I don't see the "for Hackers" angle in this article.
Yes, you can think through problems while lifting but that's hardly unique to weight lifting. Ditto for books on tape.
I'm not hating on weight lifting here (I've been lifting consistently for 9+ years) but I just don't see this as being Hacker News.
PS - I think you meant to write "read" instead of "ready" here:
"In particular, the Freakonomics audio books are quite good as they are ready by the author, as is Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell."
The "for Hackers" angle is in the fact that most hackers (and I admit I'm generalizing here) don't lift weights regularly. He's basically saying, "if you have written off weightlifting because you think it's just about vanity or because the gym is full of asshole jocks, you might want to reconsider because it can actually help your confidence in business, help you to solve problems, and isn't that hard to get into after all."
For sure. I can think of no better traffic for a site's google adsense revenues than the highly tech savvy and ad-wary HN crowd...
To reiterate my point, making sandwiches and cleaning bathrooms is something most hackers do regularly. Lifting weights is not. A better analogy would be a "learning calligraphy for hackers" article that explained how learning calligraphy can be a benefit to hackers and how, given hacker's programming knowledge, one should go about it.
Good stuff although the rep scheme isn't optimal. I'd stick to sets of fives.
A few additional points:
a) Form, particularly on Squats & Deadlifts, is key. If you do them wrong you'll fuck yourself up. The stuff by Mark Rippetoe, particularly Starting Strength, is awesome for this.
b) If you want to make progress you'll need to consume a surplus of calories. A good way to do this is to add full fat milk to your diet (a liter of full fat milk is approximately ~700 kCal). If you aren't gaining, eat more. If you're a young, skinny guy just starting out it's very easy to put on 15 lbs in a month[1] from squatting three times each week and drinking a fuckload of milk.
c) The advice on lowering the bar slowly then exploding upwards is mostly crap. Just move the weight under control.
[1] Some of this will be fat but most will be muscle.
Does anyone know of a good book or web resource for training legs and back with a back injury? I would like to get into Olympic lifts but I have three slipped discs from overloading a hip sled in high school. I'm pretty strong otherwise, but my legs are messed up. My injury is under control but when I do the wrong thing I can't walk for a week.
There is a dedicated olympic lifting school blocks from where I live, but in my experience almost nobody knows anything about how to train with a back injury. I'd like to go in at least prepared with the right questions to ask.
I know that Paul Chek has rehabilitated many of my favorite athletes. For instance, Danny Way broke his neck surfing, and Chek got his body back in shape for his crazy mega ramp stuff. I was thinking of finding a Chek certified trainer, but unfortunately it seems that whole scene has veered off into borderline cult territory.
This is really NOT hacker news but since the topic is here I thought I'd pose the question. At least it seems like there are some smart people here. Fitness forums are always bonkers and loaded with bad advice.
The "bad" Roman Chair, the one that puts you at a 45 degree angle with your head above your hips, will likely injure your back if you have any pre-existing problem.
Instead use a Roman Chair that puts your feet and hips at the same level and allows you to hang with your head down and your torso vertical. Once you're in position (head straight down), lift yourself slowly to 45 degrees from vertical, no more, lower and try to and relax the back spinal muscles. The whole point is to use your upper-body weight to stretch out those tight spinal muscles.
Over time you can add weight. Put the weight on the floor, get in position (head down) and only then pick up the weight. The greater the weight the more your back stretches. Increase weights only slowly over the weeks.Always warm up with no weight first.
Read about 5BX before starting. The chart 1 exercises are intended to be done for awhile before starting chart 2, etc. That is, don't start at chart 2. Otherwise you may hurt yourself.
Does anyone at the olympic lifting school know a really good, olympic lifting oriented physio? Failing that, you could perhaps contact people at olympic training centers and see if they can recommend someone.
If you can find a good one they might be able to work through some of the issues with you.
I agree with the general advice, especially with the Starting Strength recommendation, but the milk advice (also from this book), speaking from own experience, is a recipe for disaster unless you are aiming for a powerlifting physique, with plenty of muscle hidden underneath plenty of fat or unless you are __really skinny__. "Starting strength" is great for exercise technique, but go also get a good nutrition book and make sure you are actually following a nutrition plan in the same way you are following an exercise program. It's easier to do it then it is to loose the fat belly afterwards, or to get rid of the stretch marks from a too rapid weight gain.
Losing fat isn't all that hard. You keep lifting heavy weights and subtract ~250 kCal a day from your diet. If you aren't losing much [1] weight, you subtract another ~250 kCal/day and so on.
They heavy weights are there to persuade your body to hang onto muscle which is metabolically expensive and therefore eliminated if not used.
I'm curious how much you were eating to wind up with loads of fat. I've put on ~40 lbs in the last year and still have a six pack [2].
It doesn't work this way, at least not for everyone (genetics), exactly because of the muscle loss that occurs when you decrease caloric intake. Of course you can prevent it in some ways, but then it is no longer just "subtracting 250 kCal". Nutrition is complex, so I would not give advice this simplified about it, as it can get you in trouble, just as putting 15lbs weight in a month. Maybe you have good genetics, or already follow a well-balanced diet, but people who follow your advice not necessarily so, they should thus pay more attention to this aspect of "training". I learned this lesson the hard way, so I wish the advice in "Starting Strength" would be more balanced in this respect.
The Rippetoe stuff should generally be applied such that you gradually increase your intake until you're putting on enough weight, and back off if you're gaining fat too quickly. And for the majority of Rippetoe's target audience, that is young skinny guys, getting enough calories is more important than the right calories.
I'm curious as to whether you just started drinking a gallon of milk every day from the get go? Because I imagine that adding ~2800 kCal to your maintenance diet would tend to pile on rather more fat than usual.
Also I'd assume that the average HNer could put together a diet that's pretty reasonable with minimal preparation, however, here's a few pointers I've followed...
General diet guidelines:
a) For optimal health, the fewer calories you eat without starving or failing to satisfy nutritional requirements the better (ie caloric restriction). Hence eating to gain weight, even muscle, probably necessitates a sub-optimal strategy.
b) Body transformation is made in the kitchen, not the gym. If you eat less than maintenance calories you'll lose weight, more than maintenance calories you'll gain weight and make better strength gains. Heavy weightlifting is a must to begin with, but your work in the kitchen determines your outcome.
c) Don't eat processed food. It's normally High GI and full of crap [1].
d) Eat six small meals each day, at even intervals. This seems to work better than three large meals. Of course, if you're bulking, then you'll be eating six large meals each day and feeling sick most of the time.
e) Eat lots of non-starchy vegetables and some fruit. Vegetables implies things like broccoli and spinach. For fruit aim for things like berries. More vegetables than fruit because you can overdo the fructose.
f) Eat plenty of fish, nuts, avocadoes and other healthy fats. If you need to boost your calories further a shot (30 mL) of olive oil is ~ 250 kCal and only takes a minute.
g) Eat fewer carbs, and make sure they're low GI. Hence things like lentils, brown rice, quinoa, etc. Eat carbs early in the day as they seem to give you more energy.
h) Another fine protein source is skinless chicken breasts. I boil mine and throw away the fat that floats to the top. Eggs [2] can also provide lots of protein.
i) Full fat milk is awesome for gaining weight as it is quick to drink and provides quick calories.
j) Diets continue in perpetuity. It's like showering or brushing your teeth. You don't brush your teeth twelve times a day for a month then say "well, that's taken care of" and never brush them again.
k) Post workout (for all the good post workout nutrition does) drink something with carbs and protein. I generally go for a liter of milk.
l) If you're trying to reduce your caloric intake, replace food with things that are calorically sparse. If you eat a big salad [3] before each meal you'll reduce the number of calories you can get through without feeling hungry.
m) If you're trying to eat more and can't get through the food, buy a really good blender and drink as much as possible.
[1] I'd chiefly be worried about salt and high-fructose corn syrup. A lot of the threatening looking stuff on the label isn't, but it's a pain in the ass to figure that out.
[2] I'm not sure whether they're good or bad for you today.
[3] With no dressing or something with minimal calories if you aren't hard enough.
Potentially many of these could be debated as nutrition is a bit of a clusterfuck of contradictory information, but I'm reasonably confident in them.
If dairy doesn't work with your digestive system, you can sub egg whites. I don't know what the latest warnings are about eggs, but Jack LaLanne has been eating them for the past 80 years.
If you don't build muscle very easily, then you need to be careful with extraneous physical activity. As an ectomorph, I find that I need ALL of my 4500 daily calories to build muscle. I generally lift 3 times a week with a 4th day of dedicated to cardio at the end of the week. I rotate between 4 week sets of cardio/muscle-building as well.
That works well for me. The authors suggestion of doing daily cardio might very well be sabotaging your results.
I wholeheartedly agree with this article. A great blog I recommend is musclehack.com. For each exercise, I do 3 sets of 8-12 reps and increase if I can get to 12 or decrease if I can only do 8.
I think one of the biggest errors I see at the gym are people NOT pushing 110%. No gains will be made unless you push yourself to the max. The way I judge a successful workout is how hard it is to lift my arms up to shampoo my hair in the shower afterward, how much my legs feel like jelly walking down stairs after, etc. I also love feeling sore the next day. It equals muscle fiber recruitment. Diet also has a big impact, but... I won't delve into that here.
I'm also starting to add in a bit of cardio post-lifting so I can get below 10% body fat (post lifting is the best time to run as your body is in the optimum state to burn fat), and just bought a pair of vibram fivefingers in preparation. Excited! Research barefoot running if you haven't heard of it, it is enlightening.
"I think one of the biggest errors I see at the gym are people NOT pushing 110%. No gains will be made unless you push yourself to the max."
This is essentialy the most important of working out in my eyes. If you're not pushing yourself to the max, you won't see any results.
Oh, and I also totally agree about the audiobooks. I have gotten through numerous Malcolm Gladwell books on my drives btwn socal and norcal. I can't get myself to listen to anything at the gym though, as wires annoy me to the max.
I love lifting and exercising, but I don't get at all how you're supposed to listen to audio-books or think through problems (consciously anyway; that wasn't made explicit) while you're giving it proper effort. I've always found that it clears the mind like nothing else, and often found that you have a better perspective on an issue afterwards, but it's the last thing on your mind when you're under the bar or gasping through a set of burpees (as another poster recommended).
Also, since people are recommending their personal favourites, I think you can do a lot worse than 5/3/1:
http://www.tmuscle.com/free_online_article/sports_body_train...
He sells (very cheaply) the program, but it's actually almost all in that interview. One thing not included is his own method for estimating your 1RM, which differs a bit from the article's: weight + weight * reps / 30. It has been a pretty useful approximation in my experience.
It's my favorite exercise by far. Except the way I learned it is you bring your knees to your chest when you jump (that forces you to jump high).
I do 1, then 2, then 4, etc, taking about a 30 second break in between. It does both muscles and cardio. It's super-intense. Just go until you collapse. It gives you a solid workout in around five minutes.
Second that. Ross sells a few training manuals that are all excellent value; they're quite scientific too, albeit distilled down to what you need to know (+ citations).
Check out any video clips of him in action if you need any further inspiration -- the guy is a machine.
I've recently started Bouldering (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouldering, "rock climbing undertaken without a rope and normally limited to very short climbs over a crash pad") in a Uni bouldering wall and am finding it a good way to increase muscle strength, whilst also enjoying the strategy aspect of deciding how to complete a particular route (which to me is more appealing than the repetitiveness of lifting weights).
I'm glad to see this article on Hacker News. I started lifting weights way back in High School for the same reason most people start - to get girls. I went through a long cycle of going hard for 3-4 months and not lifting at all for 3-4 months. It took me a long time to realize that it's much more effective (as in it actually works) to go medium for all 12 months out of the year.
The most important bits of advice I ever got came from an ex-Olympic weight training coach: don't rely on a partner to spot you and motivate you and don't make the workout so hard that it's not enjoyable. The former is important because your motivation is not tied to someone else's. Over the years I've had weightlifting partners come and go, but in the end my success has been tied to my own motivation. The latter is really the key: if you go extremely hard and kill yourself working out, this will be what you remember on the days you don't so much feel like lifting, and ultimately it will cause you to procrastinate.
Consistency is the most important thing, not intensity. Once weight lifting becomes something routine that you "just do" every day, and not part of some major life changing period of your life, it starts to work.
I agree with you on the spotter/partner. I started lifting about six months ago, and specifically built a program that didn't require a spotter, ramping up as I get stronger. Lifting is my time to zone out and relax, and I'm not dependent on other people's scheduling problems or requirements. I also find that at a certain time of day, I just grab my bag and go to the gym. Fortunate to have one on the campus where I work, which helps.
I will say very frankly that you should NOT be lifting weights.
I have exercised both with weights and without, and I think for the time spent, and given that like me most of you probably sit at a desk, you will get more benefit with less chance of injury, by doing calisthenic/pilates style exercises.
The reason is that posture and the use of small muscles to make adjustments, plus working the abs/core, are more important when sitting down, and help you avoid injury.
The simplest plan is Canada's "5BX" plan designed for their air force.
A more complex set of exercises are the series done by John Peterson, such as "Pushing Yourself to Power" that focus on using your own body resistance plus variations on pushups and what are variously called "burpees", "Hindu squats", etc. (I have no financial or other interest in his company, which is at http://www.bronzebowpublishing.com/ )
Indeed -- it's called eccentric contraction, and the reason you do it is that it works the same muscles in a different way. Exercise routines that combine eccentric and concentric contractions (where the muscle shortens as it contracts) are probably more effective at increasing strength than ones that focus only on concentric contractions.
This is a really big error, and I don't see how it could be a typo. Agonist ("doer") and antagonist (opposing) muscles contract simultaneously when stabilizing a joint, but when lifting weights, the antagonists of the primary action (triceps and to some extent anconeus for curls) are relaxed both during concentric and eccentric contraction of the agonists (biceps, brachialis, and to some extent brachioradialis and a few other muscles of the forearm for curls). That is to say, the author's claim is absolutely wrong.
Besides it feels so good to just put some crazy amount on Scott's bench ask somebody to help you lift it and then just try to put it down as slowly as possible :)
ugh....the large number of reps at low weight meme has spread because people want to believe that they can do an easy workout. if you can do more than 5 reps your weight is too light. there's no such thing as "toned instead of bulk". lifting casually a few times a week is not going to turn you into a hulkish freak. and if you want toned you do CARDIO. treating weightlifting as cardio is stupid.
for the average person doing weighted dips and pullups is more than enough. do those combined with jogging up hills a few times a week and you'll be in great shape. if you want to take it further you should be doing olympic lifts. anything else is really for professionals with specific needs or people with medical problems.
Doing a set with a large number of reps is neither easy nor useless.
It's not easy because you're supposed to do it until failure.
And if you're aiming at improving your muscular endurance, then lots of reps with a light weight are more useful than low reps with a heavier weight. There are several studies that show this. Example:
Subjects were divided into four groups: a low repetition group (Low Rep, n=9) performing 3–5 repetitions maximum (RM) for four sets of each exercise with 3 min rest between sets and exercises, an intermediate repetition group (Int Rep, n=11) performing 9–11 RM for three sets with 2 min rest, a high repetition group (High Rep, n=7) performing 20–28 RM for two sets with 1 min rest, and a non-exercising control group (Con, n=5). (...) Maximal strength improved significantly more for the Low Rep group compared to the other training groups, and the maximal number of repetitions at 60% 1RM improved the most for the High Rep group.
If you're lifting for hypertrophy, more reps is better than more weight, e.g. 15 reps of 100 lbs instead of 6 of 150 lbs or whatever your maximums may be.
No, it's the other way around. See my other comment and this:
Physical education students were matched into three groups; G90 (n = 9) trained with a load of 90%, G35 (n = 11) with 35%, and G15 (n = 10) with 15% of 1RM (1 repetition maximum). Training consisted of three to five sets, performed three times a week for 9 weeks. Each set consisted of two, seven and ten repetitions in G90, G35 and G15, respectively. Training was performed with the nondominant arm, and the dominant arm served as control. The 1RM increased 15.2 (SD 4.5)% (P < 0.001) in G90, 10.1 (SD 5.9)% (P < 0.001) in G35 and 6.6 (SD 7.9)% (P < 0.05) in G15.
This bit was surprising to me:
In the untrained arm, 1RM also increased for G90 and G15. In contrast to G90, G15 showed a similar increase in 1RM in both arms.
are you a professional bodybuilder? no? then you're talking about minimal differences. you get plenty of hypertrophy from low reps high weight. you're talking about specialized training for the specific circumstances.
There are so many things wrong in this post I'm not sure where to start.
First, 5 reps is fine sometimes. Look up periodization. The body adapts quickly so while 5 sets of 5 might work for a few weeks you eventually need to change it up. Plus your joints, tendons and ligaments get tired always lifting heavy.
Cardio has nothing to do with 'toning.' The old saying is 'abs are made in the kitchen not in the gym.' If you want to look tone (horrible term but we'll go with it) you need to have some muscle and then remove the fat from over top of it. The easiest way to remove fat is the cut calories. You can burn calories through exercise, but not nearly as much as people think.
Dips and pullups is nothing close to enough for a well rounded workout. If you want to do a workout without a gym Google bodyweight training. If you have access to a gym then look at the books 'Starting Strength' or 'New Rules of Lifting.' Both are good books by excellent authors and give you plenty of workout plans. With either, expect to spend about an hour in the gym 3 times per week.
heavy weight lifting is beneficial to your ligaments tendons and joints. it's doing dozens or hundreds of reaps that are bad for them. periodization is crap. you let your muscles recover and then you workout again.
diet is outside the purview of this discussion for now. of course diet has a massive impact. that's not what we're talking about.
I am well aware of various bodyweight routines. complicated programs are not needed. I'll admit I forgot a core routine, but between that and jogging on hills you're working every major muscle group.
Have you actually lifted heavy for any amount of time? If you have you'll know that you need times where you let your tendons and ligaments rest. Your joints will thank you too. Muscles recover much faster than your connecting tissues (and your CNS for that matter).
Look at something like the 5/3/1 workout. It's set up in a manner that you can do it indefinitely because it has built in periodization. For 3 weeks you work up to near maximal weights then a 4th week of deload. This 4th weeks gives everything else (again - connector tissue, CNS) a chance to fully recover.
A complete program is not necessarily complicated. Running is NOT a replacement exercise for a squat and DL variation.
"treating weight lifting as cardio" is intended to build muscle that can perform. take anybody who uses a standard lifting program and they'd die 30 minutes into a p90x/insanity/conditioning program. do the same cardio with weight, or weight with more reps, and your muscles adapt to more continuous strain.
if you just care about looking buff or losing/gaining weight quickly, do few high-weight reps. if you're training to be a fighter or just want to be highly conditioned, do lots of reps.
yes, but if you are careful you can add a weight vest or light ankle/wrist/dumbbell weights and do various cardio exercises with minimal risk (if you use proper form). you should reduce your weight if your exercises are too high impact.
small to medium dumbbells in combination with different exercises (squats, lunges, burpees, squat jumps, etc) can definitely give you an edge in your overall conditioning. jump training is very effective with a good amount of extra weight (30lbs or more) - of course watch your landing. even punching for 3 minutes with 5lb dumbbells is insane.
Adding a weighted vest is much different than adding ankle or wrist weights. I would advise against ever adding weights to your ankles or wrists while doing cardio. In that scenario your legs and arms are acting like big levers and even light weight can wreck havoc with your mechanics that in turn can lead to injuries. The body just wasn't designed to operate in that manner.
While not exactly the same issue look up 'open chain' versus 'closed chain' exercises.
While I agree in general with the content of your first paragraph, your second paragraph has some inaccuracies that I found bothersome.
1) You claim that "weighted dips and pullups" combined with "jogging up hills a few times a week" amounts to a complete exercise regime. As far as dips and pullups go, the average person would benefit much more from a simple weightlifting routine like Starting Strength. Additionally, HIIT(High Intensity Interval Training) is a far more effective than steady-state cardio.
2) You state that the average person should pursue Olympic lifts if they want to "take it further". Olympic lifts are some of the hardest exercises to perform correctly, and can be dangerous when attempted by untrained novices. While this makes for good competition, this is impractical for the average trainee. The complex movements involved in performing Olympic lifts can be broken down into more isolated sub-movements, e.g. military press and the power clean rather than the entire clean and jerk. These sub-lifts are far easier to master, and thus more worthwhile to any trainee not looking to compete in an Olympic-style lifting competition.
of course they would benefit more from more intense, comprehensive exercise. the point is that you can get in excellent shape with 1/10th of the commitment and effort that such a comprehensive program demands. constantly worrying over your next major gains is what makes the fitness habit so hard to maintain.
In my experience cardiovascular exercise is way better for almost everything he mentions and for strength training one doesn't really need weights, various push-up routines are more than enough.
I believe what greenblue meant by "almost everything he mentions" was better health, longer life and better looks, and possibly the bit about mental benefits.
And at least in terms of longevity, cognitive benefits, lowering risks for lifestyle diseases and , stress relief, cardio has a mountain of positive research backing it. For looks, it depends on what you're after. Not many male models are hulking gym rats, though.
I believe most people spend far to much time on Cardio, and not nearly enough time developing their muscles. You get so much benefit in terms of metabolic changes from muscle building that it should be a part of any work-out. Cardio is important, no question. If your goal, however, is to change your physique you will get much more mileage from weight-lifting. This includes just a general weight-loss goal.
Really, I try to shoot for the fitness tri-fecta:
* Eat right (in my case a high calorie diet with lots of vegetables protein, and dietary fat)
* Build muscle (by lifting heavy objects multiple times, primarily through big compound exercises like squats and dead-lifts)
* Build endurance with a cardio program (I alternate with my muscle building program)
And when you've developed the strength to do that, how do you increase the resistance (and how do you develop the strength when you can't even do a single pushup like that)?
It's well established science that you should be doing about 5-15 repetitions per set, depending on whether you're focusing on hypertrophy or strength (overkill for non-professionals to even make the distinction, just stay between 8-12) — if you can do more than that then the exercise does not offer enough resistance, and if you can't do enough repetitions then likewise it's suboptimal (just like trying to lift a truck is a suboptimal exercise).
So, whenever your exercise using your own body weight as resistance offers you just the right amount of resistance to keep you within that range, then it's great. Most of the time though, it will be well outside of that range — so in the general case, using body weight as resistance is bad advice.
And when you've developed the strength to do that, how do you increase the resistance (and how do you develop the strength when you can't even do a single pushup like that)?
Incline and Decline Pushups. At the top of a standard pushup you are holding in the mid 60s % of your body weight on your hands. At the bottom in the mid 70s % of your body weight. Changing the angles changes that value. Of course that still doesn't work out your legs but squats and other exercises with out weights do pretty well for most general purpose needs.
It also changes what muscles you are exercising. A 100% inclined pushup works your shoulders significantly more than your chest, while a normal pushup exercises your chest more.
It makes it a completely different exercise altogether — the shoulder press exercise is not a substitute for the bench press and is nowhere near as efficient an exercise to build your chest muscles.
Lifting weights adds too much "heavy" muscle and not enough "lean" muscle which I think technically is known as twitch muscle. I have tried both lifting heavy weights and just simple exercises combined with flexibility training that just involve using my own body as a source of resistance and I can tell you without a doubt that I feel way better when I have more twitch/lean type of muscles.
Neat book, but I'm still not seeing it. And even including the huge variety of weird gymnastics holds [1] out there I'm not sure how you can compare with a squat or deadlift with 300+lbs of weight.
For example, a full squat works the thighs, calves (somewhat), and core very hard. A deadlift works the hamstrings, core, lats and forearms very hard.
At the very least the panopoly of push-ups out there will have real trouble working most of your lower body, and heavy compound exercises tend to help development of your upper body too.
[1] There's a book called "Building the Olympic Body" by Coach Sommer that has a whole lot of nifty gymnastics stuff in it, but it requires rings and other equipment.
The main activity that makes your body gain muscle is to subject it to exceptional amounts of work — that is to say, a lot more work than it is used to (combined with the intake of the necessary fuel to facilitate it).
It should be reasonably simple to understand that using your own bodyweight as resistance is a very inefficient means by which to achieve this.
Not only do you need to use weights to reach a level of efficiency, you need to also continuously push yourself harder all the time, or else your development curve will flatten.
I disagree. The only thing gymnasts do is use their own bodyweight and as far as athletes go in terms of endurance and pound for pound muscle strength they can not be beat.
Gymnasts are not at all as efficient about building muscle mass as body builders are. Gymnasts achieve great physical results in time, but nowhere near as efficiently as body builders do.
This should not come as a surprise to anyone — for gymnasts, building muscle is a means to an end, and they don't want to build any extra muscle as that just weighs them down. For body builders, building muscle mass is everything.
The whole point of the article was about health/well-being through exercise and my point is that the gymnasts strike a very happy balance between strength/fitness and well-being. Whereas body builders exceed a lot of bounds and maintaining that much heavy/slow twitch muscle mass can be detrimental to one's health.
Becoming a gymnast is not a realistic way of adding muscle mass, unless this epiphany strikes you at about the age of seven.
Even if you do decide to go the gymnast route, you'll still be lifting weights (though not until you've been at it for years, and you probably won't be making some newbie gym mistakes like prioritizing biceps), it'll just take longer to achieve results because you're mostly focused on acquiring the skill and technique to do actual gymnastics.
As for your other claim, body builders do not accidentally add too much muscle. It is a wide-spread fear among people who don't exercise at all, but it does not actually happen. You absolutely, positively, won't wake up one day and realize that you've accidentally put on too much muscle.
Accidentally putting on so much muscle as to be detrimental to your health would be akin to walking home from school or work and suddenly realizing you accidentally walked around planet earth and the soles of your feet have been completely worn down — you will not suddenly complete a journey that takes most people extreme dedication and hard work over many many years.
I didn't say go become a gymnasts. Anyone can do many of the conditioning routines gymnasts do to improve strength and technique. Push-ups, dips, crunches, v-ups, etc. are the most basic things most gymnasts do to strengthen their muscles and since most people are not going to be pushing boulders around I don't see a point in doing any kind of heavy lifting if you're exercising simply to reap the benefits of exercise.
Also, I didn't make a claim about accidentally adding too much muscle. I simply stated that the kind of muscles that weight-lifting builds is different from the kind of muscles you will build if you don't use weights. I've done both and simple routines that I can do at home exercise more muscle groups without isolating specific areas and overall I feel much better.
There is no point of doing "various push-up routines" if you want to build strength. If your goal is "strength training" lifting weights is the most effective way of doing it.
"So you’re sold on weight lifting and are ready to put a little pride in your stride, a little strut in your stuff, but you don’t know where to get started."
After reading that, I didn't need to look at his about page to know he worked in marketing. What a douche-bag.
Yes, you can think through problems while lifting but that's hardly unique to weight lifting. Ditto for books on tape.
I'm not hating on weight lifting here (I've been lifting consistently for 9+ years) but I just don't see this as being Hacker News.
PS - I think you meant to write "read" instead of "ready" here: "In particular, the Freakonomics audio books are quite good as they are ready by the author, as is Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell."