
5BX - MikeCapone
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5BX
======
paulhart
I was going to develop an iPhone app around the 5BX/XBX programs. Related to
that (and especially because I'm a Canadian citizen), I contacted the Canadian
government about receiving the rights to use the information in a commercial
product. The body of the response I got back was:

"On behalf of the department of National Defence, we were advised that the
Royal Canadian Air Force - 5BX Exercise Plans for Physical Fitness are not to
be reproduced. These exercises programs are outdated and have been
discontinued by the Canadian Forces since they could cause physical injury."

Just so you know.

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marknutter
It seems to me that us geeks are constantly in search of some clever exercise
program to get in shape with, but the simple and unavoidable truth is that all
it takes to get in shape is going to the gym at least 3 times per week to lift
weights and do some sort of cardio, and _being consistent_.

All these wacky techniques and programs we find are just distractions, and no
better than the latest ab machine you see on infomercials at 3am, which by the
way would work great but do nothing to help people with the one thing they
actually need: motivation to be consistent.

~~~
randallsquared
_the simple and unavoidable truth is that all it takes to get in shape is
going to the gym at least 3 times per week to lift weights and do some sort of
cardio, and being consistent._

It helps far more to eat less, since you can certainly eat enough to offset
any reasonable amount of exercise. Also, I'm not sure if you've noticed, but
lots of people _do_ go to the gym a regularly and it doesn't help. There were
some news stories recently around this (
[http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhis/earlyrelease/earlyrelease2...](http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhis/earlyrelease/earlyrelease201006.pdf)
), which has buried in it the interesting fact that Americans are exercising
more, and also fatter. So, exercise not the silver bullet.

What we really need is just to eat less. We mostly do not have the option to
be active all day nearly every day as our forebears did, even up until a few
decades ago, because so many people have so much to do that requires being in
a single spot for hour after hour every day.

~~~
starkfist
You need to eat less if you are fat and need to lose weight. If you aren't
overweight, you don't need to eat less. Even if you are skinny you still need
to exercise if you want to be "in shape."

~~~
randallsquared
Sure, but someone who is skinny and wants to get in shape is 98% of the way
there already -- they won't actually have any difficulty. Losing fat is the
hard part of getting in shape, and not coincidentally, is needful for the vast
majority of Americans.

~~~
marknutter
You don't understand how hard it is to gain weight when you're perpetually
skinny. Nobody wants to be really skinny, just like nobody wants to be really
fat. What we're all aiming for is that Men's Health magazine look where we
have a muscled physique and very little fat. I actually think it's easier to
get there from being fat than from being skinny, and don't think that just
because us skinny guys get to eat whatever we want it makes it more enjoyable.
When your trying to _gain_ weight, eating becomes a chore and it gets
expensive.

~~~
randallsquared
_You don't understand how hard it is to gain weight when you're perpetually
skinny._

You're quite right, I don't understand how that could be hard. :)

 _When your trying to gain weight, eating becomes a chore and it gets
expensive._

I can understand the "gets expensive" part. Also, I guess if you're not
actually eating things you want to eat, I could understand the "chore" part,
since there's only so much health food I'd want to eat in a day. If you were
really just trying to gain weight, though, you could just eat those things
that you can never get enough of (whatever they are for you), and easily pack
away six or eight thousand calories a day, right? You'd have to do hard labor
all day, like a farmer, to burn that much off.

~~~
jules
Gaining weight is indeed not very hard or expensive. Just drink a glass of
olive oil every day. I doubt mark meant gaining fat with gaining weight,
though.

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gchucky
The Hacker's Diet (<http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/e4/>), a guide to losing
weight for hackers, has an exercise component based around this. It's a little
outdated now, but the concepts behind it are pretty good.

~~~
wazoox
Exactly. I used it as a basic guide, and lost 12 kgs. I simply replaced the
"step in the bedroom" part with "jogging outside" :)

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charleso
This program is really superb.

I used it for a year or so to get myself up to my target level and then
started going to a gym to train on weights.

If you want to start getting in shape but feel too shy to go to a gym just
yet, start with this. You will honestly see amazing results if you set aside
that 11 minutes a day and eat right along the way.

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scott_s
The modern incarnation of this is CrossFit, <http://www.crossfit.com>.

~~~
studer
Requires a bit more equipment, though:

"An Olympic weight set and a place to do pull-ups and dips is essential to
doing CrossFit. Gymnastics rings and parallettes, plyometrics boxes, a Dynamax
medicine ball, dumbbells, kettlebells, climbing rope, Concept II Rower, and a
glute-ham developer will equip your garage with more than enough to follow the
WOD very closely."

~~~
scott_s
Do what you can with what you got. The training philosophy is more what I had
in mind.

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ojbyrne
One of the sadder sentences I've seen lately:

"Orban, creating the program as a public servant, received no additional
income from the success of the plan"

From following the link to his article, it does look like it helped his career
some at least.

~~~
jarek
How do you figure? He was an academic. He became a dean two or three years
after receiving his PhD, which is extraordinarily successful. If he was just
in it for the money, he probably would have stayed in the U.S. to begin with.

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10ren
How do you do the Back extension one without a machine?

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varaon
See here, exercise #3: <http://osalrex.110mb.com/HTML/5BX_chart1.html>

The variations get harder on higher-numbered charts.

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keefe
<http://exrx.net> join a gym, setup a proper plan, really not too hard.

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mattsidesinger
11 minute abs.

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gaius
Best ab exercise bar none is pull-ups holding a dumbbell between your ankles.
You won't see it in "get ripped quick" programmes because if you can even do
it, you probably already know what you're doing.

~~~
jules
Do you mean lifting the weight up with your feet? Pull ups don't really use
the abs, do they?

~~~
jergason
Try a pull-up and see how tense your abs feel. I am not sure how exactly they
are used in pull-ups, but I feel like my entire body flexes when I do a pull-
up. Abs especially.

