> that's about 8,500 hours of exercise, or about a year of solid physical activity
These comparisons are crap. You can‘t simply take one year, exercise 24/7, and get your 10 years of life.
You have to fit it into life, which is much more time than it seems from claiming it‘s 1 year out of 80.
> We know from one study that people who played tennis a few times per week lived roughly 10 years longer than average. So we'll use that value going forward.
There has to be some incredible correlation between having the time and money to play tennis “a few times per week” and being significantly wealthier than the average person. And being wealthy is clearly the healthiest thing you can do.
If you’re struggling with exercise and with getting it into a routine, I can’t recommend standalone, wireless VR enough. It was fun and engaging enough to keep me coming back without feeling that I was doing a boring chore, and nearly every game has you moving, with the exception of the flying and driving sims.
Imagine fighting ninjas and dodging bullets as your workout. You can literally get that and more with VR.
100%. There’s no point in nitpicking on this post. There’s an outsized return on exercise and it’s measurable. People don’t get — especially young people — that exercise is like eating, sleeping, and pooping. Your body needs it in regular intervals otherwise its carefully balanced system goes out of whack.
I set up a treadmill desk during the pandemic. It has definitely improved my focus and concentration. The book In Praise of Walking has a lot of the science behind why.
Physical activity increases lifespan primarily by lowering the likelihood of falling and breaking your hip. If you break your hip, your life expectancy is dramatically reduced. If that's your goal, just train your legs!
That said, I think the most important part of exercising is the mental boost it provides. It's like a healthy drug. There are no negative side effects, and it's highly praised by society.
Exercising and building muscles when you're young is the very best thing you can do. These muscles shall stay for a very, very, very long time.
As a kid I was doing BMX, tennis (still do some), swimming then as a teenager street skateboarding, rollerskating, MX (motor)bike, tennis.
Now I'm an old man (52 y/o) and I don't do much sport. Some MTBing (still can do a wheelie and trackstand, ah!) but really not much. I drive my old sportcar (yup, that is physical and you do sweat). Some tennis while on vacation. And shooting at the range (and, yup, that is a bit physical too).
But I really don't do much. I'm of this school: "Qui veut voyager loin ménage sa monture" (french) which translates to "He who wants to travel far takes care of his mount.".
The number of friends my age who destroyed their bodies by continuing to exercise as if they were 20 or 30 years old is beyond belief. I think I'm one of the only one who didn't get knee surgery yet.
Running is terribly bad as you get older. Hockey (ice or grass): body destroyer. BJJ? Don't get me even started.
My doctor says "sport is death". He knows.
Tennis is particular in that you can really play it at your own pace: just pick someone your age and hit the court gently. No crazy rallies, just fun: I'm not going to win Roland-Garros at 52 y/o and you ain't either.
And there's something else among all of my friends who regularly do sport: as soon as they stop for a few weeks, they get fat.
Which is a problem I don't have.
So exercising a lot in your teens, 20s and 30s: sure. That shall build you muscle you'll keep for decades (my legs are still very strong).
But slow down after that or you'll break your body and then get fat as soon as you have to stop exercising (for example because you have to get knee surgery because you destroyed your knees running).
Something something about Buddha / Siddhartha warning to not put too much tension in a lute's strings or in a bow's string. There's a lesson in there.
You have your age, deal with it and act accordingly.
The mental toughness, discipline, and higher energy levels that come with exercise are more important to me than physical appearance or living longer, and at this point almost anything else in life.
Wake up at 4am, run hill repeats for miles and then go into work. I guarantee no incident or colleague will trigger a stress response. You will feel as cool as a cucumber and when an urgent issue does come up you will handle it with absolute mental clarity. That afternoon drowsiness will also not hit you at all, counterintuitive right?
By 9pm you will fall asleep no matter what happened that day.
This kind of work gives you an edge on everyone. You look at things and say, “shit this is easy compared to what I did this morning” and you will feel mentally fresh.
As you age, you will lose lean muscle and bone density. But you do have some control in maintaining a healthy level of strength for your elder years.
You can maintain strength and density by engaging in resistance training.
The total amount of training required is up for debate. I follow Dr. Peter Attia and he discusses needing about 1 hr a week of resistance training.
The other aspect of maintaining strength is protein intake. Dr. Attia describes it as a “chore”, that is to consume 1g of protein supplement for each pound of body mass. That’s a lot!
Think about your future, do you want to be strong and mobile into your later years? I see older unhealthy people walking the streets and don’t envisage myself letting that happen.
You must take good care of yourself and put in the time to exercise and eat properly.
To me, exercise is compounding in action. Each workout may feel small in isolation, but like interest accruing, the benefits multiply invisibly over years. Extra vitality today, resilience tomorrow, and ultimately, more time across decades.
I hated exercise. Still do. People talk about a glow or a good feeling after exercise. My SO does too. I never felt it.
Until I dieted down to being 'at weight' not overweight. Only then did it feel good to exercise, and only then after I exercised. The act itself is still a terrible experience.
I've put on weight again and, yep, I hate exercise now. But now I know there is a light at the end of the dieting and weightless tunnel. Without the experimental results, I would never have known.
So, its not that I don't trust the science here, I mean, how can I refute it? It's just that my lived experience says that I'm a freak and I'm sitting out on the end of some bell curve or whatever. I know that it got a high ROI, that's why I did these weight loss experiments in the first place. It's just that for some reason, my body and mind hate exercise until I get down to healthy levels.
Correlation is not causation. All credibility is lost for this guy, in my view.
> We know from one study that people who played tennis a few times per week lived roughly 10 years longer than average. So we'll use that value going forward.
This is the study [0]. The study itself, in the conclusions, states that:
"Conclusion: Various sports are associated with markedly different improvements in life expectancy. Because this is an observational study, it remains uncertain whether this relationship is causal."
Advising people to exercise doesn't work and doesn't scale. Gyms are for people who have plenty of intrinsic motivation and money and time.
To improve physical activity at the population scale and over a lifetime, it literally has to be built into the design of the cities, so people get enough exercise while walking to work or grabbing groceries.
Despite decades of being told about the benefits of exercise, I had absolutely no idea what the actual time investment looked like to go from unfit to fit.
I couldn't put a number on it, and part of me assumed it must be enormous otherwise, why wouldn't anyone just say the number?
Then I discovered Couch to 5K: 30 minutes, 3 times a week. A concrete, achievable number that delivered (to me) mind blowing results.
How could it be so low? How could i not know this? How is anyone walking around ignorant (as i was) of this?
How would people cope with the demand that we need to spend increasingly more time exercising when we age? Mobility, strength, Vo2Max, power, endurance. It takes a long time to cover these five areas, and more if we desire to cover all the muscle groups.
Doesn’t have kids, other caring responsibilities or chronic illnesses (that they declare) therefore everyone should do what they do and are just doing life wrong. Okay.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 41.4 ms ] threadIs there anything to back this up? The people I know who work out are always complaining about their muscles and joints.
These comparisons are crap. You can‘t simply take one year, exercise 24/7, and get your 10 years of life. You have to fit it into life, which is much more time than it seems from claiming it‘s 1 year out of 80.
But it‘s still a good investment! :)
There has to be some incredible correlation between having the time and money to play tennis “a few times per week” and being significantly wealthier than the average person. And being wealthy is clearly the healthiest thing you can do.
Imagine fighting ninjas and dodging bullets as your workout. You can literally get that and more with VR.
It was my gateway back into fitness.
That said, I think the most important part of exercising is the mental boost it provides. It's like a healthy drug. There are no negative side effects, and it's highly praised by society.
As a kid I was doing BMX, tennis (still do some), swimming then as a teenager street skateboarding, rollerskating, MX (motor)bike, tennis.
Now I'm an old man (52 y/o) and I don't do much sport. Some MTBing (still can do a wheelie and trackstand, ah!) but really not much. I drive my old sportcar (yup, that is physical and you do sweat). Some tennis while on vacation. And shooting at the range (and, yup, that is a bit physical too).
But I really don't do much. I'm of this school: "Qui veut voyager loin ménage sa monture" (french) which translates to "He who wants to travel far takes care of his mount.".
The number of friends my age who destroyed their bodies by continuing to exercise as if they were 20 or 30 years old is beyond belief. I think I'm one of the only one who didn't get knee surgery yet.
Running is terribly bad as you get older. Hockey (ice or grass): body destroyer. BJJ? Don't get me even started.
My doctor says "sport is death". He knows.
Tennis is particular in that you can really play it at your own pace: just pick someone your age and hit the court gently. No crazy rallies, just fun: I'm not going to win Roland-Garros at 52 y/o and you ain't either.
And there's something else among all of my friends who regularly do sport: as soon as they stop for a few weeks, they get fat.
Which is a problem I don't have.
So exercising a lot in your teens, 20s and 30s: sure. That shall build you muscle you'll keep for decades (my legs are still very strong).
But slow down after that or you'll break your body and then get fat as soon as you have to stop exercising (for example because you have to get knee surgery because you destroyed your knees running).
Something something about Buddha / Siddhartha warning to not put too much tension in a lute's strings or in a bow's string. There's a lesson in there.
You have your age, deal with it and act accordingly.
Wake up at 4am, run hill repeats for miles and then go into work. I guarantee no incident or colleague will trigger a stress response. You will feel as cool as a cucumber and when an urgent issue does come up you will handle it with absolute mental clarity. That afternoon drowsiness will also not hit you at all, counterintuitive right?
By 9pm you will fall asleep no matter what happened that day.
This kind of work gives you an edge on everyone. You look at things and say, “shit this is easy compared to what I did this morning” and you will feel mentally fresh.
As you age, you will lose lean muscle and bone density. But you do have some control in maintaining a healthy level of strength for your elder years.
You can maintain strength and density by engaging in resistance training.
The total amount of training required is up for debate. I follow Dr. Peter Attia and he discusses needing about 1 hr a week of resistance training.
The other aspect of maintaining strength is protein intake. Dr. Attia describes it as a “chore”, that is to consume 1g of protein supplement for each pound of body mass. That’s a lot!
Think about your future, do you want to be strong and mobile into your later years? I see older unhealthy people walking the streets and don’t envisage myself letting that happen.
You must take good care of yourself and put in the time to exercise and eat properly.
I hated exercise. Still do. People talk about a glow or a good feeling after exercise. My SO does too. I never felt it.
Until I dieted down to being 'at weight' not overweight. Only then did it feel good to exercise, and only then after I exercised. The act itself is still a terrible experience.
I've put on weight again and, yep, I hate exercise now. But now I know there is a light at the end of the dieting and weightless tunnel. Without the experimental results, I would never have known.
So, its not that I don't trust the science here, I mean, how can I refute it? It's just that my lived experience says that I'm a freak and I'm sitting out on the end of some bell curve or whatever. I know that it got a high ROI, that's why I did these weight loss experiments in the first place. It's just that for some reason, my body and mind hate exercise until I get down to healthy levels.
Thanks for letting me share this.
Correlation is not causation. All credibility is lost for this guy, in my view.
> We know from one study that people who played tennis a few times per week lived roughly 10 years longer than average. So we'll use that value going forward.
This is the study [0]. The study itself, in the conclusions, states that:
"Conclusion: Various sports are associated with markedly different improvements in life expectancy. Because this is an observational study, it remains uncertain whether this relationship is causal."
Has the author read the study at least?
[0]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30193744/
To improve physical activity at the population scale and over a lifetime, it literally has to be built into the design of the cities, so people get enough exercise while walking to work or grabbing groceries.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPUlgSRn6e0&ab_channel=NotJu...
https://cs.stanford.edu/people/jure/pubs/activity-inequality...
How could it be so low? How could i not know this? How is anyone walking around ignorant (as i was) of this?
Currently waiting for a new hip, because for some reason I've worn mine out too soon.
Now, I won't say that the fact I'm in pain 24/7 isn't making me sad, but the fact that I don't come outside as often anymore really is not helping.
It’s hard, and that’s why you do it. It’s also fun.
Get the fuck out there and run, climb, swim.