site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   2685 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for November 8, 2023

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

3
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Anyone here do minimalist strength training?

I tend to fall into a pattern of lifting consistently for 3 months or so, then getting busy or injured and letting it lapse. So I never make any significant gains. I'm also a weekend warrior type athlete who plays an intense sport at a semi-competitive level. This really gets in the way of strength training. I'm doing way too much cardio and often suffer nagging overuse injuries.

I've tried Strong Lifts and Starting Strength. These programs seem okay, but better suited to a young person or one who doesn't do cardio or explosive sports.

Fortunately, there is research that the Pareto Principle applies to weightlifting. By doing just 1 heavy set a week one can get something like 50-80% of the strength gains one would by doing 15 sets.

Lately, I have reduced the volume of my workouts. It's feeling good so far. I'm still progressing and my knees feel better. I'm hoping that this will keep my consistent for a period of years and that the total gains I see will be much higher. I know I will reach a ceiling at some point which will require more volume to go past. I'll worry about that if it occurs.

There were a couple posts on Lesswrong about "optimal exercise" that you might like. This update, and the original one it links to.

WRT resistance training, I don't pursue any of the powerlifts (squat, bench, deadlift) anymore, instead focusing on other exercises that don't load the spine/knees as much but allow you to load the requisite musculature easily. Weighted step ups instead of squats can be loaded quite heavy. Hyperextensions, one-legged hypers, and reverse hyperextensions can work the posterior chain with 1/2-1/3 the load on the spine as deadlifts. Bench doesn't exactly load the spine but it is the most dangerous lift going by statistics (dropping the weight on yourself is the most common severe gym accident) and can be replaced with incline bench, dumbbell shoulder presses, and/or dips. These exercises are substantially easier to cue people on in a single session.

You might want to pick up 5/3/1 Forever. If you can get around Wendler's fairly poor explanation of how it works, there are a lot of fairly simple 2-day and 3-day templates that in theory could be done pretty quickly.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats