Azdak Member

Whenever you talk about the whether a particular device is “beneficial”, you have to define your terms. In this case, the “benefits” fall under what I think are 3 categories: fitness/weight loss, orthopedic, psychological/behavioral. Fitness/weight loss: long-term benefits have been shown to be trivial at best. Orthopedic:…

When you reach the point where you realize that keto, while being a perfectly acceptable diet choice, has no particular magic qualities, you will have achieved peak mental clarity. 😂😂

Heart rate response during the first workouts starting a new program is pretty meaningless. Your body is not yet capable of a normal physiological response to exercise. You can’t really use it as a reference point.

A healthy person will maintain a high O2 saturation, even at max exercise. It is not a parameter you can train, and it doesn’t require monitoring.

I try to get by with a select few “life rules”. 1. Treat others as you would like to be treated (aka The Golden Rule). 2. Don’t f—k with bears. I have found I don’t need any others.

In a research study I participated in during grad school, I lost 4 lb sitting in a hot tub for 45 min ( another subject lost 7.5 lb). Water weight lost during exercise has little/no correlation to exercise “quality”, intensity, or fat loss. That being said, yes, if done relatively continuously and if one has the skill to…

It may be one of the most pointless exercises ever. See above for better suggestions: suitcase carries, offset step ups, lunges, squats. Offset with kettlebells in a single arm rack position.

This kind of stuff always brings out the Fitness Curmudgeon™️ in me With their upcoming IPO, Peloton is pumping this stuff big time. All these things sound exciting when they first come out. However, time has shown that no matter how supposedly “new and unique” the new type of exercise, the percentage of people who will…

Your body is sometimes smarter than your head. Listen to it.

The important thing is that every new exercise you try you start super light, low volume, and then it might take 1-3 days to determine whether it’s tolerable. Another exercise to try is a single arm anterior serratus press. I like to start doing it on an incline bench, because it’s easier to feel the movement, but you can…

The best study I have seen in the last couple of years measured a “traditional” weight lifting workout—ie standard exercises, 3 sets of 8-10 reps, 2-3 min recovery between sets—at about 320-330 gross calories per hour. That’s as good a benchmark as I know.

If you use correct form and supinate hand grip 45 degrees, you should be able to do seated cable rows. I would do single arm to help with form. You also might be able to do a landmine press.

DOMS. If you really do a lot of newer exercises (esp lunges) in one workout, I’ve seen the peak effect last 5 days or more.

You don’t stand-you sit with the upper horizontal pad against your back. You then move into back extension against the weight resistance. I am not against all selectorized weight machines, but this is the type that gives all selectorized machines a bad name. It works an isolated muscle group that is part of a complex…

Keep in mind that even if you overate by 1000 calories a day, that’s only 2lbs. No biggie.

Referencing a previous thread on the topic—THIS is overtraining. This sounds like one of the more serious cases I have heard about, but I don’t think there are any long-lasting effects. I actually think the dehydration is the primary issue here. The previous longer post outlines it pretty well: a period of total rest…

I keep cookies on the nightstand. Sometimes a burrito.

“Overtraining” is the “starvation mode” of exercise.

Have to post a somewhat contrarian view, just for balance. Not all high-volume exercisers are obsessed with exercise. Not all high-volume training results in overtraining. In my experience, the number of recreational exercisers who actually reach a true state of overtraining (as opposed to a day or two where one is not…

The shortcoming of all age-predicted HR max prediction equations is that they all have a fairly large standard deviation—that’s just the way humans are made. So you will always find 10-30 bpm variability is “normal”. If one sees a relatively high heart rate (per a 220-age reference) and a relatively low rate of breathing,…

Understood.

I didn’t mean to give the impression that there was a preference one way or the other, or that one style of lifting was better suited for a beginner than another. I was trying to point out that the CW that compound lifting with free weights is inherently superior to machines in all cases, and that compound lifting is more…

Unless you are in your 80s, odds are you are wrong. My comment was primarily directed to the OP. Since your comment was also directed to the OP, and you chose to add the “functional fitness” add-on, the implication was that you felt that “functional fitness” was an inherent advantage of compound lifting. This is a common…

By any metric used, for beginners, there is no difference in “functional fitness” when using isolation or free weights. (E.g. leg press machine vs squats) Over time there is an advantage for compound/free weight training, but beginners should do whatever they feel is most comfortable.

It’s a genetic difference with no significance whatsoever. The significant metric is cardiac output—the actual volume of blood pumped per minute. Whether that is accomplished with a higher heart rate and lower stroke volume or vice versa is not meaningful.

Isolation works as well. It all works—different exercises are just tools. You have to use the right tool for the job.

“A” calorie burn, not “your” calorie burn.

There is a great verse by the zydeco musician CJ Chenier: Little boy sat down and cried Old man passed and asked him why He said “I can’t do what the big boys do” The old man sat down and he cried too.

Recovery HR is a popular way to supposedly track improvements in conditioning. The idea is that, the fitter you are, the faster your HR drops after a workout. As noted above, there are a number of factors that can affect the consistency of HR recovery post exercise. And even if you control for these factors, HR recovery…

Kettlebell swings are the perfect example of why HRM have limited usefulness outside of steady state endurance training. Heart rate only works as a proxy for VO2 when there is a consistent relationship between the two. During steady state cardio, this consistency exists (for the 66.7% of the population that has an…