Ask HN: How do you exercise?

inetsee · 3 years ago

I'm 72 years old and diabetic. There are significant limits on what I can do. My wife and I will do 30 minute walks 5 to 7 days a week. We go fast enough to get my heart rate up to the lower end of the aerobic zone. I also do strength training at the YMCA 3 or 4 days a week. I use the machines rather than the free weights. I worry about getting injured using free weights. I can't do many of the exercises other people have described here, but I do what I can. My weight is in the middle of the Normal BMI range, my diabetes is reasonably well controlled, and I think my strength is good for a 72 year old.

My recommendation would be to find an exercise that you enjoy doing, do it often enough to improve your health, and take your time; don't rush it. If you injure yourself it'll set you back to the beginning.

pprotas · 3 years ago

Did you injure yourself in the past by exercising too hard?

_trackno5 · 3 years ago

I’m a bodybuilder.

I train 5x per week, generally around 5.30am so I can get it done before work starts. It serves as a backbone for my day and I appreciate that no matter what happens, what I do at the gym is entirely under my control and I enjoy having that to fallback on when things are messy in life.

Health wise the benefits are obvious, but I appreciate the discipline and need to create abstract goals for the future and stick to them. Bodybuilding also taught me adaptability: conditions are not always ideal and you need to make do with what you have to get the stimuli you need. It also teaches you that sometimes the best action is no action (i.e. get some rest)

re · 3 years ago

Can I ask what you mean when you describe yourself as "a bodybuilder"? Does this mean that you participate in amateur/professional bodybuilding competitions?

_trackno5 · 3 years ago

Yeah, I compete in bodybuilding shows.

My end goal is to get a WNBF pro card by the time I’m 40. I’m 29 right now, so got plenty of shows to come :)

uptownfunk · 3 years ago

Wow cool. Mind sharing more info about your program / diet?

_trackno5 · 3 years ago

Sure, anything specific you wanna know?

== Training

I follow a periodised routine where a mesocyclo (block of training) lasts between 4-6 weeks and I take a deload week between mesocycles.

I'm a big believer in Renaissance Periodisation's [0] approach of starting a training block at the minimum effective volume (MEV) and building up volume throughout the mesocyclone till you reach your maximum recoverable volume (MRV).

By the end of a mesocycle I'm pretty close to overreaching and it's time for a deload to drop fatigue and restart the training process.

I won't share the specific details of my program since that was designed by my coach (I highly recommend getting one), but I can share the overall structure:

- Day 1: Legs

- Day 2: Pull

- Day 3: Push

- Day 4: rest day

- Day 5: Legs

- Day 6: Pull + Push

Even though I said legs, push, and pull, that's just the focus of my sessions. It doesn't mean I only train those body parts or movement patterns.

For example, today was my first pull day of the week and while my primary exercises were for the back, I also did hammer curls, calf raises, and cable crunches.

== Diet

I pretty much just stick to whole foods and reserve some of my calories for junk food. I got quite the sweet tooth so I eat some kind of chocolate/cookies pretty much every day (less often when I am dieting down though)

I'm on a massing phase (i.e., bulk) right now and I am eating at around 2700 kcal per day.

Here's what I ate today for example (I vary the foods, but the structure is the same):

-- Pre-training

One scoop of athletic greens with water

200ml of soy milk + 30g of whey or just a protein bar (generally Grenade's white chocolate flavour)

1 cup of coffee

-- Post-training ("breakfast")

20g of dark chocolate

70g blueberries

250g of skyr

1 plain bagel (I'm weird, but I really enjoy this)

1 cup of coffee

-- Mid-morning snack

60g of cocoa pops (my junk food for the day)

-- Lunch

1 flatbread wrap with: 15g mayo, 80g 97% lean beef, 1 whole tomato, red onion, pickled jalapeños, and rockets

1 banana

-- Afternoon snack

1 bagel with: 40g of peanut butter, 40g of jam, 1 banana

-- Dinner

Same as lunch

== Other stuff

I usually avoid drinking my calories, but every now and then I enjoy having a beer so I just adjust my food intake for the day to account for that. Not a big deal since I can't really handle more than a pint anyways :P

When I have some kind of social event, it's usually in the evening. If I know I won't have much control over what I eat, I tend to do a protein "fast" (mostly eat protein-rich foods) throughout the day prior to the event so I have extra calories to spend there.

I average around 12,000 steps each day. I get those steps mostly from walking to and from the gym and doing errands or walking to work. I keep track of the number of steps on a spreadsheet so I can refer to it in the future.

I also weigh myself every day and keep track of the measurements in the same spreadsheet. It's pretty handy to see what level of activity and food intake I need to reach to lose weight, for example. I can just look up what I did last time and just follow that.

[0] https://rpstrength.com/training-volume-landmarks-muscle-grow...

ammojamo · 3 years ago

My grandmother, who was fit and healthy into her 90s, used to chuckle at the idea of "exercising". I now understand where she was coming from – a simple active lifestyle can be all the exercise one needs.

These days I live in a rural Australian town and mostly walk or ride a bike to get around. We don't have a TV, a dishwasher, an air-conditioner or a ride-on lawn mower. Life is great. I'm working on a small building project in my spare time and instead of using machinery to level the ground, I just used a mattock and shovel (like my grandfather would have). It took weeks instead of hours, but that's OK.

dhruvkar · 3 years ago

Gyms and exercising is a direct response to our bodies not getting enough movement in our modern day lifestyle.

I do think we need that balance. I'm trying out farming on a small plot of land to keep a moving lifestyle.

lexandstuff · 3 years ago

I walk my dog for an hour every morning; then, I will come back and do strength training in my living room. That's usually one or two exercises from a pool of bodyweight exercises like pull-ups, push-ups, jumping squats, rock presses, jumping lunges or burpees. I typically go for total count rather than sets and keep trying to improve how many I can do in a row without taking a break. I alternate exercises each day to rest muscle groups. Then I stretch and get on with my day. I do this every day unless sick or injured. I usually get this done within 5 to 10 minutes.

I've experimented with doing longer workouts at the gym 2-3 times a week, but my brain is good at using time shortages as excuses to skip workouts. Eventually, weeks go by without doing any workouts at all.

If I can get my workout done in the time it takes me to go to the toilet, I can never tell myself I don't have enough time for them. Doing it daily forces my brain to quickly normalise it as part of my routine.

patatino · 3 years ago

Do you see improvements this way or just keeping your current fitness level?

lexandstuff · 3 years ago

Very minor improvements: adding an extra rep every few weeks or so.

I won't be winning any CrossFit competitions, but I feel much better than not working out at all. I would love to push myself a bit harder, but this is the only way I've managed to stay consistent over the long term.

Connor_Creegan · 3 years ago

I stopped going to a gym a few years ago and nowadays do everything at home. I'll try to do HIIT a few times per week, splitting that up between running and jumping rope. On top of that, my regular training integrates a lot of calisthenics - mostly handstands, pullups, pushups, etc. - and stuff with kettlebells. I have a barbell and plates, but I don't use them as much anymore because I got rid of my weight bench. Nowadays, I mostly do deadlifts and cleans with the barbell. Have screwed around with some other things like Arthur Saxon lift, etc.

As far as how training has benefited me personally, I would say that some kind of training or regular "exercise" is in order if you want to be a fulfilled, well-rounded person, especially as a man. I didn't take fitness seriously at all until my early adulthood. I was living in my car at the time and had a gym membership for the initial purpose of taking showers, but at one point I figured, "why not try out this exercise thing that people do?" so I started running on the treadmills regularly and it had an incredible impact on me at the time and also motivated me to stop smoking (because of how difficult running was with smoker's lung). Over time I started picking up more things and now it's part of my daily life.

timeu · 3 years ago

I am 42 years old and try to focus on 2 areas: strength and aerobic performance

For strength: I basically just do the "The Bridge by Barbell Medicine" (https://liftvault.com/programs/strength/bridge-program-sprea...) around 3x a week (sometimes a 4th General Practice Day). I started like most with 5x5 Stronglift probably 8 years ago but switched to this program around 3 years ago. The nice thing is that it has some variation and doesn't take too long. It consists of the big compound lifts so I think it's great for general strength

For Cardio: I started to do to 4x Zone 2 training on an indoor bike (https://peterattiamd.com/category/exercise/aerobic-zone-2-tr...) recently because a lactate test showed that I have horrible aerobic peformance. I blame it on Covid but I guess it's because after stopping with football/soccer due to a knee injury I virtually did no aerobic exercise. The upside is that a great aerobic performance has tons of health benefits (blood preassure, cholestoral, etc).

I train always in the morning (start between 6:30 and 7:00) before work in fasted state (time restricted feeding between 12:00-20:00) for cardio and with a pre-workout shake (creatine) on the strenght days. I am not a huge morning person but I got used to getting up early and the great thing is that even if my day was super unproductive one thing was accomplished and it's also quite compatible with social life (in case I want to do something after work).

Physically I am probably now in a better shape than in my 30ies and I plan to contineu to do this as long as possible

uslic001 · 3 years ago

I find my rowing machine to be a great low impact high intensity workout of most large muscle groups.

themodelplumber · 3 years ago

Usually I like to hike from the valley floor to the top of one of the foothills. Some trail maintenance along the way if there have been storms (gave the sak saw a workout today).

Try to get to the top in 45m or less, call out on some simplex frequencies on a radio or antenna I've been wanting to try, see who comes back.

On the way home I do some journaling by talking into my phone, usually feels really good.

At home, isometric exercises, push-ups, dips, kata, pull-ups, dancing, weights, whatever sounds interesting. Skills included, even random stuff, like I've found that tossing erasers or badminton birdies into an old peanut butter jar is a good skill exercise and my kids usually join in.

Needs: Figure out how to do wargaming on the floor without getting cramped up... Getting old. Lol

Benefits...IDK. It helped me lose like 100lbs, 36% of bodyweight or so. Nurses always ask if my resting pulse is normal since it's in the low 40s. That's been funny...

...but none of this is worth it in isolation, unless I'm excited by what I'm doing, or thinking about, etc. Has to be all around interesting. I'm always trying out new gadgets on my hikes for example.

https://twitter.com/systematikk/status/1072960631916027904?t...