym in every park.
I think the reason people respond to weights is simply because exercise generally confers benefit but for people who aren’t yet fit cardiovascular exercise is impossible. Weights allow you to move and be active without overstressing your heart. They are a great gateway to general health. However getting regular exercise running, swimming or rowing isn’t possible for most unfit older people.
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[ 0.20 ms ] story [ 232 ms ] thread1. Bodyweight: where you lift your body: squats, pushups, etc.
2. Elastic bands: like those used in pilates
3. Weights: like dumbbells and barbells
4. Machines: like the ones in gyms.
Usually, though, pushing strength is enough for most people for their legs, so if you mean in terms of hard, difficult movements, then working your way up to pistol squats is a good goal for most people.
Deads hit mostly glutes and hams, almost no quads, but a bit more back involvement
I recommend doing both, personally
If you want bodyweight only then probably pistol squats but it's difficult to work the legs that much with just bodyweight because they already carry your body weight every day
If you were only ever allowed to do one exercise, I would say the squats is the best.
It hits the big muscles. Forces you to learn balance through the range of motion. And improves flexibility.
The hormone release from training big muscles under heavy weight will echo throughout the body and help stimulate growth everywhere.
Deadlift is more fun, hits the big muscles, and you can go even heavier. But I don’t see the same benefits when I focus on a heavy deadlift cycle as compared to a heavy squat cycle.
The CNR fatigue really helps with getting to sleep and I feel better the following week(s).
I feel great on a DL cycle and my proportions make me relatively much better at deads than squats so I tend to do them more. But I also recognize that for general health and fitness squats are probably better if you were forced to choose.
Personally I've found overhead pressing to be prone to to pulling my back, and only do it with a belt now.
I don't tell anyone to deadlift unless I'm there coaching them. Even then, I'm not good enough. You should get a qualified trainer if you want to deadlift, and you should make damn sure your doing everything else right first, sleeping, stretching, eating right, etc.
The % of people who are gonna benefit from walking up to a bar and doing a deadlift right now in the West is probably something like 10%.
You think it's not a big deal until you start meeting people who seriously injured themselves..some of them have been working out for years, some just getting started.
Since this is in the context of benefits for older people, Stuart McGill, a back expert who has helped lots of power-lifters recover from major injuries, recommends against going for higher and higher PRs as you get older:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tM599A6wUAw&pp=ygUXaXMgZGVhZ...
(What's not clear to me after watching the video was if just doing moderately-heavy sets of 12 would introduce the same kind of risk he's talking about.)
ETA: The kind of injury he's talking about is decades-long cumulative bone and joint injury that only starts to be noticeable once you're 70. (Unless you're a wordl-class competitive athlete, in which case you notice a lot earlier.). Early in the video he talks about 50-year-old powerlifters coming to him, asking how they can continue to do PRs into their 60's. And he says, basically, do you want to do PRs through your 60's, or do you want to be able to get down on the ground and play with your grandkids when you're 85? Because I can help you do one or the other, but I can't help you do both.
One of the points he makes frequently in his videos is that while bones can get stronger, similar to muscles, the rest time they need to actually recover from being stressed is a lot longer; something like 7 days. And so if you're deadlifting PRs for years and years, with only 3-4 days between maxed-out sets, you're going to be accumulating micro-fractures in your vertebrae, which will eventually catch up with you.
Anyway, def worth the watch.
Drs. Baraki and Feigenbaum's (from Barbell Medicine) response: https://player.fm/series/barbell-medicine-podcast/episode-29...
Jonathon Sullivan's response (author of The Barbell Prescription): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O491cW89Ky8
The first link seems to be in response to a podcast by Andrew Huberman (sp?) about back pain, which also contains some comments about McGill in general; but nothing directly about what he says in the video I posted. People might find it interesting in its own right but not as directly relevant to the question of deadlifts in older people.
If anyone is interested in learning about weight lifting, Starting Strength (by Mark Rippetoe) is a GREAT book to start with!
Starting slow and doing good form squats and slow burpees could improve your knee health to the point where you can do regular-tempo burpees. However, don't get medical advice from internet forums.
The only exception is low-bar/leg disability, then I think it might be better to keep it bodyweight and machine oriented (such as leg press).
It does require a bicycle (and shoes/straps), but a bike isn't usually considered gym equipment, and it's heavily involved with your body weight.
It's possible to move from an easier form (simple squat) to a harder one by progressively shifting weight on one leg at a time.
If you have a good 40m to run, then I would also do interval sprints.
I really enjoy bodyweight movements and I include them in my routine, mainly splits squats, pushups, pull ups and abs, but I still think one of the best things you can do to yourself is trying to get over what you call "hassle of going to the gym".
If done properly, the gym will teach you periodization and allow you to: - practice different repetition patterns - you can't perform useful 6's, 10's and 15's if you can't change the (body)weight variable - you can't perform useful < 15reps (for strength or hypertrophy) if you can do 100 repetitions of it (like abs or pushups) - want to work the delts? Just get into a rack and press the bar up, get a minimum weight dumbbell and do some raises, facepull a rope. Now try it in bodyweight movements. - form a habit (you have to go to the gym, if you hate exercises, being at home will just be a "I will a do pushup and it's over).
It's always about preferences, but honestly, I find that creating and maintaining a bodyweight workout routine will always be harder and a last-case option compared to the gym.
Does periodization even matter? Professional fighters are some of the fittest athletes on the planet, functionally and aesthetically, and they aren't worried about weightlifting routines (if they lift weights at all).
If you want to add power to some movement then practicing it repeatedly at full force can work. But you run into repetitive strain injuries, it’s much safer to build power using weights and controlled movements.
Critically these are very focused workouts. A professional wants to build strength in very specific ways as unnecessary bulk is actively harmful in most sports.
I worked for the Blackzillians and American Top Team UFC teams and I can assure GP that they absolutely do a lot of weightlifting. They don’t worry about routines because that’s what their coaches are for. They track their fighters and automatically adjust the training program when they stall.
I know for a fact this isn't true. I know high-level amateur fighters (ie aspiring pros) who don't lift any weights.
These concerns are especially relevant for the elderly.
Getting started with a body weight routine or simple bands or kettle bell setup at home has huge advantages.
My recommendation would be to rent a rowing machine and try that first.
Edit: I should also say that I use weights like dumbbells and kettlebells at home. Not needed to start out, but very helpful.
What you illustrated here is perfect for someone who's seriously looking into improving not just their general health but also their strength and, sometimes we have difficulty admitting, their looks. But for the purposes of breaking a sedentary lifestyle and get into a level of general fitness, basic bodyweight exercises is a good start.
When I started working from home full-time in the summer of 2019, I worried about my health because even though I was not working out in my last job, it forced me to walk and climb eight flights of stairs every day. Know what I started with to make sure I don't become sedentary? Just 10 push-ups a day, which then became 10 push-ups every 2 hours after a week. Then I added some squats, then some lunges, and so on and so forth.
Fast forward to 5 years later today, I either go to the gym, where I experience what you expounded on, or play basketball by myself every day. Just last March, I've set a deadlift PR of lifting about 25% more than my bodyweight.
And I attribute all of these progress to that simple "10 push-ups a day" in 2019.
Even a small set of weights-in-a-box, or adjustable dumbells, are fantastic supplements to bodyweight exercise. 90% of the population don't need anything else to get fit, and you can do it in your bedroom.
405 lbs for deadlift
315 lbs for squat
225 lbs for bench press
135 lbs for overhead press
If you can do these weights for these exercises, you are in the top 1% for strength.
Although with that said 225lb for bench is not that much for a man who lifts but most people likely don't lift. Its probably top 0.01% for women.
One of my personal best gym moments is when I deadlifted about 25% more than my bodyweight, which I was not able to repeat since.
Some weeks you'll have the right combo, some weeks you won't. But my general approach is to work toward a PR of some sort every 6 weeks or so. I don't always get there, but, I keep trying!
It has easily become my favorite exercise, specially because I could start from my bodyweight, now it's up to 1.3 times. So I really recommend it if you didn't do those before
i'm trying to expand to new exercises that train this aspect, any kind of weight manipulation (similar to grocery bags or moving furniture up and down)
I can finish a workout in less time than I would spend driving to and from a gym. Putting hassle in scare quotes doesn't actually dismiss the massively higher friction involved.
lot of people on HN i'm sure like me, sit at desk all day.
good to be reminded to get up and workout.
This is the referenced study, I was impressed with the results. 12.6% is notable!
[0] https://www.sciencefriday.com/articles/the-bodybuilder-olive...
Gym/weightlifting culture has an unsurprising amount of 'macho' nonsense attached to it. An example might be doing deadlifts with a traditional barbell vs a hex bar. The latter is a safer lift, because it involves less shearing forces on your spine and the more natural hand positioning. You get most of the benefits, with less risk, but it isn't the traditional lift, so it's looked down on.
But require physical exertion and effort to do actual exercise, and alas, suddenly people choose to ignore this amazing drug.
- work out with friend(s)
- start tracking your progress. It’s fun to see growth!
TL;DR - Bring a buddy. :)
I set myself goals at the gym and then just work towards beating them, my only competition is me.
Used to go religiously before I had kids and then once I had them, stopped going for probably 10 years. Started again a couple years ago and my entire demeanor has changed. I'm calmer, and better able to deal with the stress of life. Nice thing is your body remembers and my strength came back quickly, I'm 45 and the strongest I have ever been.
I feel like myself again. Makes me a better father and husband.
He is not wrong.
I actually enjoy weights - nowadays I just use dumbbells + incline bench at home (basically too cheap to pay for gym membership), but I used to enjoy the satisfaction of progression going to the gym to extent that I used to weight train every day.
As western society skews older and resistance training becomes even more common as a means to combat the effects of aging, I wonder if more people will adopt creatine as an essential supplement? Combined with weight training, the benefits seem easily worth the relatively low costs (creatine is about as cheap as supplements get). It's very beneficial for older adults: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21394604/
Anecdotally, both my parents are in their 70s and I've finally managed to get them to take creatine (along with regular resistance training in the gym)...the results are really incredible. Both have noticeably improved their functional strength and my mom in particular has had a bit of a transformation. A lot of women don't like creatine (water bloat is generally a much bigger drawback for women than men) but at my mom's age she doesn't care and has really taken to it.
Haven't even considered mental benefits of their training frankly but in retrospect it seems obvious as well.
If you have elderly people in your life: encourage them to take up resistance training...the benefits are undeniable. And just as a bit of lagniappe once you do that, you might also convince them to try creatine.
But for "the rest of us" yes...maybe the closest thing to a consensus out there is if you're sensitive to DHT and have experienced hair loss (common male pattern baldness) creatine could possibly impact you. The effect isn't even universally acknowledged to exist so it seems safe to assume it's minor enough that if you're treating DHT hair loss (finasteride) already it wouldn't impact you.
It's also available in pill form of course but that quickly gets expensive.
Stir and swallow / chew :)
I have an aging FIL and curious about the effect of it on someone starting in their early - mid 70's
Anecdotal only of course, would obviously consult a Dr.
I've been on it for a few years now and the results have been pretty great.
And this is coming from someone who's more skeptical of AIs incoming dominance.
The article even states that the benefits don’t require heavy weights, that even light weights will do. This suggests that actually using weights is not so important.
"Resistance training is linked to boosted brain health, especially in the elderly.
Lifting weights helps balance metabolism, which may reduce Alzheimer's risk.
Regular weightlifting may improve immune health and lower inflammation."
These are all things that other types of exercise also tend to provide. I think it's probably getting too granular to say a specific type of exercise is best. There are tons of studies out there touting one exercise type over another for one reason or another. Moderation and variation doesn't just apply to food (although with food you're generally moderating down, but with exercise most people need to moderate up).
Feeling more capable has driven me to do quite a few uncharacteristic things, lately. I'm not sure this counts as a direct benefit on brain health, but I've been made happier by it.