I understand it’s a joke but I wanted to throw some other numbers out there for people to consider, since resistance training can massively improve your quality of life and it’s very common for people to believe it needs to be a full time job to see results. For disclosure, I am a trainer but don’t offer services via lemmy
But you can get head-turning, people-ask-you-questions-unprompted levels of muscular with <5 hours a week in the gym. And that’s the full time commitment for what I’d called a “serious trainee”, any more than that is mainly for people who simply love training as a form of recreation and actively want to spend more time lifting.
Most of my clients do 2.5 hours a week and still get great visual results, albeit more slowly. More importantly, you cash in on quality of life benefits with shockingly little weekly commitment. Even one session per week is enough to feel huge improvements in energy and endurance during day to day tasks, improve your metabolic health, improve your bone health, improve your mental health, as well as experience the whole cascade of improved injury outcomes (for example resistance trained individuals are less likely to fall, less likely to be injured if they do fall, and are more likely to make a full recovery if they do get injured).
It’s extremely worth starting, for all ages and genders. Again, apologies for being overly serious under a joke. I like to leave little comments like this under popular gym posts because it occasionally results in someone beginning or returning to training
Having an progressive program tailored to one’s goals is key.
In the first 6 months of going to the gym I wasn’t seeing a lot of results. It was certainly better than nothing; I was learning the exercises, developing the base level strength to handle beginner weight levels… But where were these newbie gains everyone was talking about?
It wasn’t until I got on a good plan that I started making noticable leaps in strength. A year in, I decided to add in some cardio (just a 2 mile run) and suddenly I started blowing up.
When I finally got my routine optimized I could be in and out of the gym in an hour. 3 times a week, that was it. If I was tight on time, I would simply do my run on my off days.
So daily investment of 30 to 45 minutes.
You can buy a cheap weight bench and you won’t even have to go to the gym. Hell, you can buy a cheap rack, too, like I did and do every exercise in your home for free.
You can accidentally lose 45 minutes just zoned out on the couch flipping through channels, so time-wise, it’s about the best ROI you could ever make.
If you’re in the US, I’ve used the YMCA for many years, it had a decent gym. When I had to move, I just had to talk to the receptionist on my way out of my last visit and they cancelled my subscription in a few minutes.
Definitely, and actually you would be surprised. A lot of places introduced no-contract memberships after covid. Lots of places went out of business too, then all that equipment went up for sale for cheap and lots of new places ended up opening.
But the main thing to look for is small, privately owned gyms. I can really only speak to my area, but I have several. The most common arrangement is simply that you pay monthly, can cancel any time you want, but every time you sign up again there’s a sign-up fee. One other place I know simply charges an extra $10 per month for a no-commitment membership.
Keep an eye out, again for smaller privately owned commercial gyms in general, but also for specialized gyms such as those that cater to powerlifting, olympic lifting, or strongman. Usually they are lacking in “amenities” that drive the price up, and are less likely to have predatory subscription schemes in general. The only downside is that these places can seem very intimidating at first, but the community is likely to be very welcoming
Find a locally owned gym. Ask what their policy is on day passes, month to month, contracts, etc. The cost will be a bit higher than Planet Fitness, but they probably won’t screw you, and the community tends to be way better.
Also, if you want to get fit, I highly recommend finding a gym that is either “fun” or offers classes. Rock climbing, gymnastics/acrobatics, martial arts, etc tend to be more fun and engaging than showing up 3 days a week to do 3 sets of 8, and if your goal is to just generally get fit and healthy. For that matter, there are also often groups meeting up all over cities for free or cheap to run, cycle, walk, boat, play sports, etc. And if you’re really dedicated to some kind of lifting, having a time and place to show up, where you know you will see friendly faces trying hard together is far more likely to keep you consistent. This is why crossfitters are often ripped, despite crossfit being a dumb training philosophy - it got the fundamentals right: get people to show up consistently and try hard by making a welcoming community that gathers at a regular time and place. Often powerlifting, oly lifting, kettlebell, strongman, and off-brand/crossfit-style gyms will offer regular classes where people train together for this very reason.
As a sweeping generalization, this is only a problem with chain gyms.
If you need a solid litmus test though, call them during core hours and ask for a quick tour. Nearly all indie gyms will let you pay for a day pass or similar if you’re new (though that isn’t always part of their posted rates). If they won’t let you test the waters without signing up for recurring payment, it’s not a gym worth going to.
You can do resistance exercises without the gym and get a good chunk of benefits from it. It’s easier with a gym though, and in my experience more fun.
If you just want to dip your toes in it, look into calisthenics. Should you find that enjoyable and hit a plateau in your progress, consider joining a gym at that point.
Joint health, bone density, and strength/muscle mass are things you will miss out on if, say, you just play ultimate frisbee. But getting stronger doesnt have to be 3 sets of 8 on bench. You can get essentially the same health benefits by engaging in sports that train strength, like martial arts, acrobatics, or rock climbing. That said, many people who do any kind of physical activity aggressively typically find that they enjoy lifting at some point in their athletic careers, as lifting itself can improve athletic performance and ward off sports injuries, due to the controlled and progressive nature of gym work, as compared to the more chaotic nature of real-world activities.
Its about control. Being active is great overall but could leave some weak spots or even be wearing things out. Certain muscles might not get worked quite right or to their full range of movement. Working out with good technique and variety should hit all your muscles and identify any tight or painful spots you need to work on.
If you’re after results, like increased strength, endurance, or a better physique, then thats where training comes in. You have to push to near failure to demand muscle growth. If you start biking 5 miles a day, those first few weeks and months you might grow a bit, but eventually that 5 miles won’t be as challenging and you’ll plateau in terms of strength and endurance. Thats where training, either training the muscles or doing more cycling, really starts to work. Thats how you grow and start improving again.
So “general activity” I can only assume is stuff like going on walks and hikes, playing sports, enjoying the outdoors, and so on. This will generally fall under the umbrella of cardiovascular exercise which is extremely good, and you should do
Resistance training is typically performed in much shorter bouts of intense activity. It’s very convenient in a gym, but you can do pretty much everything you need with the right setup (bench press is very similar to pushups, for example, which don’t require equipment.)
The biggest challenge outside of a gym is how to progress movements. For example, once you can do 50 pushups, how could you make it harder so that the movement would be appropriately challenging, and not take all day? And then another issue sometimes can be training the muscles of the back without equipment, typically done via pull-ups and rows.
But ultimately everything is doable! Check out the youtube channel “Hybrid Calisthenics”, he’s got a ton of excellent content aimed directly at this question. He also sells cheap gymnastics rings which handily solve the muscles-of-the-back problem, if you have somewhere to hang them from (even a tree!)
I mean, the limitation of calisthenics isnt the back, but the legs. Not to say there arent good leg exercises, but the legs are so strong that you have to get pretty creative pretty quickly if you want to keep progressing them.
The other thing I want to note is that a lot of people gravitate towards calisthenics because you can do it at home, and they feel uncomfortable in a gym, so they decide to try calisthenics rather than face their gym anxiety. And while this can work for some people, for most it will hamstring their progress since exercising alone at home is almost custom-designed to kill motivation and habit formation, and thus will stop people from staying consistent and getting the results they want. In addition, calisthenics progressions are often pretty big leaps, and it can be frustrating to be able to rep out 20 on one exercise, and then be shut down by the progression.
If you think that calisthenics is cool, or you dont have the money for a gym membership or equipment, or if there are no gyms around you, then go for it! But I would suggest you do your workouts somewhere other than at home (like at a local park) and that you try your best to meet up with others with a similar interest, as these are the things that will make the habit stick.
Another vote for checking out hybrid callisthenics. They also have a website with a basic routine including instructions and links to videos explaining all of the progressions for each movement that is free to use and a great resource for people who are new and need some direction.
It’s quite possible to do resistance training at home, and it’s particularly affordable if you use resistance bands, which also take up extremely little space.
Honestly I would say consistency is somewhat overrated in the grand scheme of things
ALERT. ALERT. OVERRATED DOES NOT MEAN BAD
Consistency is obviously extremely good. I used to preach it. But honestly, I took on a client with severe intermittent health issues which results in them having about 50% adherence (meaning they miss, on average, about half their training sessions)
And they ended up progressing just fine lol
Actually I feel like a far bigger risk is for people to assume they need to have perfect consistency, then drop training altogether when they aren’t able to meet that high standard.
The critical thing to understand is that resistance training is EXTREMELY potent for beginners. Even inconsistent effort will do pretty amazing things for your health
What i really meant by consistency isn’t really being perfect anyway, it’s more about longevity, as in, being imperfect, but over a long period of time, ideally as long as you are capable.
I really appreciate all the info you’re giving! It’s really encouraging.
I was a high level athlete growing up, so my only previous example of what was “enough” is hard to live up to as an adult working in an office, but seeing as ive been going an average of 7-8 hours per week, that makes me feel a lot more confident that I am, in fact, doing enough.
Just FYI resistance training is not bodybuilding (flexing biceps in the mirror like in meme above), so choose your search keywords/programs carefully. Most athletic people I’ve seen (especially runners) often look like they have no muscle(edit: since people misinterpret this, the word “look” is about general appearance, not what’s under the shirt). Biceps have nothing to do with longevity. In fact, extra weight is extra load on heart.
*Edited for clarity since too many misinterpreted.
There is not a single evidence that muscle mass within natural limits becomes detrimental. Of course it’s kinda hard to test it out as well as we would need naturals, close to their maximum limit and hold that for decades, but no point to scare anyone that it’s a possibility naturally as most people will never even reach close to their maximum muscle building potential.
Even when going to steroid abuse territory, it’s questionable whatever steroids do more damage than just the muscle mass itself.
No, you can clearly see the effects of longevity in studies that focuses on resistance training versus focuses on muscle building with little cardio itself
I wouldn’t bother with this person, they’ve got a huge bee in their bonnet about bodybuilding and muscle mass. They seem to have extrapolated the negative health effects of doing huge amounts of steroids and putting on inhuman muscle mass out to all bodybuilding period, and they refuse to have this misconception educated out of them.
Excessive muscle mass. Talking more about people who basically revolve around mass building, which is not as healthy as balanced, resistance training. All my comments have been pro-cardiovascular training, it’s honestly weird how heavily I feel like being misinterpreted here. I even posted my own pic in one of the comments which shows I’m athletic with decend muscle mass, but not excessive.
Understandable, but that does once again go back to the point that detrimental amount of muscle mass is only achievable through the usage of steroids and at that point it’s questionable which did more damage.
Within natural limitations, it’s not something someone should worry about.
Though yes i do agree with you that cardiovascular training shouldn’t be completely neglected.
I think the confusion/general anger/dismissal occured from me also saying that growing arm biceps hardly relate to longevity, and for me resistance training is all about longevity and health, not simply looking good. There are muscles in your body that directly relate to health of cardiovascular system, longevity, health, etc., and then there are others that scientifically don’t really show signs of increased longevity or better health (directly), like arm biceps. They do, however, relate indirectly in a way that it still counts as an exercise, which is always good.
Correct. Bodybuilding is a presentation sport with a variety of rulesets and judging criteria. Resistance training is a form of exercise with many proven physical and mental benefits
Most athletic people I’ve seen (especially runners) often look like they have no muscle
Usain Bolt was phenomenally muscular when he was competing, as are most sprinters. Many recognized Olympic sports reward larger physiques
Biceps have nothing to do with longevity.
You have my permission to skip direct bicep training.
Just make sure, assuming you want the full spectrum of proven benefits, that you hit your pulls (such as rows and pull ups, or appropriately scaled variations). This will heavily involve your biceps just so you know, but the main focus is the back.
In fact, extra weight is extra load on heart.
Dangerous medical misinformation, you should delete this. Resistance training has proven cardiac benefits. There is zero risk of acquiring “too much” muscle mass
There is no way those guys walking around at 6’1 300 lbs and sub 20% body fat are not taxing their hearts more than a similar height person of normal weight/bf%.
It should go without saying that illegal drug abuse causes countless extreme health issues
You may be surprised to learn that non-drug abusing bodybuilders usually max out around the 150-170lb mark on stage. There are very hard limits to how much muscle your body will let you build
You may be surprised to learn that non-drug abusing bodybuilders usually max out around the 150-170lb mark on stage
That’s really weird because most bodybuilders I know don’t really go below 75-80kg. Yes, I know many as I used to go to the gym, studied as mechanic and I’m from a small city that’s focused on gyms and outdoor fitness areas.
I myself weight 78. Most of my muscle is lower torso since I’ve been cycling and mountainclimbing much of my life.
I’m stating that being grossly overweight with a normal to low bf% is still bad for one’s heart. ~20% is the high end of lean for adult men and the prefix “sub” means under or lower.
It kinda is if you’re a woman. Of course there’s not very much overlap between women and 6’1" 300 lb guys.
But yeah, the problem there is the abuse of steroids and growth hormones required to get such a body. That will fuck your body up in various ways you might not even notice at first.
There is zero risk of acquiring “too much” muscle mass
This is dangerous medical misinformation. Reduced mobility, joint stress, cardiovascular strain, heat intolerance (quite important lately), compartment syndrome, rhabdomyolysis risk, etc. You can most absolutely ruin your health by having too much muscle mass. Last I checked, in statistics bodybuilders have quite terrible longevity as opposed to resistance training folks (which basically shoots in the opposite direction of longevity).
As someone mentioned, any such study is poisoned with the fact that many bodybuilders reach for steroids, but in any case when you look at data of bodybuilding versus resistance building, you gotta raise an eyebrow.
Don’t bodybuilders typically shoot for dangerously low body fat %? Like, all these symptoms sound like what you’d expect from someone on steroids who’s only not extremely underweight because they have a lot of muscle.
Perhaps once you understand why you are wrong, and you realize how much your error has the potential to harm people, you will apologize.
This study is definitionally unrelated to any form of resistance training, or the additional total body mass that you can acquire via resistance training.
It is an observational study on the outcomes of IFBB contestants. For anyone who doesn’t know, the IFBB is the primary bodybuilding federation for drug abusers. They run the “Mr. Olympia” contest which you may have heard of.
The drug abuse they glorify directly results in many extreme health issues including sudden cardiac death, in exchange for levels of muscle gain that far exceed what is possible for any natural athlete.
I want to be clear. What they are doing is extreme, illegal, dangerous, and critically, not related to resistance training in any meaningful way. The body will not allow you to become so muscular that it harms you, which is why these extreme athletes need illegal drugs to become so large in the first place.
It is shockingly irresponsible and ethically wrong for you to withhold this necessary context, and to so severely contort this paper into your unrelated false conclusion
This study is definitionally unrelated to any form of resistance training, or the additional total body mass that you can acquire via resistance training.
Why would me pointing to a study that shows worse health for just body building (as opposed to resistance training) show data about resistance training? The study is about pure body building that focuses on muscles like biceps, just like the meme above, the thread I’m commenting on.
The discussion is essentially “Cardio vs Weights”. I’m pro-cardio. You are not going to convince me of the opposite. I truly believe in longevity of resistance training as opposed to body building (focused on simply muscle growth), or whatever is your/everyone’s goal here.
I see, so in the end, you have decided to persist in falsehood. I hope you know that through humility, it is still possible for you to be redeemed from this shame.
Beyond that, the actual content in your latest comment here is ludicrous beyond credulity. You continue to literally lie about the contents of the study. You assert imagined facts about bodybuilding as a whole that nobody else ascribes to. You propose a ridiculous false dichotomy between aerobic and anaerobic exercise.
It is my hope that everyone will be able to easily see through what you are doing. Here is some accessible educational material for those who may possibly be confused by your continued repetition of dangerous and misleading information:
Strength training, also known as weight training or resistance training, is exercise designed to improve physical strength. It may involve lifting weights, bodyweight exercises (such as push-ups, pull-ups, and squats), isometrics (holding a position under tension, such as planks), and plyometrics (explosive movements like jump squats and box jumps).
The effects of strength training include greater muscular strength, improved muscle tone and appearance, increased endurance, cardiovascular health, and enhanced bone density. These benefits contribute not only to athletic performance but also to long-term health and independence, especially as individuals age.
Regular resistance training supports metabolic function, helps regulate body weight, and can improve mental well-being through the release of endorphins.
Strength training also provides functional benefits. Stronger muscles improve posture, provide better support for joints, and reduce the risk of injury from everyday activities.
Engaging in strength training has been linked to a 10-17% reduction in the risk of death from all causes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, and lung cancer. Two of its primary effects-muscle growth (hypertrophy) and increased muscular strength-are both associated with improved longevity and lower mortality rates.
Can you please stop being obtuse on purpose? I feel like you clearly know what I’m talking about (longevity effects of resistance training vs focused muscle building with little to no cardio), yet purposefully (or accidentally?) decide to constantly misinterpret me and turn this into a ridiculous argument, because it’s really weird that I pretty much agreed with everything you say, yet you disagree with me like I’m talking something entirely else. Even your examples of bodybuilding is not really the bodybuilding I was talking about as that is closer to resistance training.
You simply cannot deny a fact that pure resistance training is better than simply building my arm biceps, that is very anti-scientific but you constantly nitpick at definitions and wording instead of the idea I’m discussing, probably to appear smarter.
Bodybuilding is a form of resistance training. And there are multiple forms of bodybuilding, some healthy and some significantly less so. The above trainer seems to be talking about a sort of general fitness and casual bodybuilding that is indeed good for health and longevity.
Running is great, in moderation. But having reasonable amounts of muscle mass is also great. Most people are going to have better health outcomes looking like Brad Pitt in Fight Club rather than Edward Norton
I was talking contextually (context matters here). The meme shows a guy flexing his arm biceps. Scientifically biceps hardly relate with longevity and resistance training, that is just bodybuilding. My point was to simply point people more towards resistance building rather than simply muscle building. I’ll be honest - I skipped half of the comment I was replying to due to me being in rush
Dunno why you’re downvoted; there’s different types of muscle growth and you’ll get different results based on your routine.
For example, you can end up with very dense, efficient, lean muscle that doesn’t show up in the mirror if you have any body fat. Or you can get very puffed up muscle that isn’t super strong but looks impressive.
Neither is worse or better, they’re just different outcomes based on your goals.
Hi, sorry I was just scrolling by to see how the whole thread turned out
I apologize to be so blunt, but there simply isn’t truth to what you’re saying. It gets repeated a lot, but it’s a totally debunked myth, this idea that there’s “functional muscles” vs “show muscles” that aren’t really strong
There is some nuance to it, in that the expression of strength has a large skill and neurological factor. Like in a typical training block, someone only training for size simply wouldn’t be practicing doubles and singles, so they wouldn’t be at their best on a random day if you tested them on something they weren’t practicing
But the best bodybuilders (who train maximally for visuals) end up within like 5% of the strength of the best powerlifters (who train maximally for efficiency). There are plenty of people who compete in both and do decent in both. In fact, powerlifters do hypertrophy blocks as well, and switch to mainly practicing heavy lifts only as competition gets closer
We’re not talking about the very top 1% best people though. The chances of anybody here ever becoming a professional bodybuilder or weightlifter is very small. If you go to a real gym or actually meet people, you’ll see there’s a huge variety of builds and results.
You say it’s a myth, but if you just Google “is there such a thing as dense muscle”, there’s many articles explaining the phenomenon. Only one Reddit article pops up claiming it’s a myth, and personally I don’t put much stock in Reddit for fact based arguments.
if you just Google “is there such a thing as dense muscle”, there’s many articles explaining the phenomenon.
Like I said, it gets repeated a lot. Googling “is myth real” and ending up with one of thousands of similar fluff blogposts from over the years that say “yes! Myth is real! Check out our exclusive training program to better deal with myth!” Is totally expected. It’s all just fluff designed to sell programs based on that “key piece of information you’re missing”
We’re not talking about the very top 1% best people though
These are the people who bring what you’re saying to the utmost extreme, and their strength is ultimately similar. It’s relevant. The differences in strength are even smaller the younger your training age is.
If you go to a real gym or actually meet people, you’ll see there’s a huge variety of builds and results.
I go to several gyms. I’m at a gym every day. I am a trainer. Aside from my own clients, I also see all the regulars, how they train, and how their bodies change
Additionally, I am literally holding the textbook from my certification program in my hand right at this moment, which actually has a small section addressing this exact myth directly. It begins with, “contrary to what many believe…”
I apologize for not providing this textbook as a citation. I reference it a lot in public facing posts associated with my business and I feel that, in context, doing so now has the potential to be identifying. I prefer to keep a resolute line between my professional service and my posts here on lemmy, so that I cannot be accused of self enrichment via advertising.
Thus, everything I say on the topic comes simply from the hope that it may help people better themselves in one small way or another. In this case, it’s very common for people to avoid effective training methods that would work very well for them because they were mislead by someone making a huge fuss between “strength” and “size” and insisting they must train a certain way to heavily bias one or the other. The academic consensus is that you really don’t need to worry about that at all
Ok well I’m going to continue trusting my eyes and lived experience over an internet stranger who has a forbidden tome of knowledge.
I also think there was a miscommunication here. I’m not saying that hypertrophy doesn’t result in strength gains. All I’m saying is, that it’s possible to end up with “dense muscle”, or “skinny strong”, which might be an undesirable / desirable outcome for some people depending on what they actually want. I was pointing out the difference for people who haven’t started any strength training at all yet, so they can make informed decisions about their research and routines. Either choice is a good one, it’s entirely personal preference.
Yes as I said, my apologies for the lack of citation. But the book is far from forbidden, it’s a standard academic work written by leading exercise science researchers. Their work is universally cited, which is why I encourage you to look towards academic sources rather than advertisements
I also think there was a miscommunication here. I’m not saying that hypertrophy doesn’t result in strength gains
To be clear, what you said was:
you can get very puffed up muscle that isn’t super strong
Which is a debunked myth. So you’re walking that back now which is good.
People can definitely add significant strength without significant size, up to a point, for individualized training blocks. But if you train, even only for strength, your muscles will get larger. In your lived experience, do you have any example of someone who brought their strict press from 35lbs to 185lbs without increasing the size of their shoulders? Have you seen someone with small legs squat 455?
Here you go, even studies showing that size and strength are closely correlated.
Or even more studies, with deeper analysis and actually slightly favorable for your point, though the weak correlation is just limited to untrained individuals. The more advanced person gets the stronger the correlation gets.
Ok… those studies are saying that muscle growth is correlated with strength gains. Yes, I agree with you on this. Those articles do not disprove the existence of dense muscle. Maybe there’s been a misunderstanding. I’m not saying that size increase doesn’t lead to strength gains, that would be silly.
All I’m saying is, that it’s possible to end up with “dense muscle”, or “skinny strong”, which might be an undesirable / desirable outcome for some people depending on what they actually want. I was pointing out the difference for people who haven’t started any strength training at all yet, so they can make informed decisions about their research and routines. Either choice is a good one, it’s entirely personal preference.
Fair, probably misunderstanding then, because usually people referring to both terms usually do ignore strength and size correlation.
Though that’s just overly complicating it for beginners.
Just the most basic resistance training is more than enough to build size, strength and density all at the same time.
Skinny strong is just someone who has maxmimized their strength potential or has some leverage advantage due to genetics.
Yeah sure someone can train to become skinny strong by doing strength focused training(low rep range), but that caps out at some point as we can see from powerlifters who alternate training blocks between strength and hypertohy training.
I can’t imagine 40 hours a week of endurance training being anything but detrimental to one’s health. The pain of stacked up micro injuries would be unbearable.
40 hours a week is quite uncommon, but elite cyclists can put in upwards of 30 hours. With that type of volume, intensity management is quite important. You need to do the large majority of your exercise at low intensity for it to yield good results.
Lots of pro runners run over 100 miles a week, once you’re there it’s not so bad. Cyclists will do even more, bike packers get excited by the idea. As a kid I went to canoe camp and we would paddle for 40 hours a week sometime. Not sure if I should include through hiking.
Reposting my OC
I understand it’s a joke but I wanted to throw some other numbers out there for people to consider, since resistance training can massively improve your quality of life and it’s very common for people to believe it needs to be a full time job to see results. For disclosure, I am a trainer but don’t offer services via lemmy
But you can get head-turning, people-ask-you-questions-unprompted levels of muscular with <5 hours a week in the gym. And that’s the full time commitment for what I’d called a “serious trainee”, any more than that is mainly for people who simply love training as a form of recreation and actively want to spend more time lifting.
Most of my clients do 2.5 hours a week and still get great visual results, albeit more slowly. More importantly, you cash in on quality of life benefits with shockingly little weekly commitment. Even one session per week is enough to feel huge improvements in energy and endurance during day to day tasks, improve your metabolic health, improve your bone health, improve your mental health, as well as experience the whole cascade of improved injury outcomes (for example resistance trained individuals are less likely to fall, less likely to be injured if they do fall, and are more likely to make a full recovery if they do get injured).
It’s extremely worth starting, for all ages and genders. Again, apologies for being overly serious under a joke. I like to leave little comments like this under popular gym posts because it occasionally results in someone beginning or returning to training
Can confirm.
Having an progressive program tailored to one’s goals is key. In the first 6 months of going to the gym I wasn’t seeing a lot of results. It was certainly better than nothing; I was learning the exercises, developing the base level strength to handle beginner weight levels… But where were these newbie gains everyone was talking about?
It wasn’t until I got on a good plan that I started making noticable leaps in strength. A year in, I decided to add in some cardio (just a 2 mile run) and suddenly I started blowing up.
When I finally got my routine optimized I could be in and out of the gym in an hour. 3 times a week, that was it. If I was tight on time, I would simply do my run on my off days.
So daily investment of 30 to 45 minutes.
You can buy a cheap weight bench and you won’t even have to go to the gym. Hell, you can buy a cheap rack, too, like I did and do every exercise in your home for free.
You can accidentally lose 45 minutes just zoned out on the couch flipping through channels, so time-wise, it’s about the best ROI you could ever make.
This is why my home workouts end up taking longer lol.
At gym: rest timer goes off, me seeing that guy eyeing my bench for the last 20 minutes, better knock out the last set.
At home: rest timer goes off, “You’re not the boss of me!”
Also me: between set, mmm, a pb&j sounds great right about now, wanders off
I am personally going for what you see in those animes: scrawny dude that can throw a boulder, you can’t see the muscle.
Best of both worlds!
I know there’s probably isn’t your area of expertise, but I don’t know where else to ask.
Are there any gym memberships out there that aren’t completely sketchy and impossible to cancel?
If you’re in the US, I’ve used the YMCA for many years, it had a decent gym. When I had to move, I just had to talk to the receptionist on my way out of my last visit and they cancelled my subscription in a few minutes.
Definitely, and actually you would be surprised. A lot of places introduced no-contract memberships after covid. Lots of places went out of business too, then all that equipment went up for sale for cheap and lots of new places ended up opening.
But the main thing to look for is small, privately owned gyms. I can really only speak to my area, but I have several. The most common arrangement is simply that you pay monthly, can cancel any time you want, but every time you sign up again there’s a sign-up fee. One other place I know simply charges an extra $10 per month for a no-commitment membership.
Keep an eye out, again for smaller privately owned commercial gyms in general, but also for specialized gyms such as those that cater to powerlifting, olympic lifting, or strongman. Usually they are lacking in “amenities” that drive the price up, and are less likely to have predatory subscription schemes in general. The only downside is that these places can seem very intimidating at first, but the community is likely to be very welcoming
Find a locally owned gym. Ask what their policy is on day passes, month to month, contracts, etc. The cost will be a bit higher than Planet Fitness, but they probably won’t screw you, and the community tends to be way better.
Also, if you want to get fit, I highly recommend finding a gym that is either “fun” or offers classes. Rock climbing, gymnastics/acrobatics, martial arts, etc tend to be more fun and engaging than showing up 3 days a week to do 3 sets of 8, and if your goal is to just generally get fit and healthy. For that matter, there are also often groups meeting up all over cities for free or cheap to run, cycle, walk, boat, play sports, etc. And if you’re really dedicated to some kind of lifting, having a time and place to show up, where you know you will see friendly faces trying hard together is far more likely to keep you consistent. This is why crossfitters are often ripped, despite crossfit being a dumb training philosophy - it got the fundamentals right: get people to show up consistently and try hard by making a welcoming community that gathers at a regular time and place. Often powerlifting, oly lifting, kettlebell, strongman, and off-brand/crossfit-style gyms will offer regular classes where people train together for this very reason.
As a sweeping generalization, this is only a problem with chain gyms.
If you need a solid litmus test though, call them during core hours and ask for a quick tour. Nearly all indie gyms will let you pay for a day pass or similar if you’re new (though that isn’t always part of their posted rates). If they won’t let you test the waters without signing up for recurring payment, it’s not a gym worth going to.
If you have a community center nearby, you can see if they have gym equipment. Those memberships should be simple to get and cancel.
Does it have to be with the gym? Is there anything that generally being active doesn’t cover?
You can do resistance exercises without the gym and get a good chunk of benefits from it. It’s easier with a gym though, and in my experience more fun.
If you just want to dip your toes in it, look into calisthenics. Should you find that enjoyable and hit a plateau in your progress, consider joining a gym at that point.
Joint health, bone density, and strength/muscle mass are things you will miss out on if, say, you just play ultimate frisbee. But getting stronger doesnt have to be 3 sets of 8 on bench. You can get essentially the same health benefits by engaging in sports that train strength, like martial arts, acrobatics, or rock climbing. That said, many people who do any kind of physical activity aggressively typically find that they enjoy lifting at some point in their athletic careers, as lifting itself can improve athletic performance and ward off sports injuries, due to the controlled and progressive nature of gym work, as compared to the more chaotic nature of real-world activities.
Its about control. Being active is great overall but could leave some weak spots or even be wearing things out. Certain muscles might not get worked quite right or to their full range of movement. Working out with good technique and variety should hit all your muscles and identify any tight or painful spots you need to work on.
If you’re after results, like increased strength, endurance, or a better physique, then thats where training comes in. You have to push to near failure to demand muscle growth. If you start biking 5 miles a day, those first few weeks and months you might grow a bit, but eventually that 5 miles won’t be as challenging and you’ll plateau in terms of strength and endurance. Thats where training, either training the muscles or doing more cycling, really starts to work. Thats how you grow and start improving again.
A commercial gym is not necessary!
So “general activity” I can only assume is stuff like going on walks and hikes, playing sports, enjoying the outdoors, and so on. This will generally fall under the umbrella of cardiovascular exercise which is extremely good, and you should do
Resistance training is typically performed in much shorter bouts of intense activity. It’s very convenient in a gym, but you can do pretty much everything you need with the right setup (bench press is very similar to pushups, for example, which don’t require equipment.)
The biggest challenge outside of a gym is how to progress movements. For example, once you can do 50 pushups, how could you make it harder so that the movement would be appropriately challenging, and not take all day? And then another issue sometimes can be training the muscles of the back without equipment, typically done via pull-ups and rows.
But ultimately everything is doable! Check out the youtube channel “Hybrid Calisthenics”, he’s got a ton of excellent content aimed directly at this question. He also sells cheap gymnastics rings which handily solve the muscles-of-the-back problem, if you have somewhere to hang them from (even a tree!)
I mean, the limitation of calisthenics isnt the back, but the legs. Not to say there arent good leg exercises, but the legs are so strong that you have to get pretty creative pretty quickly if you want to keep progressing them.
The other thing I want to note is that a lot of people gravitate towards calisthenics because you can do it at home, and they feel uncomfortable in a gym, so they decide to try calisthenics rather than face their gym anxiety. And while this can work for some people, for most it will hamstring their progress since exercising alone at home is almost custom-designed to kill motivation and habit formation, and thus will stop people from staying consistent and getting the results they want. In addition, calisthenics progressions are often pretty big leaps, and it can be frustrating to be able to rep out 20 on one exercise, and then be shut down by the progression.
If you think that calisthenics is cool, or you dont have the money for a gym membership or equipment, or if there are no gyms around you, then go for it! But I would suggest you do your workouts somewhere other than at home (like at a local park) and that you try your best to meet up with others with a similar interest, as these are the things that will make the habit stick.
Another vote for checking out hybrid callisthenics. They also have a website with a basic routine including instructions and links to videos explaining all of the progressions for each movement that is free to use and a great resource for people who are new and need some direction.
It’s quite possible to do resistance training at home, and it’s particularly affordable if you use resistance bands, which also take up extremely little space.
This is true, but you failed to mention that resistance bands are the least satisfying form of resistance
They feel fine to me, and are a little safer to use for noobies in some positions since they have progressive resistance.
I believe they are also considered better suited to the elderly or those who sustained shoulder injuries in the past.
Look up calisthenics. You can do it for free with 0 equipment and gravity. Stuff like pushups are under this category. I’ve been doing it for years
So I guess the trick is, and has always been, consistency?
Yes, of course it doesn’t have to be perfect, but coming back over and over again is the basis.
Honestly I would say consistency is somewhat overrated in the grand scheme of things
ALERT. ALERT. OVERRATED DOES NOT MEAN BAD
Consistency is obviously extremely good. I used to preach it. But honestly, I took on a client with severe intermittent health issues which results in them having about 50% adherence (meaning they miss, on average, about half their training sessions)
And they ended up progressing just fine lol
Actually I feel like a far bigger risk is for people to assume they need to have perfect consistency, then drop training altogether when they aren’t able to meet that high standard.
The critical thing to understand is that resistance training is EXTREMELY potent for beginners. Even inconsistent effort will do pretty amazing things for your health
What i really meant by consistency isn’t really being perfect anyway, it’s more about longevity, as in, being imperfect, but over a long period of time, ideally as long as you are capable.
I really appreciate all the info you’re giving! It’s really encouraging.
I was a high level athlete growing up, so my only previous example of what was “enough” is hard to live up to as an adult working in an office, but seeing as ive been going an average of 7-8 hours per week, that makes me feel a lot more confident that I am, in fact, doing enough.
So thank you :)
Just FYI resistance training is not bodybuilding (flexing biceps in the mirror like in meme above), so choose your search keywords/programs carefully. Most athletic people I’ve seen (especially runners) often look like they have no muscle(edit: since people misinterpret this, the word “look” is about general appearance, not what’s under the shirt). Biceps have nothing to do with longevity. In fact, extra weight is extra load on heart.
*Edited for clarity since too many misinterpreted.
There is not a single evidence that muscle mass within natural limits becomes detrimental. Of course it’s kinda hard to test it out as well as we would need naturals, close to their maximum limit and hold that for decades, but no point to scare anyone that it’s a possibility naturally as most people will never even reach close to their maximum muscle building potential.
Even when going to steroid abuse territory, it’s questionable whatever steroids do more damage than just the muscle mass itself.
No, you can clearly see the effects of longevity in studies that focuses on resistance training versus focuses on muscle building with little cardio itself
That excessive muscle mass is detrimental or that lack of cardiovascular training is detrimental?
I wouldn’t bother with this person, they’ve got a huge bee in their bonnet about bodybuilding and muscle mass. They seem to have extrapolated the negative health effects of doing huge amounts of steroids and putting on inhuman muscle mass out to all bodybuilding period, and they refuse to have this misconception educated out of them.
Fair, bad habit. From time to time i still fall for it.
Excessive muscle mass. Talking more about people who basically revolve around mass building, which is not as healthy as balanced, resistance training. All my comments have been pro-cardiovascular training, it’s honestly weird how heavily I feel like being misinterpreted here. I even posted my own pic in one of the comments which shows I’m athletic with decend muscle mass, but not excessive.
Understandable, but that does once again go back to the point that detrimental amount of muscle mass is only achievable through the usage of steroids and at that point it’s questionable which did more damage. Within natural limitations, it’s not something someone should worry about.
Though yes i do agree with you that cardiovascular training shouldn’t be completely neglected.
I think the confusion/general anger/dismissal occured from me also saying that growing arm biceps hardly relate to longevity, and for me resistance training is all about longevity and health, not simply looking good. There are muscles in your body that directly relate to health of cardiovascular system, longevity, health, etc., and then there are others that scientifically don’t really show signs of increased longevity or better health (directly), like arm biceps. They do, however, relate indirectly in a way that it still counts as an exercise, which is always good.
Correct. Bodybuilding is a presentation sport with a variety of rulesets and judging criteria. Resistance training is a form of exercise with many proven physical and mental benefits
Usain Bolt was phenomenally muscular when he was competing, as are most sprinters. Many recognized Olympic sports reward larger physiques
You have my permission to skip direct bicep training.
Just make sure, assuming you want the full spectrum of proven benefits, that you hit your pulls (such as rows and pull ups, or appropriately scaled variations). This will heavily involve your biceps just so you know, but the main focus is the back.
Dangerous medical misinformation, you should delete this. Resistance training has proven cardiac benefits. There is zero risk of acquiring “too much” muscle mass
There is no way those guys walking around at 6’1 300 lbs and sub 20% body fat are not taxing their hearts more than a similar height person of normal weight/bf%.
It should go without saying that illegal drug abuse causes countless extreme health issues
You may be surprised to learn that non-drug abusing bodybuilders usually max out around the 150-170lb mark on stage. There are very hard limits to how much muscle your body will let you build
That’s really weird because most bodybuilders I know don’t really go below 75-80kg. Yes, I know many as I used to go to the gym, studied as mechanic and I’m from a small city that’s focused on gyms and outdoor fitness areas.
I myself weight 78. Most of my muscle is lower torso since I’ve been cycling and mountainclimbing much of my life.
Are you implying 20% body fat is low?
I’m stating that being grossly overweight with a normal to low bf% is still bad for one’s heart. ~20% is the high end of lean for adult men and the prefix “sub” means under or lower.
It kinda is if you’re a woman. Of course there’s not very much overlap between women and 6’1" 300 lb guys.
But yeah, the problem there is the abuse of steroids and growth hormones required to get such a body. That will fuck your body up in various ways you might not even notice at first.
This is dangerous medical misinformation. Reduced mobility, joint stress, cardiovascular strain, heat intolerance (quite important lately), compartment syndrome, rhabdomyolysis risk, etc. You can most absolutely ruin your health by having too much muscle mass. Last I checked, in statistics bodybuilders have quite terrible longevity as opposed to resistance training folks (which basically shoots in the opposite direction of longevity).
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40393525/
EDIT: Non IFBB study: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9885939/
As someone mentioned, any such study is poisoned with the fact that many bodybuilders reach for steroids, but in any case when you look at data of bodybuilding versus resistance building, you gotta raise an eyebrow.
Don’t bodybuilders typically shoot for dangerously low body fat %? Like, all these symptoms sound like what you’d expect from someone on steroids who’s only not extremely underweight because they have a lot of muscle.
Yes. That’s been essentially my point. Don’t do that.
Perhaps once you understand why you are wrong, and you realize how much your error has the potential to harm people, you will apologize.
This study is definitionally unrelated to any form of resistance training, or the additional total body mass that you can acquire via resistance training.
It is an observational study on the outcomes of IFBB contestants. For anyone who doesn’t know, the IFBB is the primary bodybuilding federation for drug abusers. They run the “Mr. Olympia” contest which you may have heard of.
The drug abuse they glorify directly results in many extreme health issues including sudden cardiac death, in exchange for levels of muscle gain that far exceed what is possible for any natural athlete.
I want to be clear. What they are doing is extreme, illegal, dangerous, and critically, not related to resistance training in any meaningful way. The body will not allow you to become so muscular that it harms you, which is why these extreme athletes need illegal drugs to become so large in the first place.
It is shockingly irresponsible and ethically wrong for you to withhold this necessary context, and to so severely contort this paper into your unrelated false conclusion
Why would me pointing to a study that shows worse health for just body building (as opposed to resistance training) show data about resistance training? The study is about pure body building that focuses on muscles like biceps, just like the meme above, the thread I’m commenting on.
The discussion is essentially “Cardio vs Weights”. I’m pro-cardio. You are not going to convince me of the opposite. I truly believe in longevity of resistance training as opposed to body building (focused on simply muscle growth), or whatever is your/everyone’s goal here.
It isnt. It is sensible people talking about training vs you being weirdly combative
I think you should re-visit my very first comment.
I see, so in the end, you have decided to persist in falsehood. I hope you know that through humility, it is still possible for you to be redeemed from this shame.
Beyond that, the actual content in your latest comment here is ludicrous beyond credulity. You continue to literally lie about the contents of the study. You assert imagined facts about bodybuilding as a whole that nobody else ascribes to. You propose a ridiculous false dichotomy between aerobic and anaerobic exercise.
It is my hope that everyone will be able to easily see through what you are doing. Here is some accessible educational material for those who may possibly be confused by your continued repetition of dangerous and misleading information:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strength_training
Some highlights, emphasis mine:
Can you please stop being obtuse on purpose? I feel like you clearly know what I’m talking about (longevity effects of resistance training vs focused muscle building with little to no cardio), yet purposefully (or accidentally?) decide to constantly misinterpret me and turn this into a ridiculous argument, because it’s really weird that I pretty much agreed with everything you say, yet you disagree with me like I’m talking something entirely else. Even your examples of bodybuilding is not really the bodybuilding I was talking about as that is closer to resistance training.
You simply cannot deny a fact that pure resistance training is better than simply building my arm biceps, that is very anti-scientific but you constantly nitpick at definitions and wording instead of the idea I’m discussing, probably to appear smarter.
Bodybuilding is a form of resistance training. And there are multiple forms of bodybuilding, some healthy and some significantly less so. The above trainer seems to be talking about a sort of general fitness and casual bodybuilding that is indeed good for health and longevity.
Running is great, in moderation. But having reasonable amounts of muscle mass is also great. Most people are going to have better health outcomes looking like Brad Pitt in Fight Club rather than Edward Norton
I was talking contextually (context matters here). The meme shows a guy flexing his arm biceps. Scientifically biceps hardly relate with longevity and resistance training, that is just bodybuilding. My point was to simply point people more towards resistance building rather than simply muscle building. I’ll be honest - I skipped half of the comment I was replying to due to me being in rush
Lmao gottem(me). Fair
Who mentioned bodybuilding? Did you mean to respond to someone else?
The meme is about bodybuilding. Your comment talks about resistance building as if it’s the same thing
My comment didn’t talk about shit
Dunno why you’re downvoted; there’s different types of muscle growth and you’ll get different results based on your routine.
For example, you can end up with very dense, efficient, lean muscle that doesn’t show up in the mirror if you have any body fat. Or you can get very puffed up muscle that isn’t super strong but looks impressive.
Neither is worse or better, they’re just different outcomes based on your goals.
Hi, sorry I was just scrolling by to see how the whole thread turned out
I apologize to be so blunt, but there simply isn’t truth to what you’re saying. It gets repeated a lot, but it’s a totally debunked myth, this idea that there’s “functional muscles” vs “show muscles” that aren’t really strong
There is some nuance to it, in that the expression of strength has a large skill and neurological factor. Like in a typical training block, someone only training for size simply wouldn’t be practicing doubles and singles, so they wouldn’t be at their best on a random day if you tested them on something they weren’t practicing
But the best bodybuilders (who train maximally for visuals) end up within like 5% of the strength of the best powerlifters (who train maximally for efficiency). There are plenty of people who compete in both and do decent in both. In fact, powerlifters do hypertrophy blocks as well, and switch to mainly practicing heavy lifts only as competition gets closer
We’re not talking about the very top 1% best people though. The chances of anybody here ever becoming a professional bodybuilder or weightlifter is very small. If you go to a real gym or actually meet people, you’ll see there’s a huge variety of builds and results.
You say it’s a myth, but if you just Google “is there such a thing as dense muscle”, there’s many articles explaining the phenomenon. Only one Reddit article pops up claiming it’s a myth, and personally I don’t put much stock in Reddit for fact based arguments.
Here’s one: https://www.setforset.com/blogs/news/dense-muscle-vs-big-soft-muscle-training
Like I said, it gets repeated a lot. Googling “is myth real” and ending up with one of thousands of similar fluff blogposts from over the years that say “yes! Myth is real! Check out our exclusive training program to better deal with myth!” Is totally expected. It’s all just fluff designed to sell programs based on that “key piece of information you’re missing”
These are the people who bring what you’re saying to the utmost extreme, and their strength is ultimately similar. It’s relevant. The differences in strength are even smaller the younger your training age is.
I go to several gyms. I’m at a gym every day. I am a trainer. Aside from my own clients, I also see all the regulars, how they train, and how their bodies change
Additionally, I am literally holding the textbook from my certification program in my hand right at this moment, which actually has a small section addressing this exact myth directly. It begins with, “contrary to what many believe…”
I apologize for not providing this textbook as a citation. I reference it a lot in public facing posts associated with my business and I feel that, in context, doing so now has the potential to be identifying. I prefer to keep a resolute line between my professional service and my posts here on lemmy, so that I cannot be accused of self enrichment via advertising.
Thus, everything I say on the topic comes simply from the hope that it may help people better themselves in one small way or another. In this case, it’s very common for people to avoid effective training methods that would work very well for them because they were mislead by someone making a huge fuss between “strength” and “size” and insisting they must train a certain way to heavily bias one or the other. The academic consensus is that you really don’t need to worry about that at all
Ok well I’m going to continue trusting my eyes and lived experience over an internet stranger who has a forbidden tome of knowledge.
I also think there was a miscommunication here. I’m not saying that hypertrophy doesn’t result in strength gains. All I’m saying is, that it’s possible to end up with “dense muscle”, or “skinny strong”, which might be an undesirable / desirable outcome for some people depending on what they actually want. I was pointing out the difference for people who haven’t started any strength training at all yet, so they can make informed decisions about their research and routines. Either choice is a good one, it’s entirely personal preference.
Yes as I said, my apologies for the lack of citation. But the book is far from forbidden, it’s a standard academic work written by leading exercise science researchers. Their work is universally cited, which is why I encourage you to look towards academic sources rather than advertisements
To be clear, what you said was:
Which is a debunked myth. So you’re walking that back now which is good.
People can definitely add significant strength without significant size, up to a point, for individualized training blocks. But if you train, even only for strength, your muscles will get larger. In your lived experience, do you have any example of someone who brought their strict press from 35lbs to 185lbs without increasing the size of their shoulders? Have you seen someone with small legs squat 455?
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40680785/
Here you go, even studies showing that size and strength are closely correlated.
Or even more studies, with deeper analysis and actually slightly favorable for your point, though the weak correlation is just limited to untrained individuals. The more advanced person gets the stronger the correlation gets.
https://www.strongerbyscience.com/correlation-strength-hypertrophy/
Ok… those studies are saying that muscle growth is correlated with strength gains. Yes, I agree with you on this. Those articles do not disprove the existence of dense muscle. Maybe there’s been a misunderstanding. I’m not saying that size increase doesn’t lead to strength gains, that would be silly.
All I’m saying is, that it’s possible to end up with “dense muscle”, or “skinny strong”, which might be an undesirable / desirable outcome for some people depending on what they actually want. I was pointing out the difference for people who haven’t started any strength training at all yet, so they can make informed decisions about their research and routines. Either choice is a good one, it’s entirely personal preference.
Fair, probably misunderstanding then, because usually people referring to both terms usually do ignore strength and size correlation.
Though that’s just overly complicating it for beginners. Just the most basic resistance training is more than enough to build size, strength and density all at the same time.
Skinny strong is just someone who has maxmimized their strength potential or has some leverage advantage due to genetics. Yeah sure someone can train to become skinny strong by doing strength focused training(low rep range), but that caps out at some point as we can see from powerlifters who alternate training blocks between strength and hypertohy training.
I can’t imagine 40 hours a week of endurance training being anything but detrimental to one’s health. The pain of stacked up micro injuries would be unbearable.
40 hours a week is quite uncommon, but elite cyclists can put in upwards of 30 hours. With that type of volume, intensity management is quite important. You need to do the large majority of your exercise at low intensity for it to yield good results.
Lots of pro runners run over 100 miles a week, once you’re there it’s not so bad. Cyclists will do even more, bike packers get excited by the idea. As a kid I went to canoe camp and we would paddle for 40 hours a week sometime. Not sure if I should include through hiking.