>Please don't waste your time with this "workout," unless of course you're so weak and fragile that it'll literally kill you to do a squat.
I think gym-nerds vastly underestimate how out of shape the median person is. I started doing a variation of this regimen every day before work two weeks ago and I feel better already. I was sore for the first two days from just a few sets of squats.
Who gives a fuck about being able to bench press all you can bench press? It sounds like macho bullshit to me. I don't care about being as strong as I can be.
I care about not being winded when I hit the top of the stairs, and I care about not having back aches from sitting in a chair all the time, and I care about dying a bit later than sooner. If a few simple bodyweight reps once a day or three times a week will get me there without the expense and the hours wasted travelling to and from gyms all so much the better.
From the introduction to Rippetoe's Starting Strength:
“Physical strength is the most important thing in life. This is true whether we want it to be or not. As humanity has developed throughout history, physical strength has become less critical to our daily existence, but no less important to our lives. Our strength, more than any other thing
we possess, still determines the quality and the quantity of our time here in these bodies. Whereas previously our physical strength determined how much food we ate and how warm and dry we stayed, it now merely determines how well we function in these new surroundings we have crafted for ourselves as our culture has accumulated. But we are still animals - our physical existence is, in the final analysis, the only one that actually matters. A weak man is not as happy as that same man would be if he were strong. This reality is offensive to some people who would like the intellectual or spiritual to take precedence. It is instructive to see what happens to these very people as their
squat strength goes up.”
Physical strength is the most important thing in life.
What a load of shit. I was actually considering checking this guy's stuff out until you posted that.
It's a well-used sales line: You've got somebody on the hook- they obviously think it's important or they wouldn't be looking at the book. They also obviously don't have what you're selling, so they wouldn't know any better. Then, make an argument (emotional if possible) as to why they need this. Presto: sale. And perhaps guru status.
I imagine this works for similar "my life would be better if only..." sales. Penis enhancers come to mind.
I think the OP's workout is a great place to start. The only caveat is that you want to go through the routine several times as you get proficient. The exercises are part of the "core" exercises that serious athletes are doing. If you stick with it you can add yoga, bosu, and medicine balls to the mix to work on your stabilizing muscles. You can add dumbells and barbell exercises too. I added "core" to my workouts about a year ago and am please.
As your strength declines, so does your life. You can no longer play with your kids. You can no longer get up stairs. You can't care for your house or yourself. Someday, you will no longer be able to get out of bed.
Correlation is not causation (you might as well flip it around). And I'm afraid that even for the strongest person, they're will come a day where they won't be able to get out of bed.
Sorry to challenge your inept logical fallacy wankery, but a lack of strength does directly cause a lower quality of life. Capability and independence are vital to happiness. And yes, strength can be improved and maintained right up until death if you work at it.
Lowering your quality of life is far different from being the most important thing. A lot of things change when you age that work to lower the quality of your life; your happiness depends greatly on how you handle it.
>But we are still animals - our physical existence is, in the final analysis, the only one that actually matters.
Uhm, like I said - macho bullshit. There is not a single actual argument in that paragraph past "strength good weak bad".
People historically were as strong as they had to be; I have a pretty good intuition about this as I'm only about two generations removed from subsistence farming. It's not like you had the time - or often, the calories - to spend doing pointless exercise.
I care about feeling comfortable in my body. I'm sure being able to lift 300lbs makes you feel more confident! but I learned how to be confident a few years ago.
Do exercise because it makes you feel good, and because our bodies need a workout every now and then. Don't get caught up in some silly statistic; there's a diminishing ROI past a certain level of fitness (which, admittedly, I'm currently still far from attaining).
From personal experience, you start moving a bit differently, and not shy away from certain positions and ways of doing things. It's certainly nice, but it didn't change the way I interact with people or make different people attracted to me or anything like that. It's a bit of improvement, but learning the Bayes theorem was an order of magnitude more awesome, and reading up on syntax theory, physics, AI and bits of Marxism plus moving countries worked way better for getting people interested in me.
Of course this is anecdotal, but that's what I would expect from the experiment. Secondary confidence improvement would be expected, but that's thanks to awareness that you are more compliant with what Men's Health says you should look like, not inherent property of humans (see: places and times when fat people were seen as more attractive).
I find that it gives you a feeling of wellbeing that you can't get elsewhere. I don't mean that you can't feel good if you aren't strong. I mean the feeling of wellbeing that you get from it is unique and I haven't found it elsewhere.
Eh, I wouldn't relate it to squat strength, and it has diminishing returns. But biochemistry of the brain during exercise is fun stuff, and explains a lot of elation people have.
It's definitely related to squat strength. It makes me feel light of my feet, well balanced and generally younger than any other form of exercise that I've done.
I should because one single physically strong person told me I should?
Before being a programmer, I was a soldier, and before that, a rugby player. I've had my share of extreme fitness levels, and I've known and am friends with a lot of strong people. Trust me, strenght is fun, but to make it the most important thing is plain wrong. Life is not uni-dimensional. Obviously, it's unclear what Rippetoe means by important. Does he mean it'll make you happy, live longer, healthier, good looking, etc.? Until he specifies that, he is saying absolutely nothing of value.
By the way, Physical existence, is, in no way, related to strength.
If you want my 2 cents, the only thing that works to get fit is: "Shut the fuck up and exercise!". All the time spent to talk about it, find a good workout, supplements, etc. Is worthless in the beginning if you can't shut it and do some physical activity.
The high intensity circuit training have been demonstrated to be more efficient at certain objectives, everyone that calls bullshit, probably never did high intensity circuit training properly, and for a reasonably long enough period of time, or has objectives to which it has not been proven to be good at. Other type of workouts can be just as good, or better, depending on the objective, and your context. If you only have 10 minutes a day, you don't really have a choice now do you.
Obviously, nothing will ever compare to having an active lifestyle. The reason we even need workouts are because our modern lives are so inactive.
Also, don't think because it's so short, it is easy. Sometimes, more motivation might be needed to perform high intensity circuit training properly. Higher injury rates can occur if done poorly. Depending on individuals, it is easier to perform at lesser intensity for longer times.
Steve Yegge was in the Navy before going programming, blogging, etc. as well. In fact, the same nuclear Navy where I had my start (though I was programming before I joined).
I lift weights, and the above passage is religious horseshit, like much of what I've read in books about weight lifting. I didn't become happier when I could lift more. I couldn't have cared less, and I only lift weights because it's considered beneficial by medical experts.
The worst part about weight lifting isn't setting aside time to lift weights; the worst part is consuming information produced by weight lifters.
"Cognitive strength is the most important thing in life. This is true whether we want it to be or not. As humanity has developed throughout history, individual intelligence has become less critical to our daily existence, but no less important to our lives. Our intelligence, more than any other thing we possess, still determines the quality and the quantity of our time here in these bodies. Whereas previously our intelligence determined how much food we ate and how warm and dry we stayed, it now merely determines how well we function in these new surroundings we have crafted for ourselves as our culture has accumulated. But we are still animals - our cognitive existence is, in the final analysis, the only one that actually matters. A stupid man is not as happy as that same man would be if he were smart. This reality is offensive to some people who would like the physical or spiritual to take precedence. It is instructive to see what happens to these very people as their ability to do math goes up." -- some ranting fool
Or try the experiment with "visual acuity". Or with "a strong family connection". Or with "memory". They all work just as well as "strength".
Individual sentences in the Rippetoe quote are true (like "strong is happier than weak" and "strength is less day-to-day essential than it was, but still very important to overall life" and "it's instructive to see what happens as you get stronger"). The overall package, with the superlative phrasing exemplified by the first sentence, is total utter bullshit.
Replies like hoelle's, below, about "play with kids" and "get up stairs".... that's true of strength, but it applies to things other than strength, too. Again, "visual acuity" is a drop-in replacement, and so is "short-term memory".
Except that when you replace "physical strength" with "cognitive strength", you start having sentences that are very obviously false, like this one: "Whereas previously our intelligence determined how much food we ate and how warm and dry we stayed, it now merely determines how well we function in these new surroundings we have crafted for ourselves as our culture has accumulated."
I think that sentence is perfect as-is. Which part do you disagree with?
First of all, pre-civilized humans (and especially our pre-human ancestors) were highly dependent on intelligence for acquiring food, and staying warm and dry. The part before the comma is obviously true.
Second of all, modern humans in civilization do not usually require intelligence to eat and stay warm and dry, just like we don't require strength. Many humans do well because of inheritance, or because of familial support (this one was available to pre-civilized humans too), and some modern humans benefit from society-level support (admittedly a minority). And many many humans need only minimal intelligence to contribute to their economy enough to buy food and shelter.
The only tricky part is arguing that intelligence helps us function today. For some people it helps, for some people it seems to hurt. Was that your complaint?
I guess we need to define precisely what we mean by cognitive strength. Living in the modern world successfully requires you to understand things like understanding interest rates, monthly payments, and logging into your bank website to check the balance on your account. The amount of intelligence required for that is either greater, or we are talking about a different kind of intelligence, than the kind that required you to hunt and find shelter in caves.
No, modern life provably does not require any of those skills in order to stay fed and warm and dry. For example, zero of my cousins (I have two cousins) have ANY of those three skills, and both of them have survived into their thirties. I wouldn't be shocked if one of them had reproduced, in fact (if so, I pity the female involved).
On the other hand, all three of those skills help to "determine how well we function in these new surroundings" of modern culture.
The minimum intelligence requirements to stay fed and warm and dry, in modern society, are far lower today than any time in the history or pre-history of "humanity". Just like with the minimum requirements for strength. This isn't even a claim about social safety nets. Society is just so rich, food is just so cheap, that you can be a pretty crappy contributor, and even so some other smart guy will figure out how to put you to work, to his profit, and give you just enough to live. It's a good time to be a loser. (It's a great time to be a winner.)
(Oh, and also, I happen to disagree that the intelligence required to understand monthly payments or logging into a website is greater than that for reliably hunting or finding reliable shelter. Interest rates, I'm not sure. But this whole paragraph is beside my main point.)
>Physical strength is the most important thing in life.
BS in its purest form. Makes this guy untrustworthy. Actually, I find all of the fitness popularizing guys somewhat untrustworthy. I'm not sure why, my subconscious tells me that there's something fishy about them.
I think there's a difference between being (1) healthy (2) strong (3) strong as can be. There's an argument for being healthy, an argument for being strong, but I don't see an argument for being as strong as you can be. Other parts of your life would suffer if you focused on strength at the expense of all else.
self-help deep shit. It seems that HN readers read a lot of self help shit. Maybe everyone does. How can you read that kind of generalist catch-phrase style and not perceive it's lack of quality?
Because it worked for me. Strength training helped me overcome the RSI and back pain which plagued me while I was still inclined to overvalue the intellectual over the physical.
Given NFL players tend to be carefully trained and I would assume as strong as possible, why do they tend to have shorter than expected life expectancy? Or world class athletes in general? Doesn't that show that going to an extreme and being as strong as possible perhaps isn't actually leading to a longer life?
Reading the disagreeing replies to this post is extremely enlightening. You see one thing: people who don't want to exercise will use just about any method to deny its extreme importance.
Yes, obviously a basic level of fitness is important. But improving your body composition (LBM) has long term dramatic benefits to both longevity and quality of life.
I think gym-nerds vastly underestimate how out of shape the median person is. I started doing a variation of this regimen every day before work two weeks ago and I feel better already. I was sore for the first two days from just a few sets of squats.
Who gives a fuck about being able to bench press all you can bench press? It sounds like macho bullshit to me. I don't care about being as strong as I can be.
I care about not being winded when I hit the top of the stairs, and I care about not having back aches from sitting in a chair all the time, and I care about dying a bit later than sooner. If a few simple bodyweight reps once a day or three times a week will get me there without the expense and the hours wasted travelling to and from gyms all so much the better.