
Weight Training Is the Best Exercise for Bone Strength - deegles
http://time.com/4803697/bodybuilding-strength-training/?utm_source=pocket&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pockethits
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throwaway-1209
I had really bad lower back pain years ago. Started going to the gym and doing
weight training. Went from not being able to deadlift 80 lbs without pain to
495lbs for 3 reps. No back pain now. I also recommend "Starting Strength" by
Mark Ripptoe. It works. I wish I could convince my wife to do back squats and
deadlifts. She's also having back problems but she's stubbornly refusing to do
anything about them.

~~~
avenoir
I have the complete opposite experience. I messed up my lower back doing
t-bars after a long break from the gym (very stupid I know) and haven't been
able to workout much at all for almost a year now. I'd definitely suggest
consulting with a personal trainer before seriously considering weight
training. It's getting better now and I slowly start training my back again,
but holy crap it's been very painful 6 months.

~~~
toasterlovin
For somebody who is new to weightlifting and not terribly frail, it is almost
impossible to get injured if you just start with an empty bar and then
progressively add 5lbs each session.

~~~
presentation
5 lbs each session quickly gets you to a pretty heavy weight, and you may not
have proper form—I did this and I got to a point where if I continued the same
way I would have almost certainly messed up my back doing deadlifts. I'd
temper this advice with the warning that once it starts feeling pretty heavy
(and long before that as well!), you should definitely get advice on your
form, be it from a trainer or friends.

~~~
toasterlovin
Couldn't agree more with your advice, but I'll just point out: once you hit
weights where you can injure yourself, you're by definition no longer new to
weightlifting. Plus you've already reaped most of the health benefits that
being stronger bestow. Beyond that, you're no longer lifting for health.

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raamdev
Julian Shapiro (a HN member) wrote a great free guide called _How to Build
Muscle_ [0] that's a nice resource for anyone new to weight training.

0\.
[https://www.julian.com/learn/muscle/intro](https://www.julian.com/learn/muscle/intro)

~~~
criddell
Thanks for posting this. I read part of the first page and already I'm getting
sucked in.

The first thing that surprised me was him saying it is a myth that machine
exercises are less effective than barbell ones. That's surprising to me.

~~~
fpgaminer
> The first thing that surprised me was him saying it is a myth that machine
> exercises are less effective than barbell ones. That's surprising to me.

Depends on the definition of "effective". Since the eBook is titled "How to
Build Muscle", then yeah, machines are just as effective as free weights.

But in terms of building "strength" (picking up random heavy objects),
machines will make life a lot more difficult than it has to be.

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SurrealSoul
"Going to the gym is the 2nd best thing you can do for your body, besides
quitting smoking; if you don't smoke, you should focus on the gym" -Some guy
on youtube

I always seen the gym as an investment into health as opposed to losing weight
or getting fit, although those are nice secondary results.

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s0uthPaw88
I was a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) before I became
a software developer, and I would just like to emphasize that the benefits
mentioned can be realized from some pretty simple exercise routines. The keys
are to perform them consistently and to progressively increase the training
load so that you are constantly providing a stimulus that your body must adapt
to.

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irishcoffee
I've always viewed weight-training like brushing teeth: spend a small amount
of time each day for big payoffs in the long run. Now to be fair, I optimized
for this by putting a squat rack in my basement along with second-hand
weights.

~~~
criddell
When you say _small amount of time_ , what exactly are you talking about? Have
you seen any payoffs yet?

~~~
irishcoffee
My philosophy has always been, if I'm [in the gym/in the basement] longer than
45 minutes working out, I'm doing it wrong. For me personally this counts
warm-up sets.

I have seen payoffs, mentally almost more than physically. Without going into
details, I've been in a legal battle for a while (nothing criminal) and
lifting is a great way to blow off steam.

Physically, if you "eat right" you see results very quickly at first, and then
more slowly as time goes on. Diet is the most important part if you're looking
for physical results. You could lift with proper form for years and years,
following every program under the sun. If your diet sucks, you're wasting your
time if aesthetics if your goal.

If you'd like example of quick results, r/fitness is full of em. This one for
example, this fellow seems to have made a whole lot of progress in what he
claims is 60 days:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/comments/6gpsxr/well_i_gues...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/comments/6gpsxr/well_i_guess_i_cant_blame_genetics_anymore/)

~~~
echlebek
45 minutes? Are you incorporating stretching and mobility work into that?

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htormey
Personal anecdote: I used to get wrist and back pains a few years ago. The two
big changes which I attribute to completely getting rid of these issue was 1)
Switching to a Microsoft ergonomic keyboard and 2) Regular weight training 3
times a week.

I also find weight training really helps me deal with stress. I highly
recommend it.

~~~
appleiigs
For back pain, yes weight training definitely helped me too.

For wrist and elbow pain from computer use, however, weight training made it
worse for me. At that time I did a bit of googling and for RSI seems like rest
and stopping the repetitive motions is best. The exercises irritate the same
nerves. To solve the issue, I switch to a trackball instead of a mouse. (To be
clear, weight training was miraculous to me when I first started, but for RSI,
fix the cause)

~~~
emelski
Unfortunately very many people casually lump a huge range of maladies under
the umbrella of "RSI" and treat them as if they all have the same root cause
and the same remedy. Wrist/arm pain could be carpal-tunnel syndrome, or it
could be tendonitis, or it could be any of a bunch of other things all of
which are technically "RSI". For some, strength training can certainly help;
for others, as in your case, it may do more harm than help.

~~~
htormey
I totally agree. I never actually went to a Dr to get my wrist pain looked
into so I don't know 100% that it was RSI. I just kind of assumed that it was
based on RSI being an occupational hazard for many tech folks.

Changing my keyboard got rid of the immediate pain I had been experiencing for
months. I started weight lifting at around the same time. The only reason I
attribute lifting as being part of the solution is that I went back to typing
on my laptop again after 6 months.

I now do quite a lot of typing on my laptop (90% of the software I write) and
I no longer have any pain in my wrists.

This advise is probably not for everyone, I just offer it up as an interesting
anecdote. If you have persistant wrist pain, its probably best to go see a
specialist.

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Paul-ish
> If all that isn’t convincing enough to turn you onto weights, perhaps this
> is: maintaining strength later in life “seems to be one of the best
> predictors of survival," says Peterson. “When we add strength...almost every
> health outcome improves.”

This sort of thing is repeated a lot, but isn't this just a correlation? We
don't know which way it goes. Maybe sick people get weaker, rather than weak
people get sicker. That makes just as much sense.

~~~
VLM
The docs seem fairly certain the direction it flows is weakness leads to
sickness. Apparently something to do with muscle tissue vs insulin response.
Lower muscle tissue leads to lower BMR which leads to obesity related issues
and insulin resistance issues. Its almost too trivial to point out the
orthopedic issues like weak back muscles leading to back problems. Also the
accidental injury issue is trivial obvious; when I was younger working on a
home improvement project I dropped a solid wood (not hollow core) door and
then caught it, wrenching my back, obviously if my arms were stronger I
wouldn't have dropped the door to begin with, and if my back had been stronger
(I had been taking a break from lifting) then my back wouldn't have been as
messed up.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15107011?report=abstract](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15107011?report=abstract)

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Mankhool
I'm in my mid 50s and haven't been in a gym in almost 4 months after being
religious about weight training for 40 years. I really don't care if I ever do
another workout in my life, but I know the importance of weight bearing
exercise so I guess I will go back eventually.

~~~
remriel
Why?

~~~
glibgil
Because he knows the importance of weight bearing exercise

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gxs
For those curious to get started, Starting Strength, by Mark Rippetoe is the
gold standard in beginners programming.
[http://startingstrength.com/](http://startingstrength.com/)

It takes you through the basic compound exercises and talks about some
important concepts in weight training, highly recommend it.

I worked on this basic program that requires you to go to the gym 3 times a
week and basic linear progression got me up to a 400lbs squat for reps at the
age of 28. It took about 18 months to get there.

My biggest regret is that I stopped going to the gym, if you do start, please
keep going. It's better to go and do something easy than to undo the habit.

~~~
vinay427
There's no consensus that Starting Strength is the gold standard. Other
popular programs are StrongLifts and now a variant on Greyskull LP [1].

[1] [https://i.imgur.com/iLhAJBl_d.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/iLhAJBl_d.jpg)

~~~
dpark
None of those are meaningfully different. At core, they're all the same
program:

1\. Basic compound lifts

2\. Linear progression

3\. 3x5 (StrongLifts also switches to 3x5 once the weights get heavy)

There are some differences, but they're pretty minor and people nitpicking
them for beginners are mostly wasting time because it really doesn't matter
that much.

~~~
TheCapn
They're meaningfully different in how they approach failure.

StrongLifts is worse off in this regard for the reason that they teach
reducing volume once you start running into plateaus in order to artificially
progress. "Benching that lift too hard? Well cut out 40% of the volume and
keep going!"

Starting Strength fails in teaches the idea of deloading by dropping weight
then taking a run at it without changing any of the training methodology which
is arguably a reason for the "spinning the wheels" approach you see from
several lifters who claim to run the program for months on end upwards and
beyond a year. It's also seen as a less ideal program for its poor split on
upper/lower volume and really benefits from accessory lifts thrown in when the
lifter is capable.... but at that point you might as well just run a better
program.

They're _decent_ programs in that they get a untrained individual to put up
enough weight to get themselves out of a horribly weak position but they don't
teach anything meaningful for long term. Other programs achieve the necessary
linear progression that is capable during your noob gains without having
stupid programming quirks that lifters need to unlearn when they move onto
intermediate programs.

~~~
dredmorbius
Starting Strength is a _starting_ programme for _strength_ development.

It's not a lifetime lifting regime.

That's ... not made entirley clear, though Rippe does address this.

~~~
wayn3
its literally 50% of the name.

programs not called perpetuity strength or elite strength or bodybuilders
delight.

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evanspa
Blatant self-promotion. I just finished initial development of a web app [1]
for tracking your reps, and have just submitted an iOS / Watch app to the App
Store (currently in review).

[1] [https://www.rikerapp.com](https://www.rikerapp.com)

------
alamgir_mand
I had my DEXA test a couple months ago and found out I have 3.5x the bone
density of others my age due to my heavy weightlifting. It's probably why I've
had 3 motorcycle crashes and never broke a single bone. Furthermore, the
technician told me that I will probably never have problems with osteoporosis
as a result!

TL;DR - keep your squats low and your standards high

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tacon
It's surprising that no one has mentioned Body by Science[1], SuperSlow from
Ken Hutchins, Arthur Jones and Nautilus, and other research based programs
from the last forty years. Free weights can be very dangerous as you approach
muscle failure, and all sorts of momentum, breath holding, etc. are
problematic. Unless hypertrophy and/or bad time management are your goals, I
prefer the system of deep muscle inroading in 12 minutes a week, and then I
work on sport skills, not building muscle mass, the rest of the week. I have a
median genotype, not the genetic makeup of a muscle magazine.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Body-Science-Research-Strength-
Traini...](https://www.amazon.com/Body-Science-Research-Strength-
Training/dp/0071597174) "Body by Science: A Research Based Program for
Strength Training, Body building, and Complete Fitness in 12 Minutes a Week"

[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PdJFbjWHEU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PdJFbjWHEU)

[3] [http://techzinglive.com/page/1500/268-tz-interview-dr-
doug-m...](http://techzinglive.com/page/1500/268-tz-interview-dr-doug-mcguff-
body-by-science)

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mothers
perhaps the best exercise for bone strength, but is it the best thing you can
do for your bones?

assuming a moderately active lifestyle (e.g. an hour of brisk walking a day),
we're skeptical that exercise has any significant advantage, if any, compared
to improved nutrition and non-exercise lifestyle changes (more and better
quality sleep, better friendships, etc.).

that being said, exercise certainly isn't bad.

~~~
antisthenes
Brisk walking [every day even] doesn't qualify as a moderately active
lifestyle, sorry.

If it doesn't raise your heart rate to at least 100+, it's nearly useless as
an exercise. Sure, you'll burn slightly more calories than sitting at a desk,
but the benefits are nowhere near actual exercise.

> more and better quality sleep, better friendships, etc.

Sleep quality generally improves with exercise, as long as you're still
getting 8 hours. Better friendships are completely orthogonal to
exercise/weightlifting.

~~~
vldx
Isn't such perspective limited?

My parents are 67 and 65 years old; I would say say that daily brisk walking
is possibly much more suitable for them (their body) in comparison to
weightlifting -- irrespective of your personal definition of "exercise". And
I'm damn sure their heart rate easily exceeds 100+ if that's the main variable
to control.

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Boothroid
Weight training is like magic for me. I've slipped into some bad habits over
time and am struggling my way slowly out of them and back into training. The
difference when I'm training is crazy. It supercharges my body and lifts my
mood from all the extra hormones and so on. Recently I had had a weird pain in
my back for months every time I breathed in, and it disappeared with a single
back workout! I now wonder whether something was out of alignment and the
weighted stretching pulled everything back into place. Certainly seemed that
way. I've been banging on about weight training to anyone that will listen for
years!

My special tip: get some cheap bulk whey concentrate (cheaper than isolate and
not really that much more calorific in the wider scheme of things) and bang
down enough protein shakes to get your protein up to a reasonable level. I
used to do 1 gram per pound of bodyweight per day, but looking back I think
that was excessive. You also have to make sure you drink plenty of water
whilst on a high protein diet, and obviously don't go into it if you have any
history of kidney trouble. But seriously though - training vs training +
protein is incomparable. Combine the two and watch your muscles expand.

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justforFranz
huh huh uhh huhuhuh uhhhh huhuhuhuhuhhh.

