Current Thoughts On Exercise Theory?

[Michael]

   Was reading this on the Strongfirst forum and thought this was an interesting question: www.strongfirst.com/community/threads/current-thoughts-on-exercise-theory.13144/

I know strongfirst is geared more toward certain things like KBs and heavy weights. But what would Your thoughts be on this subject? I'm just posting this as a question, not asking advice. The stuff that North Coast Miller posted makes sense to me.

[Bruce Tackett]

Here's my exercise theory:

keep exercising = stay strong, muscular, healthy

stop exercising = become weak, soft, unhealthy

[Michael]

Wow, never thought of it that way. Oh well no sense of talking about anything exercise wise, Thanks.

[machinehead]

I think I can mostly relate to point 5:

"If you're already staying fit with judo/hiking whatever, it is often better to train less strenuous moves with weights to aim for moderate strength gains, as you don't need ridiculous strength necessarily for sport nor life, and you'll tire yourself out for the sport by doing too heavy weights."

I'm at a stage in life where I've met all my lifting goals at one time or another and the activities I used to train for in order to improve my performance are things I no longer engage in. It's kind of like a "maintenance minimum" where I perform similar movements almost every day but I keep the weight the same. Two thoughts feed into this -- first, in one of my many adventures with physical therapists over the years, I was told by one of them that as far as every day life activities for the modern middle aged male, the most amount of weight you'd have to lift over an extended period of time would be +/- 50 pounds. In other words the heaviest thing to lift (the end of a sleeper sofa, partner lifting a refrigerator, moving heavy boxes, etc.) would work out to about 50 pounds from the living room to the moving truck, or whatever distance it may be. This is part of my argument for me keeping the weight the same (right now my "gym" is 2 16Kg kettlebells and a couple of 25 pound dumbbells plus an ab wheel). This plays into my second theory which is if I can lift the same today as I did yesterday but I'm older today than yesterday then I have in fact gotten stronger because as we age, our strength diminishes over time (obviously I've sort of paraphrased that conclusion but it's my current thinking process and I'm sticking to it -- www.cooperinstitute.org/2011/08/the-challenge-of-maintaining-mass-and-strength-with-age/).

[Bob50]

My exercise theory is very simple: It is not important what you use, more important how you use that.

[Bruce Tackett]

Nov 16, 2018 14:25:29 GMT Bob50 said:

My exercise theory is very simple: It is not important what you use, more important how you use that.

What does using that have to do with exercise?

[Bob50]

Nov 16, 2018 14:28:42 GMT Bruce Tackett said:

Nov 16, 2018 14:25:29 GMT Bob50 said:

My exercise theory is very simple: It is not important what you use, more important how you use that.

What does using that have to do with exercise?

In other words, we can use almost everything for our exercises, but we should use that correctly to get what we want. 

[Dave Reslo]

Honestly, I think the guy has culled a bunch of ideas from different sources and not really grasped any of them. "My hiking already makes me strong, if I lift anything heavy I'll just get tired." Seriously?

[countryboy]

Nov 16, 2018 3:49:58 GMT Bruce Tackett said:

Here's my exercise theory:

keep exercising = stay strong, muscular, healthy

stop exercising = become weak, soft, unhealthy

That is just too complicated. I come from a simple upbringing.

[Bruce Tackett]

Nov 16, 2018 17:44:55 GMT countryboy said:

Nov 16, 2018 3:49:58 GMT Bruce Tackett said:

Here's my exercise theory:

keep exercising = stay strong, muscular, healthy

stop exercising = become weak, soft, unhealthy

That is just too complicated. I come from a simple upbringing.

exercise good

not exercise bad

[Deuce Gunner]

Nov 16, 2018 13:56:32 GMT machinehead said:

I think I can mostly relate to point 5:

"If you're already staying fit with judo/hiking whatever, it is often better to train less strenuous moves with weights to aim for moderate strength gains, as you don't need ridiculous strength necessarily for sport nor life, and you'll tire yourself out for the sport by doing too heavy weights."

I'm at a stage in life where I've met all my lifting goals at one time or another and the activities I used to train for in order to improve my performance are things I no longer engage in. It's kind of like a "maintenance minimum" where I perform similar movements almost every day but I keep the weight the same. Two thoughts feed into this -- first, in one of my many adventures with physical therapists over the years, I was told by one of them that as far as every day life activities for the modern middle aged male, the most amount of weight you'd have to lift over an extended period of time would be +/- 50 pounds. In other words the heaviest thing to lift (the end of a sleeper sofa, partner lifting a refrigerator, moving heavy boxes, etc.) would work out to about 50 pounds from the living room to the moving truck, or whatever distance it may be. This is part of my argument for me keeping the weight the same (right now my "gym" is 2 16Kg kettlebells and a couple of 25 pound dumbbells plus an ab wheel). This plays into my second theory which is if I can lift the same today as I did yesterday but I'm older today than yesterday then I have in fact gotten stronger because as we age, our strength diminishes over time (obviously I've sort of paraphrased that conclusion but it's my current thinking process and I'm sticking to it -- www.cooperinstitute.org/2011/08/the-challenge-of-maintaining-mass-and-strength-with-age/).

After age 40, maintenance=progression.

[Michael]

Nov 16, 2018 16:49:41 GMT Dave Reslo said:

Honestly, I think the guy has culled a bunch of ideas from different sources and not really grasped any of them. "My hiking already makes me strong, if I lift anything heavy I'll just get tired." Seriously?

, yeah that doesn't make sense.