Some of my peers are deep into running. I don’t get it. Running is sometimes fun for me but most often painful.
Then I overheard one of them (the fittest) say to a budding runner that he [should] do mostly easy sessions. Okay what’s easy to him? He said that so slow that it can feel awkward and unnatural. What?
Then I searched around and found out about Zone 2 and how you should do most of your work in that zone when building aerobic fitness. And that it is characterized by being able to hold a conversation, although strained.
I searched around and found atheletes like amateur ultrarunners say the same thing.
Then it hit me. I’ve probably been jogging a lot in Zone 3. Or higher? Because the harder you go the more benefit, right? That seems to be the basic logic for everything.[1] Relatively short, painful sessions. Have I been conditioning myself to associate cardio with more pain than is necessary for the average session?
So maybe I should just go on the stationary bike today, do a “conversatitional” (talk to myself) pace and listen to my audiobook for an hour? And try to not let my groin fall asleep.
[1] With nuances like go-to-failure for hypertrophy in weightlifting and more back-off-a-little for strength training.
I've been streak running (so running at least a mile per day with no exceptions, mostly 5ks during the week, 10-20k on weekends) for almost 8 years (2817 days). The single best tip I give to everyone is "slow down! run slow!"
Of course, almost no-one adheres to it unless they are already well practiced. It's just deeply ingrained in peoples heads that "only if it's hard or painful it must work". Then people check out of running because it feels like crap, which it does if you always push too hard.
In my opinion, three of the most important rules are:
- slow down! does it feel "too slow"? Great, that's the right speed for most runs
- small steps! feels awkward at first, but is sooo much more efficient and soo much better for your joints
- land on mid- or forefoot (that happens mostly automatically with small steps)
1. You want to land on the mid-foot. Heel-striking puts a lot of pressure up you leg and joints as you are basically braking with every step. Forefoot strike puts a lot of pressure on your calf and achilles as you have to 'bounce' on every foot-strike to support your body weight. A mid-foot strike is the most efficient transition of energy into and back out of the ground for forward motion. Small steps help you to find a mid-foot strike, large steps (over-striding) will create a heel-strike.
2. For lots of people taking up 'running' they (naturally) believe that they should run. But for many, running continuously will be beyond their zone-2 cardio. It's much easier to start with a jog/walk and build up. In the UK we have a brilliant app called 'couch-to-5k' which is a progressive build from essentially no fitness (walking some distance) up to being able to continuously jog for 5k.
I’ve never understood what a mid-foot strike is. My foot has an arch. My heel touches the ground, ball of foot and toes touch the ground. Mid-foot doesn’t.
To me its more like you should strike with the forefoot but with the foot almost flat (as opposed to running like on tiptoes) so it feels as if you are instantly rolling onto the mid part of the shoe. Or put slightly differently- the middle of the shoe is what catches the groud first as it moves backwards relative to your overall direction of travel. There was a whole huge thing about barefoot running but doing miles of it on grass really did help me retrain as a former heel striker.
Just behind the ball of your foot so as to load your arch in a downward motion. Your heel will almost definitely touch the ground. This, as opposed to a forefoot strike, where you're landing just behind your toes and loading in a rearward motion (think sprinting). Your heel probably will not touch the ground.
Both of these are hard to do in typical "running shoes" which build a significant amount of rubber into the heel, while also being fairly thin up front.
I've never understood striking guidance either. It seems that over long enough distances everyone is a heel striker too, it's just more efficient. So I'd assume that any advice you hear is more pace-dependent than it appears.
I definitely went on this journey with my running. At first I would run very short distances at very high pace(zone 4/5), but I fell out of it. I picked up running again last year and ended up more in zone 3/4, but for the last six months I've been aiming for zone 2 in most of my runs.
I've had some knee pain recently so I've not been running much, focusing instead on knee strengthening exercise. On my last run I discovered this weird phenomenon were my knees stopped hurting if I ran faster with longer strides, it felt like I was "rolling through" each step which seemed less demanding for my knees. Perhaps my slow running style is just poor.
Rucking. Get a back pack with a chest and waist strap, put in weights (increase over time) or buy a cheap weight lifting belt (Velcro fine) and attach a rope and something that drags (I use an old wheel).
Low impact, good for core strength. Zone 2 approved.
If you are wealthy they make specific back packs or I bought a tacti-cool one on Temu for cheap.
Outlive by Peter Attia is pretty good for more ideas on how to lengthen the mobile portion of your life.
I've noticed that, too. This video is interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jj9ZgQgQvBk and might explain some of it, but I also think that the kinematics of your legs works better at higher speeds (or at walking speeds) - jogging seems the worst for joints!
The youtuber "knees over toes guy" seems to be largely acknowledged by The Internet as having a novel, free and effective way to strengthen and injury-proof your knees. Worked very well for me.
Should add that with serious running training it is hard and painful, but more on aggregate. Even when I'm just base building, and maybe doing 1 or 2 'kinda hard but not all out' sessions a week, the accumulated load feels hard.
One way to easily achieve those three rules is to switch to barefoot-style shoes. They force you to slow down and take small steps. Don't have to go full 5-finger shoes either, just something with zero drop, a flexible sole and minimal cushion. I did this and my shin-splints and knee pain went away.
There's also value in spending some time in zone 5 [1]: this is where the heart is really trained as a muscle, and where the cardiovascular system is pushed to its limit (the famous vo2max: increasing vo2max is done in zone 5, for ex. with HIIT [2]).
Zone 2 is all about giving the mitochondries a chance to get better at providing a steady energy flow over a long time, mainly by optimizing for burning fat as fuel instead of glucose, avoiding lactate accumulation during the process [3].
In between, in zones 3 & 4, you get a little of both those ends of the spectrum, it's still helpful to a degree, but it's not really optimized: that why it's deemed preferable to spend the bulk of your training time in either your zone 2 or zone 5.
The ideal composition of a training period seems like 90% zone 2 and 10% zone 5, and going for more than 1h of zone 5 per week seems not that interesting. Also, mixing zone 2 and zone 5 in the same training session is not ideal, it's better to stay focused on one thing at at time.
A lot of pop-celebrity-educator types like Attia or Stephen Seiler say that. Then you look at how the professionals train and you see pyramidal distribution almost universally. Something like 85% below first lactate threshold, 12% in "sweet spot" and 3% in "zone 5".
I've spent a lot of time reading a lot about opinions and then looking at logs of professional athletes [1] (in cycling as I am most interested in that). My conclusion is that training comes down to:
1)do a lot of volume, the more the better
2)do some "hard stuff" - if those are hard intervals, longer "sweet spot" intervals or a a mix of those (like 5 minutes at threshold and then 15 seconds sprint, repeat n times) matters little
3)at pro level do some training specific to what you are going to do a lot in racing
1)is by far the most important and the most reliable predictor of overall fitness
[2]https://www.youtube.com/@sportscientist - Stephen Seiler's youtube channel; he has done work on analyzing how pro athletes train but his conclusions are very simplified and it seems made to sell "polarized" training idea. When you look at the details in the data no one trains like that, the final distribution is almost always pyramidal, not polarized
From my experience about jogging (=regular running for your health, without a specific sport goal):
- get good shoes! this is probably the only piece of equipment you need (with a wind/rain jacket). Go to a shop when you can get advice. For me, flat soles is the way to go but I know there is debate on that question. Change them after 1000km at max (I've seen 500 km recommendation)
- follow the advice above zone 2 / zone 5 training. If unsure, slow down !
- avoid pain as much as possible otherwise your body will associate pain and run and you end up giving up (maybe not today, not tomorrow but one day for sure)
- buy a jumping rope and practice (you'll be amazed on the resulting spring effect while running)
- prefer solo session (group sessions are good if you want to talk but the most important thing is to run at your very own pace). you are better with some music or interesting podcasts
- vary the routes as much as possible. Even if you have only one route, start it from time to time on the other direction. There is no better training than on a route you don't know. Always running the same route is part of the reason you may quit.
- start your chronometer at the beginning of the session and try to forget it.
- find a friend and do some bike and run session from time to time (one run, one on the bike for like 20 minutes and then you change). It allows you to make longer run and recover while on the bike.
/!\ Just an opinion here, I'm not a specialist, just a +/- 20y regular runner
For someone who doesn't like running and isn't a runner... I'd advise them to try a different exercise ;-)
Seriously, I have a friend who assumes that exercise == going to the gym... and she hates the gym. But she keeps trying to force that round peg into a square hole!
I've tried asking her, "well, do you like tennis? Dancing? Rock climbing?" But apparently those don't count.
This is a fair and, as far as I can tell, accurate response. There's a huge difference between new runner strategy and optimized runner strategy. Any optimized fitness/habit plan should be just complex enough that you will maintain it, and that's different for everyone.
Another way to look at this: "ideal" has different definitions depending on whether it's maintainable for any given individual, as well as a definition for "what's the best way to do this if you take willpower out of the equation?"
Slightly tangential, but getting an e-bike has got me doing way more miles (by probably an order of magnitude) than I have ever done before - and way more total exercise overall.
Since you can dial in the assist, it basically turns a regular bike into an exercise bike. Or conversely, an exercise bike that actually rides around outside. If I want to fry my legs on a hill, I can drop the assist and really feel the grind. If I want to take it easy on the hill back home though, I can boost the assist so that it takes practically no effort.
It's just this amazing tool that reliably will trick your brain into working out. You take the ebike out because it is so effortless to ride, but inevitably you end up lowering the assist to feel the burn a bit on your rides.
> I like being able to extract the most value out of the lowest time investment
Biking to work using Strava is like this for me.
It gamifies exercise in a very addictive manner. Getting a PR, being quickest on a segment or becoming a local legend.
There is always someone or something to beat.
I had to back off that and instead do other games (ie, wandrer.earth gives you points for "new miles") because I got a bit too competitive and borderline dangerous.
Besides, I got records and fastest times when e.g. wind was at my back or the lights all went my way - so I knew it wasn't just my effort & just happenstance.
I still use Strava - mostly as a personal blog of my efforts & take a picture of wildlife or crazy videos to share with others sometimes.
Ha I had to stop tracking my bike commutes because I was going way too hard for Strava times on them. It got to the point where it was sorta dangerous... Love the app for my fun rides tho!
You sacrifice a segment then go like a mad thing for the one you need to win. And you curse if a dog walker gets in the way, sort of encouraging antisocial behaviour. But if you can get past that stage it’s pretty rewarding to ignore segments and go for longer records (eg 20km, 50km etc).
Yes. That's why I march quickly with a heavy backpack. That should be zone 2.
Then occupationally I try to do sprints uphill, walk down. Get ready for another uphill sprint. I have been lazy on that unfortunately.
There is also a lot of evidence that sprinting is really good. I mean if you look at the bodies of Olympic sprinters vs Olympic runners, what do you want to develop?
A part of become a good runner is letting go of expectations. There is a lot of quasi meditative written on the topic, but even if that’s not your thing: even if you walk/jog/walk to retain a constant, middle to low heart rate you could easily have the same effort as a trained runner doing some great mileage. The humbling part is part of the experience. Stay away from anything with speed for the first thousand miles. It will only lead to injuries. The good thing is, both condition and speed will improve very fast and the happy run feeling isn’t based on speed or distance. It’s being outside, alone, in silence with sounds and weather while doing something actively (but not overly). Did I mention I miss running? (Alas I am now missing some necessary cartilage.)
I never understood why people are chasing some stupid numbers, constantly comparing to each other, and then are unhappy or push themselves into injury. Such an unhealthy mindset for life overall.
That's really the opposite of what sports are supposed to be for 99.9% of the people. Who cares how life and training of some fastest guy in XYZ category looks like? Go at your pace, progress slowly also at your pace, also good strategy for life overall. You also don't take tips for driving in traffic from top formula 1 driver, do you, sorta worse than useless.
I do naturally push myself a bit when I run alone, to the point when even say 5-6km run makes me tired and drenched in sweat, but certainly not first 10-20 runs after some lull (like now broken foot, starting gently next week). And running is really just training for other more adrenaline sports for me, not chasing kms and preparing for races. But never pushing beyond whats OK for my body, and with experience one knows oneself very well in this regard.
I first trained to run long distances using a run-walk method for equal distances, which I then shortened – it took some convincing from an experienced runner that I wasn't "cheating", but when I realized that I was able to run at enough overload to train no matter what, it then clicked: it's about staying in motion; it's running, not sprinting, which are two different things indeed.
I now cycle for the same reasons as you do, although it's not as consistently intense as I would like.
I’ve been doing ultra marathons now for over a decade and the key is slow. Walk a lot at first if you have to. Some key resources getting started are Jeff Galloway and his run walk method. Once you build up to mostly running just mix in a few “strides” a week: pick two workouts and run 5x 30s at a “not quite sprint” speed. That’s it. Anything else you mix in (tempo, intervals, progressions, blah blah blah) is the last 10% and completely optional.
Your zone 2 speed will change over time. I do most of my training in zone 1 now, and that’s like a 9 minute per mile pace. When I started more than 15 years ago a 9 minute mile felt like death. Patience. This takes a lot of time.
I always hated running, but I had always been doing it for exercise. Perversely, this meant if I moved inefficiently and made the movement harder, I was doing better. I characterized running as "competitive suffering". No pain no gain, right? And like you, I always did more than felt good, and figured that meant I was doing it right.
But I don't think that way now. I want to enjoy moving. I want to move playfully and powerfully and efficiently. Exercise until it feels good, not until it feels bad. Love the body you have and take care of it and build it up, rather than hate-exercising to change it.
I went through the same paradigm shift with cycling. I used a cheap bike that was slow and heavy because higher efficiency wouldn't allow me to get exercise any faster. Then I got a nice road bike, and it's so much more fun to ride, so I'm riding a lot more.
I've recently come to the same realization. I've always considered myself a more short-distance athlete, having been a sprinter and played more "burst" sports in high-school like football. My wife is a more long-distance runner. I've never understood why people like her were able to run for miles and miles without stopping. I could maybe keep up with her for the first mile, maybe 2, but then I was toast.
It's only recently when I learned about Zone 2 training that I came to understand that my training approach has always been backwards. I have always indexed my pace on what has always been a "respectable" mile time, on the assumption that if I run at that pace over and over, eventually I'll be able to go for longer at that pace. And that kind of is true, but not ever to the extent I can keep up with my wife.
Now, I am attempting to approach my running from a "time spent running > speed", and I'm finding that I indeed can run for 40+ minutes straight with no stopping, at a much lower pace than what I had been, and that it is much easier to make progress by running slowly for 40 minutes and gradually increase my pace over time than it is to run quickly for as long as I can and gradually increase the distance.
Yes, most of experienced runners' running is at a conversational pace, often literally (this is why running groups are popular).
To explain why harder isn't better: improvement in running comes only a little from muscular strength, so that mental model is bad.
Improvement is primarily based on aerobic development of the cardiovascular system. This is your body's ability to burn mostly-fat with oxygen, deliver the energy (ATP molecules) to muscles, and remove waste products. So you develop more capillaries, your heart gets literally stronger, and this fat-burning pathway gets more efficient.
Going too hard pushes into the anaerobic zone (burning sugar without oxygen). This is good training in some ways, but it can be counterproductive to aerobic development and, most important, it's too hard to do very much volume so the amount of stimulus is limited. By keeping it easy, you can do a higher volume of purely aerobic stimulus.
I have been exclusively an anaerobic athlete for the past two years and my aerobic fitness has dropped to a shockingly low level. But I am oddly comfortable at 180-190bpm
I am slowly building in more aerobic cardio into my training but man cardio is just such a chore for me. It's always the first to go so it takes constant maintenance and it's time consuming...
I’ve seen this happen. We call it having great cardiovascular fitness but not so great metabolic fitness. One of the reasons that zone 2 or maintaining aerobic fitness seems to have such an impact on longevity is that it requires and reinforces metabolic fitness.
When I was a kid I loved long-distance walking because it was "me-time". I have some introvert genes and I really needed to be on my own, away from people, and going for a walk was the only way I could achieve that.
Then I moved to a bike-friendly country and I started biking all the time. 30 minutes commute one way, 30 minutes back. I live right next to subway but god I hate public transport, and owning a car in this city is a massive headache.
Often I go for a small one-hour ride in the evening. I put on some music, start cycling, and thinking about things. I feel like I get into some kind of trance. When sitting at home I constantly feel "now what now what now what now what", but while cycling, I get into a rhythm and often; not always, but often; I get into a state where my thoughts kinda flow more easily, I can just think about something happy and focus on it, or maybe listen to the music. I live in a low-density area with biking lanes separated from most car traffic, so sometimes I get drunk or high and go cycling, which feels amazing - I have to focus and make it through one intersection, and after that the worst thing that can possibly happen is falling off the bike and getting a few bruises.
Sometimes I go for longer whole-day trips. When I reach the point of complete exhaustion the part of my brain that constantly worries about getting fired or possible WW3 shuts down and it's like being high but without drugs. I plan these trips so that I fight against the wind on my way "there" and then enjoy the help of the wind on my way back which becomes almost efforless. When I come home exhausted, the body experiences relaxation in ways impossible to achieve in other ways.
If you want advice, from my experience:
1. Stationary machines are a scam, 90% of pleasure comes from being outside.
2. Do exercise at a pace "I could keep on going like this forever" and then after an hour "oh not anymore"
3. Get something that keeps you entertained but doesn't require your attention. I don't recommend audiobooks because you need to keep actively listening. I recommend music or radio because if you zone out and stop listening, nothing bad happens. And sometimes try not having anything at all, just watch all the things around you.
This is absolutely true, when I started, I didn’t have a zone2 while running and running is just suffering.
But gradually I could hold a lower heart rate while running and now my zone 2 runs are actually faster than my fastest pace I could hold a year ago. Now I enjoy running more than cycling (though my fitness are still probably mostly derived by cycling).
I watch all streaming shows on a rowing machine with not-so-high speed and not-so-high resistance. The show keeps me entertained and sometimes I even forget that I'm rowing. Previously I did that with an iPad 12.9" next to the machine, but I've just started watching shows on the Quest 3 and that's way better.
Doing this with a treadmill is honestly a gamechanger if you can't or don't want to do cardio outside (e.g., safety issues, heat, bad weather, etc.)
Even just walking on an incline can get your heart rate into the right zone so you get cardiovascular benefits while being so low in fatigue that you can get a lot of volume in.
Eventually your fitness will increase such that you'll run out of incline and speeds you can walk and you'll have to jog to stay in the zone.
I didn't try exercising with it, but, Quest 2 was getting too hot for me even after a short while playing Beat Saber for example. Quest 3 is much better in that aspect. I can actually keep it on for long durations, and heat isn't a problem at all.
I've heard the same thing, but for cycling. However I wonder if that is not mostly for people who train much more than a normal person, like a pro or your ultra marathon friends.
I understood the idea was that by running / cycling mostly in zone 2, you can put in more distance / time as you can recover more easily. It would not be possible to bike 30 hours in a week in zone 3, you would trash yourself.
But for someone like me, biking like 6-8 hours a week, I could easily do a lot of higher intensity, recovery time is not a bottleneck, other obligations in life are. So I really wonder if that still applies if you're only running / biking a few hours per week?
If you don’t like running, find an exercise you do enjoy. Running isn’t the only cardio out there. If you’re jumping through hoops to force yourself to enjoy it, try a few other activities. Me, I can only get myself to run if I’m engaged in sports.
Or, if you're like me, find the one that you have to tolerate least. I find no exercise to be enjoyable. I tolerate a couple things like rowing or walking.
Are you carrying excess weight? I've been overweight most of my life. For a while in my 40s I hiked a lot and my BMI dropped into the normal range. When that happened, I became a runner. It felt amazing. I would run 5+ miles and felt like I could keep going forever. Once I put the weight back on(new relationship with someone who liked to eat), I couldn't run. It hurt and didn't feel good.
I don't know what the current research says, but I believe jogging is pretty hard on your joints vs running. I'd recommend hiking and fast walking as an alternative if you're looking to transition into running.
Unless you have actual mechanical problems with your joints or you're, as you said, heavy or out of normal BMI, then running is actually healthy for your joints. One caveat is the surface you run on. Running on softer surfaces than asphalt can be easier on your legs and feet.
Most injuries from running come from repetitive motion overuse and are muscular. People go out way too hard then discover that their muscles are weak for running (especially hips and glutes). Easing into running and doing some weightlifting or bodyweight exercises to supplement can usually keep you injury free and running well into old age. Some research shows it actually reducing the onset of osteoarthritis.
That is why strength and conditioning is so important. A lot of knee pain is not from the impact on the joint but because of the repetitive twisting and rolling because glutes and other muscles are not able to hold knees and other joints stable, especially when tired.
There isn't some hard and fast distinction between jogging and running that suddenly makes jogging bad for your joints and running not. "Jogging" just a name for a pace. The vast majority of people run "easy" pace runs at a jog. Jogging is running, but sprinting is not jogging. Sprinting and jogging are both running. Both are perfectly fine for your joints.
I'm 6'2" ~265 lbs (pretty fat) and around 30 years old. I started running to train for a 5k with some buds and found that I can comfortably run in zone 2 for about 1 hour with only mild soreness and minimal joint pain.
I've only really been getting into it in the past ~6 weeks or so, so still a beginner. Just wanted to chime in and say that running while fat is totally doable and you just gotta ease into it and try to avoid pain! Discomfort might be a part of the process, but running slowly in zone 2 has become quite relaxing and a great part of my day, despite having hated running when I was in the best shape of my life.
I used to only run in zone 4-5 because I focused on speed and just assumed misery was a necessary part of the running experience. It's been a total blessing to learn that it doesn't need to be like that at all!
Hope you can find a good balance for what works for you as a heavier person. Listening to your body and knowing your limitations are super important. Just wanted to share my experience as a heavier guy too.
These two things go together. I'm almost 50 and in my experience you're not going to want to do this after 40 but it depends on many factors (shoes, joint health, body mechanics, what you run on..).
Absolutely! I'm definitely not trying to minimize the impact that aging has on our bodies, just add another data point to the discussion :)
I've just seen people my age and younger suggest that running while fat is too hard and give up on it but I've started to enjoy it for the first time in my life despite my weight.
I love running and doing it consistently over ~10 years, always longing to get out again.
I'm the only one among my friends that do this, and I find this to be highly correlated with my running style: Really comfortable pace 7-10km through local forests, only (I tend to do more 10km more than 7km as I like it so much).
I learned this one time when I ran on a threadmill and realized the enormous difference between a slight variation in speed (from 11 to 9 km/h in my case, but the exact numbers don't matter), where I realized with this slight change I could go on indefinitely instead of being quickly exhausted.
This has been the biggest game changer for me. People often think they need to push it hard and they quickly fatigue, burn out and hate going running. The trick is to do a 80% of your running sessions in zone 2 and 20% in high intensity to increase VO2 max. If you are at the start that means sometimes walking on hills and that is ok. There is a great book about this: https://www.amazon.com/80-20-Running-Stronger-Training/dp/04...
It took me some time to readjust my brain to stop aiming at extremes and focus at ~harmony. Doing exercise that don't burn you most of the time. Maybe later my body will be able to take a bigger hit, but in the mean time I'll take the slow maintenance mode.
Another trick was to focus on the whole body, I had a bad back but ran all my life like this, I now do light deadlift to restore better posture and better range of motion. Bad posture will make your muscle shrink and impede your running too.
I think conventional wisdom is "zone 2 for fitness / endurance, zone 3+ for performance." The interesting thing about this meta-analysis is it's discussing "baseline cardiorespiratory fitness" which - as I understand it - does correlate with vo2max.
As I understand it you can increase vo2max with exactly the type of training you are describing. Long efforts at zone2 can improve vo2 max, but the best improvements involve training at higher zones.
I certainly remember all the stories / headlines "walking is as good as running for cardiovascular health" etc which support the "just train zone 2" approach, but this study seems to me (a layperson) to contradict that.
Can anybody who is more versed in the research chime in? Does this study suggest that HIIT could reduce all cause mortality by improving vo2 max which improves baseline CRF (which is the value this the meta-analysis actually examined)?
V02 max is correlated with good health outcomes precisely because it's a proxy for cardiovascular health and fitness. Seeking to improve V02 max with hacks for health benefits is like trying to improve grip strength (a proxy for strength) to improve health.
You can sustainably improve your cardiovascular health by just slowly increasing your volume of work done at 120-150 bpm over time. Say start with a program like Couch to 5k, then slowly add a day of light jogging here and there, adding 5 minutes here and there, until you're jogging 30+ miles per week.
If you want to more "optimally" improve your cardiovascular fitness, after building an aerobic base as above for 12+ weeks, you can introduce a high intensity session to get some of the unique benefits of those, but your low intensity steady state zone 2 stuff should remain at least 80% of your time spent endurance training.
I had a very similar experience years ago, I tried to start running and I hated it. I went and got a heart rate monitor and found that after I was going for a while where I started to hate it, my heart was up at 180 or so. I started doing alternating run/walks so that I was averaging more like 145, and it was actually enjoyable and I'd get in the zone sometimes. After a while I managed to get up to half marathon distance. I'm a little skeptical about the zone 2 craze that's hit recently, but definitely, if you're just starting out, it's very easy to try to run like the other people you see on the trail and exhaust yourself. A heart rate monitor is very useful to help keep yourself in a reasonable range that's actually enjoyable and sustainable.
I too hate to run. And I do it everyday. To me it's the time I get to be alone with my podcasts for an hour. Now I look forward to it every morning. I'm not sure in what zone I usually run, but my pace is usually around 6min/Km.
6min/km is an average pace, so I do wonder why you still hate it? Have you looked into your cadence? Are you steps too long or the shoes too hard? Or do you have to run through post-apocalyptic ruins?
I'm not sure. It's not that I feel a huge discomfort or that anything hurts. It's just kind of pointless I think. I love martial arts and parkour, though. Maybe because the exercise is not the thing itself, but a byproduct of the activity?
It's very much not pointless. It can be difficult, initially, to reason about and iterate on activities that don't confer immediate feedback. These types of activities build effects over long periods of time, but everything we know says they're good for us. For example, it's hard to regret being overly winded during occasional martial arts or parkour when you're not.
I think the oft missed bit about zone 2 is that the goal is to increase volume. If you simply reduce intensity without increasing volume, you'll get worse, not better.
If you only run 30 minutes once a week, you won't see as many gains if you do it in zone 2 than zone 3/4. But you also can't run 10h/w zone 4/5, so that's where the zone 2 comes into play. It allows to increase volume without increasing fatigue/risk of injury too much.
No need to run even, you can stay in Zone 2 via walking. Incline on a treadmill makes required speeds quite low (2-3mph for most people).
I prefer it since it's at a pace where you can easily use your phone/browse the web at the same time.
Walking is also far more practical given that you walk 99% of the time in modern society. Might as well train for the thing you actually functionally do
I do love running and indeed it's better to jog slowly for longer time... though, to avoid injuries - please do exercises before and after because you can easily injure your (lower-)back and knees (talking from experience, chronic lower-back pain after ~20y of running…)
This type of talk is harmful. The risks of not exercising absolutely dwarf the risks of exercising, and telling people that they are going to injure themselves by “doing it wrong” makes them less likely to exercise.
It also makes them more likely to feel pain, since pain has biological, psychological, and social inputs.
There are no exercises that restore joints which are degenerating. Most likely you would have gotten 5-10 more pain-free years without the running, but it would have come anyway at some point. The increased cardio health and bone density does help sweeten the terrible deal though.
Just a note to encourage you to see a physical therapist, before deciding that there's nothing to do. I've been a jogger since 1971, started having back pain all the time. A physical therapist gave me 15 minutes worth of exercises everyday. Pain gone. Good luck!
Many, many people have such mechanical abnormalities and never experience pain. Many people without such abnormalities do experience pain. There’s surprisingly little association between them.
Yeah, that's another thing that neurologist and neurosurgeon told me... all in all last year changed my perspective on medicine and how much we actually know about our bodies :D
For cycling you don't need the talk test, it should just feel easy. My breathing isn't elevated, my legs can feel there's resistance but there's no strain. Feel free to go 25 minutes on 5 minutes off, that really helps with the saddle comfort.
> Then it hit me. I’ve probably been jogging a lot in Zone 3. Or higher? Because the harder you go the more benefit, right?
That's unfortunately not fully how it works. For maximum benefits, you would want to train your aerobic energy system, and to do that without risking injury, zone 2 is the recommended zone. The claim is that pain is gain, but more often than not, pain is your body telling you you are over the limit. By the description of your running experience, you were possibly closer to zone 4.
Of course, the body gets lazy, so you will want to vary your training. Repeat the same type of load, and your body will get efficient operating at that load, meaning your fitness gains will eventually stagnate. That's where the other zones come in.
At the zone 3/4 threshold you start using your anaerobic energy system more, with a stronger build-up of lactic acid as a by-product. Training in that range means your body will get more efficient at faster-paced work. Of course, as you build-up lactic acid, it also means that it is not a pace you can sustain.
But if you do short bursts of exercise at the lower-end of the anaerobic zone, you are actually contributing to making you aerobic energy system more efficient, without over-straining your body too much. And it's exactly the type of exercise variation your body needs to not get into the "lazy" mode.
The traditional way of approaching that is to have a base of zone 2 days (say 80% of your runs), and a few days of zone 3/low 4 days (say 20% of your runs), so that you alternate your loads.
Another approach with similar benefits, especially if you train less often, is the Fartlek approach, developed in Sweden in the 1930s. That's a type of training where you mix-up the load intensity during your runs, in about the same proportions. Fartlek means "speed-play", and it describes the method well. It's generally about approaching your training as you feel it that day. At some point during your run you might decided to increase the pace for a short time. Or you see a small hill that you can decide to attack at a faster pace, thereby changing your training zone. It's all about having fun and making your trainings less boring.
There was this belief in some circles until not that long ago that if you would enter a zone 3 or zone 4 training load during a zone 2 training day, you would mostly destroy the benefits of a "pure" zone 2 training. (Or the other way around, having some zone 2 stretches on zone 3/4 days). That turned out to be nonsense.
All in all, for good progress, and against boredom, Fartlek is the way to go, all the while keeping the bulk of your training in zone 2.
As I understand, aerobic-only training increases your anaerobic threshold (you can do more without going anaerobic) while anaerobic training improves your anaerobic tolerance (you can continue to function with more lactic acid buildup)
Some schools of training were maintaining for a long time that the process was fairly black and white, and that both systems should be trained separately, or else you would loose the training benefit of either.. Nature is rarely so stubbornly segregated, and, as it turns out, mixed training is perfectly fine.
Aerobic training will help you increase your anaerobic threshold, but training slightly above the threshold can be more efficient at increasing that threshold, if you are fit enough to recover from the lactic build-up before your next training. (Or if you have the luxury to increase your resting period so that you are fully recovered before you train again)
Anaerobic training will improve your anaerobic tolerance, but a good aerobic base will also help you improve your anaerobic tolerance, as your body will become more efficient at recycling the lactic acid back into ATP, delaying the moment when your muscles will be too saturated to function at the required level.
In general, while exercising, your muscles are using both ATP production means, aerobic and anaerobic. So, once more, you can see that by going slightly above your lactate threshold (but still with a good aerobic energy contribution) you are also contributing to improve your anaerobic tolerance, by staying longer in a range where your body needs to work harder to deal with the excess lactic build up. (Longer than a "pure" anaerobic training that cannot be sustained)
I was "forced" into biking a few years ago (had an injury that prevented running) and had the same problem with the groin. I thought it was a natural thing with biking, but it can actually be quite bad for you in the long run, and it's very fixable! Sitting position and saddle makes a huge difference. Ofc position is the cheaper thing to fix, but saddle is easier.
Go to a bike shop and explain the problem and they'll help you find a saddle that fits you, don't go on with getting your groin numbed.
I'm a cyclist, 100km without much effort, but a year ago I started running and it was super hard. The muscles are used differently, the body get impacted with every step and it takes some learning to find the right speed to reach whatever your target is. Pain kills the fun, the only way to succeed is to start slow and on short distances.
My goal was strengthening hip (one side has a three plates and a few screws in it) and knee mobility, with losing weight being an extra that I only reach this spring due to diet changes. I did find my Zone 2, where I can chat with a running buddy, and slowly extended the distances I run: Now 5km at 5:40m/km are the norm and 10km is just as possible. Injury-free so far and no ambition for a Marathon. The thing I now have to work at is the cadence which I (at 193cm) had trouble with on the bike as well, but shorter strides at a higher cadence are important to prevent knee injuries.
Whatever you do, I think sticking to it at least three times a week so you look forward for the next run, feel well during it and keep healthy. This is more important than beating records or running insane distances. Those goals are for those with the right genetics.
You don't have to really run for good cardio fitnes. In addition to HIIT, now there's IWT (Interval Walking Training), which yields similar results. Also, slow running seems to be more beneficial, too [0].
I hated running and still do, but the only thing that makes it “fun” for me is running on the hills with intervals. On days I can sprint up a small hill the high afterwards is amazing. It does take a couple of nights of good sleep to recover though.
I find way more enjoyable zone 4-5 training, but i do shadow boxing in front of the mirror, so it might differ. It's intense.
zone 2 means it's a long thing that i don't want to do and i have time to think about it
I watch TV-series on the treadmill. The fastest walking pace where I can still keep up with the story and keep the shaking low enough to have a steady picture.
You can improve cardiac fitness by just walking an hour a day. the top distance runners are at bmi of 19 or lower. longevity is maximized at bmi of 26.
Yeah as someone who (unfortunately) has the habit of exercising on and off that's what I heard/did as well: cardio where you're pushing yourself a little, but not so hard you feel like you want to stop right now or that you couldn't have a chat with someone running beside you.
Its weird though because HIIT is meant to be amazing for your body as well.
I suppose a mixture of both is good, and if I really think about it, we pretty much evolved to do that - low energy wandering to find prey, medium energy to chase prey and exhaust it, brief high intensity to catch up and finish the job. Then you get dinner.
Weird that people seem to assert that causality is not established? There are hundreds to thousands of studies that show that pretty much all markers for mortality and morbidity go down with excercise, i.e. put someone regulalrly on a treadmill for a couple of month and pretty much all health markers improve.
People implying that the study shows only correlation really don't seem to understand how we establish causality in science.
> People implying that the study shows only correlation really don't seem to understand how we establish causality in science.
Or perhaps you don’t fully understand the challenges of establishing causality? Just because an intervention causes an improvement in some bio markers that are associated with lower mortality (unfortunately) does not mean that the intervention will cause lower mortality.
The classic example is vitamin D supplements: Higher vitamin D levels are associated with lower mortality in many medical conditions. Vitamin D supplements increase vitamin D levels. But vitamin D supplements seldom lower mortality.
Why? Probably because vitamin D is produced in the skin when we are in the sun. The more healthy subpopulation of any study will typically spend more time outside, so they will have higher vitamin D levels. But it’s (relative) health that causes higher vitamin D, not the other way around.
The only way to reliably establish causality is really an end-to-end randomized controlled trial (RCT). Stitching together two RCTs is not sufficient.
(Not saying that exercise does not lower mortality BTW, just that it’s complicated, and a study such as this is probably picking up two signals: one causal and one purely correlational.)
> > People implying that the study shows only correlation really don't seem to understand how we establish causality in science.
> Or perhaps you don’t fully understand the challenges of establishing causality? Just because an intervention causes an improvement in some bio markers that are associated with lower mortality (unfortunately) does not mean that the intervention will cause lower mortality.
> The classic example is vitamin D supplements: Higher vitamin D levels are associated with lower mortality in many medical conditions. Vitamin D supplements increase vitamin D levels. But vitamin D supplements seldom lower mortality.
That is quite a simplification. The research as far as I know is that too low Vitamin D levels are associated with higher mortality, but that supplementation above a certain level is meaningless (and most caucasians can get those levels through normal sun exposure). So yes vitamin D supplements in general don't improve mortality.
Note also the situation here is completely different. The link between mortality and morbidity markers and exercise have been established in other studies. The study here establishes that this directly translates to a correlation between fitness and mortality. So in a way it's the opposite of the vitamin D case.
> Why? Probably because vitamin D is produced in the skin when we are in the sun. The more healthy subpopulation of any study will typically spend more time outside, so they will have higher vitamin D levels. But it’s (relative) health that causes higher vitamin D, not the other way around.
You realise that you are proclaiming causality here?
> The only way to reliably establish causality is really an end-to-end randomized controlled trial (RCT). Stitching together two RCTs is not sufficient.
A RCT does not establish causality. That's essentially my point. A single study/experiment never proofs causality. You need a theory to explain the causality and multiple studies that falsify other possible causality mechanisms. That has been done extensively for excercise and morbity/mortality, the current study just establishes that this also correlates in the bigger picture. So yes the study itself does not "proof" causality, it's just a piece in the bigger puzzle of causality.
> (Not saying that exercise does not lower mortality BTW, just that it’s complicated, and a study such as this is probably picking up two signals: one causal and one purely correlational.)
> > Why? Probably because vitamin D is produced in the skin when we are in the sun. The more healthy subpopulation of any study will typically spend more time outside, so they will have higher vitamin D levels. But it’s (relative) health that causes higher vitamin D, not the other way around.
> You realise that you are proclaiming causality here?
Yes, with emphasis on the word probably. Just like I will happily proclaim that exercise probably lowers mortality.
> A RCT does not establish causality. That's essentially my point. A single study/experiment never proofs causality. You need a theory to explain the causality and multiple studies that falsify other possible causality mechanisms. That has been done extensively for excercise and morbity/mortality, the current study just establishes that this also correlates in the bigger picture. So yes the study itself does not "proof" causality, it's just a piece in the bigger puzzle of causality.
The beauty of an end-to-end RCT is that it effectively neutralizes other possible causality mechanisms. You do not seem to appreciate this. My impression is that your reasoning is more in line with evidence based medicine (EBM), rather than the hypothetico-deductive method that I personally subscribe to. In my way of thinking there will never be definitive “proof” of causality, but I will happily take a drug that has gone through sufficiently powerful RCTs that failed to prove its ineffectiveness (and harm).
> A RCT does not establish causality. That's essentially my point. A single study/experiment never proofs causality. You need a theory to explain the causality and multiple studies that falsify other possible causality mechanisms.
This might be a good heuristic for assigning confidence to results, but in theory, an RCT absolutely does establish causality, assuming internal, external, construct, and statistical validity of the study.
Multiple studies may not be better than one good study (assuming the above), which can be tested by looking at the leverage in a meta-anlaysis.
Having a theory is kind of orthogonal to a study finding a true positive result. Almost every published study, true or false, invokes some kind of theory, true or false. There is a joke in the soft sciences along the lines that you make up a new theory for every study.
Well, I don't doubt that cardio fitness decreases the chance for morbidity and mortality, but in this study they only established correlation.
I think that in science we have to be extra careful just what we are saying. And saying that this study proves causality would be wrong. I am sure there are other studies that could (do?) prove it but this statistical analysis can only prove correlation.
We only have correlation for lots of important results. Smoking cigarettes is one example. Experiments are almost always better, and a lot of correlational research is terrible. But knowing something for sure doesn’t always require an experiment.
There's no reasonable path to reverse-causality with smoking. "People prone to developing lung cancer are more likely to take up smoking" doesn't really make sense.
On the other hand, "Fat and unhealthy people are more prone not to exercise" is a reasonable reverse-causality position, for all kind of reasons. Your knees hurt, you're self-conscious, it's extremely uncomfortable, your fat jiggles, etc.
I'm not saying direct causality doesn't exist here, I'm just saying that reverse-causality is reasonable, whereas with smoking it is not. Assuming causation from this particular correlation is harder than it is with smoking.
"People who smoke are more likely to do other things that the medical establishment condemns" is a plausible non-causal explanation for the correlation between smoking and lung cancer.
I think that we just have to look at the best explanation for the current data to determine causality, but it’s always a guess.
From the Methods section of the paper (under "study design"): "We also included meta-analyses that pooled data from primary prospective/retrospective cohort or case-control studies. These studies were the focus because of their ability to assess causality for observational research".
While "causality" is a strong word in the sentence above, the data is much stronger than simple correlation. Of course, outright causality has not been established, but the evidence to determine a predictive association is strong.
> People implying that the study shows only correlation really don't seem to understand how we establish causality in science.
This is where explaining how causality is established really helps people understand what they are reading better, especially when confronted with something that is not light reading and summarizes a much larger, even heavier read. In other words, instead of saying people don't understand, maybe help people to understand.
Exercise is a four letter word for many on HN. Content posted here touting the various benefits of exercise is always met with mental gymnastics from commenters who would rather do anything but go out and break a sweat.
I used to be like that- for some reason I started exercising this year and it completely changed my life. I feel better than ever and it’s not like I’m training a lot, a couple of times per week.
If you’re on the fence and reading this definitely give it another shot
Tiny side note in case someone is interested: my health crashed in 2014, I used to be a runner, now I can't jog nor reach sweat levels of efforts. But you don't need to reach that level to restore/improve your health tremendously.
- a tiny step to do small one leg squat
- a kettle bell or any weight for deadlift
doing 10 repetition at low speed, low intensity[0] of the two abose everytime you get bored, anxious, or lost on a youtube rabbithole will feel like nothing, yet, over the week you'll start to feel muscle grow slowly, less joint pain, better posture, better ability to move, everything will feel easier thus having a better mood too.
once in the morning, once in the evening.. or maybe more as one sees fit, until you feel the drive to do more (usually a month of slow and pleasurable exercise will naturally lead to a desire to try more)
[0] real slow, like taichi slow.. no muscle burn, no fast breathing..
For HN's that want to get active, I cannot suggest getting a (higher tier) Garmin watch enough. I know you have the money so just drop the $800.
It's stats on stats on stats and essentially creates a "character health" panel for your own body. Charts, metrics, real time tracking and exportable data. There are achievement badges and social connections if that's your thing too (good for you and your SO).
For me, being able to see real-time metrics and real time improvement really amped up my motivation to go out an exercise. Rewards were no longer this mysterious ethereal thing that will maybe show up sometime in the future if I keep grinding. Day by day, I could see improvement and sure enough could feel it too.
Just saw this, but for others wanted to add that you don't need the $800 watch for access to most of the health and fitness metrics and supporting features.
Pretty much any of the more recent Forerunner series will do. The Forerunner 165 starts at $250 and the Forerunner 255 has been discounted to this level several times as well. They both have nearly all the available metrics and many sports modes, as well as triathlon modes most of us probably never need. They sync with the same (free) Garmin Connect smartphone app and cloud service.
So with any of these watches, you can sample the Garmin features. Upgrading to a more expensive watch later would mostly be for case material and size, aesthetics, or conspicuous consumption reasons.
The biggest functional difference between their lower price and expensive watches is that they limit on-watch mapping to only the expensive watches starting around $400-600 when on sale. The cheaper watches can only show a "breadcrumb" trail of your path in an ongoing activity, but no mapping of the surrounding terrain, roads, or landmarks.
There is also a funny distinction where their "outdoor" watches work a bit differently than their "health fitness" watches, developed in separate product divisions. But, these differences seem to be narrowing in recent years.
The other major feature tier is "music" which is a roughly $50-100 premium for the Forerunner 165 and 255 having non-music and music variants. This is where the watch can store and play music through bluetooth headphones, without a phone being present.
It's not about the money, man. At a price like $800 you could hire out a personal trainer for 3 months of twice weekly sessions. No way some wrist gadget is going to do the average computer weenie more good than receiving regularly scheduled and personally tailored training regimens.
Given that most weenies aren't crazy about regular people (especially the fitness types), that the watch lasts more than 3 months, and that weenies love dense character stat screens and leveling, I really could not disagree more. It's a borderline science fiction cyborg health tracking device.
Also, for most of the weenies here, an $800 purchase isn't too rough. They have decent $500 and $300 dollar options, but the available amount stats and tracking goes down.
It's not always black and white. I have a high end Garmin and pay quite a bit for personal training. Personally if I was forced between the two, I'd pick the Garmin and all the functions/training regimens it contains. However, I'm the type of person that gets a lot of joy from being outdoors mountain biking or trail running. Spent years in the gym getting big and all that, but it just doesn't do it for me like shredding down steep embankments or hitting large gaps on a bike does, examining all my data and stats afterwards.
IMO, it's all about what drives someone - if they are going to be more motivated by someone training them, then they should do that. But if they are going to have more longevity by paying for an overpriced watch, maybe that's the better choice. Maybe even both? One thing is for sure - speaking in absolutes doesn't apply here.
I don't know what kind of computer weenies you know but speaking for myself: needing to interact with someone to get exercise would add a major hurdle for me. OTOH, I'm really getting in to minmaxing myself in Garmin...
No sorry but this is not how causality works. When event B happens a thousand times after event A, you cannot conclude that A causes B. For example, there could be a confounder, that is, a third event that triggers A and then B (so not A triggers B, but this third event triggers B). See The Book of Why by Pearl for more information on causality.
But Pearls book explicitly argues for using correlational evidence to infer causation. The trick is to actually have a causal model and design observational studies that rule out as many alternative explanations as possible.
Thank you! That seems to be the issue with many commenter here, they believe you can have a single experiment that somehow proofs causality.
The same scepticism would not be brought against many "hard science" experiments, even though they do the exact same thing, falsify alternative explanations until they have high certainty that they have causality.
"Every time we send 5 fire trucks to a fire, the damage is 10x than when we only send one fire truck. We've observed this 1000 times. And still you don't believe that the fire trucks are causing the damage."
In this case it should be absolutely clear that A (lots of trucks) aren't causing B (lots of damage), but rather a third aspect, C (size of fire) is causing both A and B. Insisting that A causes B will result in completely counterproductive interventions, like "send only one truck to all fires".
The same thing could be true for cardiovascular fitness. If people are sick, they're much less likely to running or hiking up a mountain. So rather than poor cardio fitness (A) causing high mortality (B), it could be that a third thing, sickness (C) is causing both A and B. If that is the case, then shaming people who are sick into trying to exercise, instead of making them healthy enough so that they feel like running, is likely to make things worse rather than better.
How do you tell the difference? Well the "gold standard" is randomized controlled trials. Pick 3,000 random people. Tell 1000 of them to exercise more, and 1000 of them to exercise less, and 1000 leave alone, and compare. If the "exercise more" group is healthier at the end of 10 years, that's decent evidence that "exercise more" is a useful intervention.
Failing that, you can think of other possible confounding factors and control for them. Don't just ask how much they exercise; ask how old they are, and how well they are, how stressed they are, and loads of other factors which might both cause both A and B, and use statistical methods to detect whether one of those factors is actually a better explanation than "A -> B".
There’s amusing statistics that show that if you’re out of shape and a smoker, you get a bigger bang for the buck from getting in shape first than quitting smoking. Disclaimer: not an endorsement of smoking.
This sounds ridiculous until you go to Amsterdam see that few wear helmets there. And everyone is cycling.
They might be more inclined to cycle because they don’t need to wear a helmet.
After years of cycling with helmet you get so used to it and it doesn’t bother you. But how many skip the bike because they never got used to wearing a helmet?
I biked through Amsterdam as a commuter along with everyone else for a week, and it just blew me away. Everyone was absolutely predictable and part of the “school of fish”. No hesitation or ill-conceived politeness.
It was only a week but it was so refreshing. I think about this experience daily when driving because I think of how much time would be saved if people just knew absolutely when to take their turn and took it; instead of processing each decision and deciding based on their current mood. People knew the damn rules and norms.
So, I think it’s a function of having a critical mass, being necessary, and being embedded already as a norm. I don’t believe a city could make riding without a helmet legal and expect any sort of increase in safety …
1. Almost everyone cycles. So all drivers are themselves cyclists. So they treat other cyclists with consideration.
2. The road/cycle infrastructure is set up to separate cars and bikes wherever possible. And where they share routes, cars are often explicitly second class users ("auto te gast" - cars, you're guests).
3. In any collision between a car and a bike, the driver will almost always be the one found at fault.
Biking in Amsterdam is leagues safer then biking in most places in the US, though. The risks are different. Helmets aren't as important if most of your crashes are going to be with another low-speed, mostly-soft bodied cyclist. Traffic and pedestrians are pretty separated and you have your own lanes to cycle in. I'm also pretty sure that a lot of biking is convenient: The local grocery store is just a short bike ride but it'd take 15 minutes by car.
Most biking in the US is biking shared with cars. You probably won't have a bike lane. Most likely, you aren't commuting or going to the grocery store - the grocery store might take 15 minutes of driving but 30 minutes of biking - if you can even go the most direct route legally. Longer biking sessions generally means more risk. I'll take the helmet in places that I must defend myself against automobiles on an unsafe path.
Just remember not to get lulled into a false sense of security just because you're wearing a helmet. PPE is by far the least effective safety precaution.
If you have to ride alongside cars, make sure you practice defensive riding.
Yes this is annoying in all these same debates which point to Netherland / Denmark - the infrastructure elsewhere is just not there. Lanes shared with cars (or just taking away from car lane so no normal cars fits in anymore) isn't a solution, just adding friction danger zone. Or dedicated bicycle lanes wide enough for a single row of cyclists, if even that.
Also look at those 'old' basic bikes they use there, you don't need more on those flatlands and everybody is fine with 20-25kmh. Add tech bros or generally young folks with fast ebikes and escooters going 50kmh and things change.
Yes but there was room for it, you noticed the wide streets? Most European city centers don't have that extra room for 1 dedicated bike path on each side, at least not cities I've lived in. That's cca 4m each side requirement, you would have to tear down whole rows of 150-500 year old buildings which are often protected.
Even Amsterdam has streets which have 0 room, but generally city center is blocked/too expensive to most car traffic to even enter so they manage.
If it would be a easy problem to solve, it would be done or at least almost done at this point. And something tells me it requires certain type of population where respect to others is way above average, that's not granted.
> Yes but there was room for it, you noticed the wide streets? Most European city centers don't have that extra room for 1 dedicated bike path on each side
Many Dutch cities don't either, that's why they disallow cars entirely. Really only Rotterdam has spacious roads thanks to the bombings. Ann I understanding you correctly?
> And something tells me it requires certain type of population where respect to others is way above average, that's not granted.
I'm not sure where you are the casuality here. In my experience it's the more human centred infrastructure design that encourages a higher level of social engagement and respect for others.
But regardless I would find it tragic to condem certain cultures as being inherently incapable of these things.
> If it would be a easy problem to solve, it would be done or at least almost done at this point.
It wasn't begun that long ago in the Netherlands. The vast majority of infrastructure has been built since the turn of the century. It takes a while for other places to really realise that their current models aren't working, and even longer for them to really learn the lessons of the Dutch.
But if you look at cities like London, Leipzig, Barcelona, Paris or further afield to Montreal for example then many cities are actually beginning to successfully integrate Dutch design practices.
Dutch bicycle infrastructure didn’t just happen, our postwar governments were all set on building car infrastructure. They were even planning to demolish huge parts of old Amsterdam to build a highway right through the city. It took two decades of protest and a lot of traffic deaths before the government started the development of dedicated bicycle infrastructure in the 1980’s. You can read more here: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/may/05/amsterdam-bic...
Amsterdam’s answer to faster vehicles is to move them to the main road with other faster traffic. Although it is now moving to slow down nearly all traffic inside the city to a 30km/h limit, which will improve cyclist safety a lot.
Counter point: in the last 40 years I have come off my bike only about 10 times and on 2 of those my helmet was so badly damaged that I think without it my head would have been seriously hurt. Those were both low-speed accidents, one was being hit from behind by a car and the other was hitting a nasty pothole.
I've also seen a friend have a high-speed impact: he was airlifted to hospital, survived and has mostly recovered. Looking at the state of his helmet I have no doubt that he would have died at the scene without it.
In Amsterdam they are commuting, and in a fantastic infrastructure where cars get red lights when bicycles approach on an intersecting cycleway. That's probably the main reason for safety and why they ride so much.
There's very few places where the light changes automatically for bikes in Amsterdam - all that I can remember now, don't. The large majority of lights do respond to input from pressing the cross button (also pressable by bycicles), but it's not automated.
They do use "change on approach" lights outside of the cities way more, but in cities it's usually only for trams and buses.
Since Amsterdam is a "peak biking" city, I wouldn't trust the cited study to even apply there and would think that an independent study would be needed since it would be likely an outlier.
Is it that ridiculous? Big tech tracking shows that basically any inconvenience at all causes people to drop off. The page taking half a second longer to load and now you’ve lost a few sales.
There isn’t going to be anyone consciously thinking “I’m not gonna ride because I have to wear a helmet” but instead “eh I can’t be bothered riding” without digging too much in to why.
Bicycle helmets are big. You can't just put them away in your bag when you're done with them. So you will have to carry the helmet alongside your bags etc.
In Denmark, I don't even lock up my helmet. My bike, sure. But the helmet just casually hangs on the handlebars. I've never experienced, nor heard of, anyone losing their helmet when doing this.
Helmets aren’t uncomfortable if you try them before buying them. There are different shapes, materials, sizes and settings.
About finding my helmet, I always attach it together with the bike with the U lock. Unless I’m parked in a secure place where I let it hang on the handlebars.
I’m not especially advocating for mandatory helmets and I’m the first to say absence of helmet shouldn’t prevent you to ride, but if you are a regular cyclist, having one at hand is not a ridiculous idea.
> Helmets aren’t uncomfortable if you try them before buying them. There are different shapes, materials, sizes and settings.
Come on man, I have never rode a bicycle more expensive than $100 despite riding at least 5000km annually. I bet that your helmet costs more than all of my 3 bicycles.
The down-voted comment of mine tells that gloves are far more useful than helmet for a bicycle rider. But I know I have messed with the holy cow so c'est la vie.
I'm a pretty proficient cyclist (lifetime mileage in the tens of thousands) but there have still been a handful of incidents where I've been very grateful to have had a helmet.
It might be the case that helmets are a net negative for casual riders. But whenever I've done a spontaneous unplanned dismount at 20mph I didn't find that knowing how to fall helped me much.
> But whenever I've done a spontaneous unplanned dismount at 20mph I didn't find that knowing how to fall helped me much.
What was the circumstances (type of road and type of bike)? Have you touched the ground with any other parts of body except of palms, elbows and knees? If yes then consider to keep learning how to fall because your falling skill is not that proficient. If not then the helmet was not that useful.
More cyclists on the road makes it safer for cyclists. Combined with risk compensation, this seems enough to make helmet laws a net negative. Well studied. Wear a helmet though, they work!
A better alternative law would be to provide free helmets. People can choose not to use them out of preference but at least they'll have one to make that choice with.
Everyone that comments that "nothing is free" is just being a pedant in a way that means the conversation can't usually go forward as easily.
People do understand that with government programs, "free" means taxpayer funded. As in, almost everyone understands that. The comment isn't needed. Those comments are the reason I put things like "fare free public transport" - not because it is more realistic, but because arguing with these comments is exhausting.
Society is full of things other people helped pay for - and you most definitely use them. Your health insurance company pools money together to cover everyone's ills, for example. You don't pay individually for your infrastructure use - other people help you pay so that you can get electricity. And so on. You can't have modern society without this.
Saying other things that aren't free doesn't make the first thing become free.
People who don't use helmets don't do it because they are too expensive. They do it because it's not convenient to carry, because it's not cool, because it messes your hair, because you need somewhere to store it. (Not) Free helmets solve zero of these problems, it's just a bad idea.
You are just nitpicking on semantics. If the total cost of publicly funded healthcare is reduced from people using helmets then that could result in not increasing what you are "making other people pay" even though you are also offering helmets at no cost. That is what most people would consider free.
People who don't use helmets for whatever reason would be more inclined to do so if they could just go pick one up, and didn't have to pay for them in a store. Even if those reasons are not that they are expensive. It's a great idea.
Well we disagree. I think there's way more effective things you can do, and this is demonstrated by the netherlands where I live. For an idea to be good it doesn't just have to in theory be net positive, many things can be net positive if you use tax money for them. The problem is we don't have an infinite government or infinite resources or time, so we should pick good measures.
All the cities maintaining a bunch of locations full of helmets for free pickup would just create more waste. I bet people would pick them up and just discard them when it wouldn't be convenient to use them. And nobody wants to pickup and wear a discarded helmet that is dirty and was in the elements so there would be huge waste. You can have a similar effect without any waste by just having a class that teaches children to ride bycicles at school and tells them the benefits of helmets and keeps helmets there for that one class. This memory would be with you for life, and you'd make your own decision.
If helmets were cost prohibitive I'd be with you, I believe in using tax money for that kind of stuff, but price is not the reason people don't use helmets.
I’m not the op of this proposal, I never said it was a good idea (neither that it’s bad, I just don’t know). I just said that IF it was a good idea, it would cost less overall.
Except roads for car drivers and then people wonder about this mysterious infinite latent demand for free roads that they call "induced demand". The demand for things that cost nothing is infinite.
Roads have huge utility to society. Unless you want the ambulance to go get you on a unpaved mess and take you back to the hospital banging all over the back. Or that they fetch you by bycicle.
Well obviously roads have benefits. Nobody is saying to abolish roads. But the marginal benefits of more road density really fall off beyond the minimum of “having a road”. Compare two options within a city
1. Redesign a 2-lane (each direction) highway into a 4-lane highway at the cost of several hundred million tax dollars, over the course of a few years.
2. Leave the highway smaller. Re-zone a city to allow small shops within residential neighborhoods, and up-zone all residential land to allow up to 4-story townhomes and condos. Spend tens of millions of tax dollars building a robust cycling highway, and make it safe for people to accomplish basic errands within a close proximity to their home.
For #2, spending of tax dollars is less and people are healthier. You still have roads, but people need to drive on them much less often.
So when the next city proposes an $840M highway revamp [1], consider how you could spend 10% of that funding to increase mobility around the city for residents ($84M could build a lot of safe separated bike highways). While at the same time allowing private development to make natural improvements to neighborhoods by opening new corner stores and shops along bike routes
There's real data out there that while a helmet has better survival rates than not; but cars give more room to bicycles without helmets, so the incident rate is lower.
I think that's pretty true in my demographic - kind of old fat, at risk of heart attacks and a casual cyclist. For us lot heart attack deaths are like 1000x+ more than cycle head fatalities. On the other hand for young cycle racers I'd go with compulsory helmets.
Kind of tacky, but I had a strange "what if" kind of conversation with someone about alcohol. The premise was that more people are born due to drunken sexual encounters than are killed by drunk drivers.
That sounds like the sort of stuff that is completely correct. Low fitness is significantly more risky than smoking. (I am not suggesting that anyone start or continue smoking.)
It's pretty funny seeing people today seethe about the obvious (being unfit is terrible for you) the same way people in the 1970s were seething about the obvious (smoking is bad for you).
There is a reason why life expectancy was dropping in the US years before covid hit.
I asked my parents about the "when was smoking viewed as bad for you" bit. They said late 1980s to early 1990s. They said no one thought it was bad for you in the 1970s -- maybe a stinky habit, that is it.
I grew up in the 70s, and that’s hilariously wrong. Cigarettes had warning labels in the 60s, and cigarettes were called “coffin nails” long before that.
There’s a line in a film from 1983 called The Outsiders which is like “give me one of those cancer sticks”, so I think smoking was understood to be harmful earlier than that.
Nicotine suppresses appetite and is also a potent nootropic. Consuming nicotine in losenge or gum form doesn't have any of the ill effects of smoking or vaping. It's also virtually impossible for a nicotine naive person to become addicted through losenges.
It's still addictive and likely to be horrible for your heart (smoke causes cancer, but nicotine even in low doses causes what looks like heart issues, though unlike cancer these might be reversible).
always wondered what the effects on the gums would be since the saliva concentration would be higher with gums/lozenges and it’s primarily surface absorption vs. airborne nicotine.
I have definitely seen more than a few smokers who quit gain weight, no idea if it's picking up a new addiction or if the smoking subdued their hunger pangs, or some combination thereof.
I remember when going through scuba diving certification, the instructor mentioned that smokers generally get more time out of a tank because their lungs absorb oxygen more efficiently or something like that. And she smoked a lot.
There is no advantage to smoking as a diver. Gas consumption rate in scuba diving has nothing to do with lung absorption capacity (unless you have some kind of serious medical condition). We're usually not exerting at anywhere near VO2 Max. The urge to breathe faster is driven mainly by stress and CO2 levels. New divers are often nervous and flailing around due to having poor trim and buoyancy control. Experienced instructors don't have that problem regardless of smoking status.
Absolutely true, I found it amusing because I came to strongly believe over the years that lack of physical activity is one of the worst things one can do for one’s overall wellbeing. We evolved to be physically active, sitting around all day can be compared to being malnourished or not getting enough sunlight or social contact, etc.
Its not cardiovasuclar, but the top 2 causes of death in the US are tied to obesity, which takes zero time to reduce. You just have to not eat, which is actually time positive.
Most humans are just incredibly bad at impulse control.
To be fair, our diets and lifestyles changed drastically in the 20th century.
When we're bombarded with advertisements of highly caloric, processed, sugary foods engineered to flood our taste buds and trigger dopamine, we can't be surprised that people get addicted to it. Combine that with forms of entertainment, transportation, and a work culture that keep us sedentary, and it's no wonder many people struggle with being physically healthy.
I would suggest that in the next 5 years or so if ozempic and others don't turn out to be cancer causing or have more than awful side effects that we'll see a large drop in obesity, as obesity isn't an easy thing to change. Likely other competitors will come along and use a similar mechanism and Novo won't be able to charge $1000 a month for it any longer allowing 80-85% of those who are overweight to give it a shot.
I think it will be very interesting to see how it plays out and has a lot of positive potential.
I don't think it is very sustainable to have 50% of the population on a biologic medication to help self control, but hopefully it will help individuals and societies change norms.
To frame the discussion as one of either/or alternatives is self-defeating, a more productive framing is what are the various strategies we can employ to reduce obesity?
There are plenty which are unrelated to self-control or personal discipline. One is a sugar tax (not a huge fan personally but it exists).
One I do like is to regulate the advertising and labeling of food. Frankly I'd like to know how many calories I'm eating or being persuaded to eat, pretty much all the time. This is a work in progress with the FDA gradually expanding the types of restaurants that are required to disclose caloric and nutrition info about their food. Frankly I'd like to see it required in advertisements too, if you're advertising a pizza, the advertisement should disclose that there are 2,000 calories in that pizza, many people actually are not aware.
Not that I ever thought they were serving health food at the Cheesecake Factory, but I recently learned that their peanut butter cheesecake is 1650 calories per slice! Almost a full day's calories in one slice of cake! Nearly everyone I've talked to about it knew it was a gut buster but no one guessed that high.
Those cheesecakes are only for special occasions now and it's because C.F. is required to disclose calories, I'd be fatter if not for this simple government intervention. Nothing to do with self control. Apologies to C.F. but with the nation's obesity rate cresting 50% I consider this a wholly reasonable imposition on their free speech rights or whatever.
> Those cheesecakes are only for special occasions now and it's because C.F. is required to disclose calories, I'd be fatter if not for this simple government intervention. Nothing to do with self control
How is eating a cake from a store "nothing to do with self control". It's not like you were buying vegetables and turns out big sugar made the vegetables be worse for you. You not knowing if the cake was 800 calories or 1.6k calories makes it no less about self control. Even to avoid eating it at 1.6k, it's still all just self control.
No, it's much easier to pass on dessert when you know it's 1600 calories as opposed to if you think it's much less. In essence the disclosure of how bad that particular item really is reduces the amount of willpower required to avoid it. If this wasn't true, all these restaurants wouldn't have kept the calorie counts of these dishes secret until the government forced them to share that info.
I mean this is common sense, the more clearly you understand the negatives of an action, the more likely you are to avoid it. And we have plenty of evidence that this works to alter people's behavior through looking at the effects of e.g. cigarette labeling.
Like up until the 1950s we actually didn't have good evidence that cigarettes were bad for you, and doctors actually got on TV and endorsed specific brands, so a lot of people weren't sure. Eventually the studies were produced and doctors started recommending against smoking and smoking started to decline. It didn't decline because people became Badass Willpower Monks, it declined because they were given access to more and better information.
"Less self control needed" which is your argument in this follow-up comment is very different from "Nothing to do with self control" in your original comment.
Why every time obesity is brought up it's always because the environment is bad, food is bad, lifestyle is unavoidable instead of just being a personal responsibility?
There was a relatively recent study that found that BMR has actually been dropping over the last 30 years. The difference in men was large enough (7% iirc) that it would explain most of the obesity epidemic.
Why it's dropping is still a n mystery though.
Nevertheless, the solution is still the same: eat less.
I would like to see replications, as it could just be bad data:
"It is also possible that the long-term reduction in BMR represents methodological artefacts. In the early years, measurements of BMR were often made using mouthpieces to collect respiratory gases, and recently such devices have been shown to elevate BMR by around 6%. A second possibility is that early measurements paid less attention to controlling ambient temperature to ensure individuals were at thermoneutral temperatures."
Thanks for the link to this very strong and now open study.
The authors suggest that the decreased consumption of saturated fats over the last 30+ years is likely to contribute to the reduction in basal metabolic rate and gains in weight. The mouse model component of the study provides some support.
I'm not an expert on the literature, but I do know Bmr isn't a fixed number. It is a function of activity, muscle mass, and other factors.
It seems that a largely sedentary lifestyle free from exertion matches both.
It would be insightful to see the sensitivity analysis for BMR with respect to strength, activity, muscle mass, ect.
I know there is a body of data about environmental hormones and BMR, ect, but my understanding is that the impact is barely measurable with large sample sizes. I expect that it can't hold a candle to activity. In my personal experience, my BMR can easily modulate by 1000 calories based on body composition and behavior. That is a huge impact.
> Nevertheless, the solution is still the same: eat less.
Or make life harder! Quit the elevator. Quit the automatic transmission (and car). Quit the online shopping.
Making some progress with self-checkouts and pointless lineups at airports.
Less jokingly (hard to outrun a bad diet) but more pedanticly: drinking less (alcohol and calorific beverages) might be a better start than eating less.
It would be interesting to correlate these results with data about reduced testosteron levels and sperm counts/fertility, especially whether one of these leads the other or whether both go down at the same time.
clearly there is no "just" to it as a level of effort on the part of those who are overweight. It is not an easy road and something like 95% of the people fail at it, so I guess it depends on what your meaning of "just" is.
People here complain a lot about social media and the tuning for engagement which makes people addicted to their phones etc..
Well compared to the food industry industry that's nothing. Incidentally they learned their trade from the tobacco industry who invested heavily in the junk food industry in the 60s. [1]
All to say, much of modern food (and the advertising around it) is designed to get people hooked on junk food from a very early age. So saying just eat less is a simplistic solution that requires people to act against a conditioning that has been aggressively imprinted on them from a very early age.
Of course. I was responding to the time spent (out of ones day), opposed to calendar days of not eating.
That said, people can make pretty rapid weight loss without eating. skip eating 1 day a week and that is 30 lbs a year for an average obese man. skip 2 days/week and that is 60 lbs/year.
> people can make pretty rapid weight loss without eating
Your suggestion is not sustainable. A staggering 90+% of people regain all weight loss a year after their diet ends. Seriously, who is not going to eat for two days per week? Your mental health would be a wreck. Can you do it? I cannot.
90% of people regain weight because they go back to eating like they have a death wish.
I think conflating between mental health and eating is at the heart of the obesity epidemic. Nobody will die if they skip a few meals. They will suffer some moderate discomfort depending on how much they fixate on it.
I can go a week without eating and a few days is trivial. The longest a human has gone without food is 381 days and they lost 275 lbs
Please do not assume your experience is universal. You simply cannot know how it feels for other people to be hungry, it might be a completely different feeling than what you get.
This. Exactly. It took many, many years as an adult to realise that I was blessed with incredible genes that allowed me to reduce calorie intake without many negative consequences (insane hunger cravings, etc.). My point: I didn't do anything to "earn" this -- it was granted to me by birth. It gave me extra empathy for people who don't have it, who are trying to control their weight. It is a brutal battle. I always have so much respect for people who stuggle with weight gain, but beat the demons and lose weight long term. They really are someone special!
A lot of people assume humans are mechanistic, unfeeling CICO convertors and exclude psychological and physiological realities of losing weight. I've grown used to it. It took several tries for me to drop 50lbs and most of it was psychological and good habit formation. it took about 3 years to complete that journey.
I think the point is rather to communicate that there is no trick to around cico.
Instead, they are reinforcing that the path is clear, and the the barriers Are entirely psychological. Effort to build habits, effort to exert self control, effort to find solutions when you stumble.
If people are looking and waiting for a strategy that makes weight loss easier than inaction, they are bound for disappointment.
Some rare people find a passion that makes the process of getting healthy and fit more fun and easy than getting fatter, but that is exceedingly rare.
EDIT: Now that I've seen the replies, I realize that this is from a very low baseline. I'm personally going to the gym four to five days a week already and my own cardiovascular fitness has not seen much of an improvement in many months.
Not a source, but it tracks for me. Walk, jog, or run daily and you will have massive CV improvement from baseline in 3 months. people can and do go from being exhausted walking to their car to being capable running many miles in an incredibly short time.
The typical human body is very responsive when pushed.
The heart, lungs, and muscles get strong fast. But the bones and tendons take more time. It's best to give them time so you don't wind up with shin splints, etc.
It's the same with lifting and adding muscle mass.
If you've never lifted before and you hit the gym consistently and have the proper diet, you will get some serious "newb gains." The first year can be amazing.
But if you've lifted seriously for a decade, it's totally different. Muscle mass is very hard to add now.
Cardio gains from a coach potato introducing a serious routine will be incredible. I went from not being able to run more than 30 seconds to running a 5k in 4-5 months, and that's without pushing myself extremely hard.
I went from having not run in years to running a 5k in about 2 months. I was obese when I hit that goal, though I recently graduated to being merely overweight.
My VO2 max as reported by my Apple Watch has been making steady gains, though I'm still far below average for my age.
It’s true. Between myself and some close friends I have seen the following in ~6 months:
- unable to run -> run a 10k
- increase of ~50% in a all out 20 minute cycling test
- max mile time 9min->6:30min
The human body can make incredible cardiovascular leaps when starting from a relatively low point
9 weeks. I have basic fitness but have never been close to completing a 5km run (I think I finally realised I have breathing issues - seeing an ENT soon).
n=1, but I can personally attest to going from average sedentary 29 year old to marathon running shape in roughly 3 weeks of continuous hiking 8 to 10 hours a day in the Appalachian mountains with a pack that was about 35% of my body weight.
the only way I was able to improve mine was to use interval training to get my heart rate up. It took a few months but going from a walk to sprint levels on my elliptical did wonders after a while. Observing my heart rate carefully of course.
Then I overheard one of them (the fittest) say to a budding runner that he [should] do mostly easy sessions. Okay what’s easy to him? He said that so slow that it can feel awkward and unnatural. What?
Then I searched around and found out about Zone 2 and how you should do most of your work in that zone when building aerobic fitness. And that it is characterized by being able to hold a conversation, although strained.
I searched around and found atheletes like amateur ultrarunners say the same thing.
Then it hit me. I’ve probably been jogging a lot in Zone 3. Or higher? Because the harder you go the more benefit, right? That seems to be the basic logic for everything.[1] Relatively short, painful sessions. Have I been conditioning myself to associate cardio with more pain than is necessary for the average session?
So maybe I should just go on the stationary bike today, do a “conversatitional” (talk to myself) pace and listen to my audiobook for an hour? And try to not let my groin fall asleep.
[1] With nuances like go-to-failure for hypertrophy in weightlifting and more back-off-a-little for strength training.