13 ms·

Weight Lifting for Hackers

69 points by jcnnghm 17y ago

nazgulnarsil 17y ago
ugh....the large number of reps at low weight meme has spread because people want to believe that they can do an easy workout. if you can do more than 5 reps your weight is too light. there's no such thing as "toned instead of bulk". lifting casually a few times a week is not going to turn you into a hulkish freak. and if you want toned you do CARDIO. treating weightlifting as cardio is stupid. for the average person doing weighted dips and pullups is more than enough. do those combined with jogging up hills a few times a week and you'll be in great shape. if you want to take it further you should be doing olympic lifts. anything else is really for professionals with specific needs or people with medical problems.
- bombs 17y ago
  If you're lifting for hypertrophy, more reps is better than more weight, e.g. 15 reps of 100 lbs instead of 6 of 150 lbs or whatever your maximums may be.
  - philk 17y ago
    If you're just starting out lifting for hypertrophy is irrelevant. You need to focus on lifting heavy and eating to match.
  - nazgulnarsil 17y ago
    are you a professional bodybuilder? no? then you're talking about minimal differences. you get plenty of hypertrophy from low reps high weight. you're talking about specialized training for the specific circumstances.
  - nandemo 17y ago
    No, it's the other way around. See my other comment and this: Physical education students were matched into three groups; G90 (n = 9) trained with a load of 90%, G35 (n = 11) with 35%, and G15 (n = 10) with 15% of 1RM (1 repetition maximum). Training consisted of three to five sets, performed three times a week for 9 weeks. Each set consisted of two, seven and ten repetitions in G90, G35 and G15, respectively. Training was performed with the nondominant arm, and the dominant arm served as control. The 1RM increased 15.2 (SD 4.5)% (P < 0.001) in G90, 10.1 (SD 5.9)% (P < 0.001) in G35 and 6.6 (SD 7.9)% (P < 0.05) in G15. This bit was surprising to me: In the untrained arm, 1RM also increased for G90 and G15. In contrast to G90, G15 showed a similar increase in 1RM in both arms. http://www.springerlink.com/content/qwwpy506jtmdt7v6/ http://www.springerlink.com/content/qwwpy506jtmdt7v6/
- hendzen 17y ago
  While I agree in general with the content of your first paragraph, your second paragraph has some inaccuracies that I found bothersome. 1) You claim that "weighted dips and pullups" combined with "jogging up hills a few times a week" amounts to a complete exercise regime. As far as dips and pullups go, the average person would benefit much more from a simple weightlifting routine like Starting Strength. Additionally, HIIT(High Intensity Interval Training) is a far more effective than steady-state cardio. 2) You state that the average person should pursue Olympic lifts if they want to "take it further". Olympic lifts are some of the hardest exercises to perform correctly, and can be dangerous when attempted by untrained novices. While this makes for good competition, this is impractical for the average trainee. The complex movements involved in performing Olympic lifts can be broken down into more isolated sub-movements, e.g. military press and the power clean rather than the entire clean and jerk. These sub-lifts are far easier to master, and thus more worthwhile to any trainee not looking to compete in an Olympic-style lifting competition.
  - nazgulnarsil 17y ago
    of course they would benefit more from more intense, comprehensive exercise. the point is that you can get in excellent shape with 1/10th of the commitment and effort that such a comprehensive program demands. constantly worrying over your next major gains is what makes the fitness habit so hard to maintain.
- peterwwillis 17y ago
  "treating weight lifting as cardio" is intended to build muscle that can perform. take anybody who uses a standard lifting program and they'd die 30 minutes into a p90x/insanity/conditioning program. do the same cardio with weight, or weight with more reps, and your muscles adapt to more continuous strain. if you just care about looking buff or losing/gaining weight quickly, do few high-weight reps. if you're training to be a fighter or just want to be highly conditioned, do lots of reps.
  - nazgulnarsil 17y ago
    cardio with weight is bad for your joints. if you want to build endurance swim, jog, and spar.
    - peterwwillis 17y ago
      yes, but if you are careful you can add a weight vest or light ankle/wrist/dumbbell weights and do various cardio exercises with minimal risk (if you use proper form). you should reduce your weight if your exercises are too high impact. small to medium dumbbells in combination with different exercises (squats, lunges, burpees, squat jumps, etc) can definitely give you an edge in your overall conditioning. jump training is very effective with a good amount of extra weight (30lbs or more) - of course watch your landing. even punching for 3 minutes with 5lb dumbbells is insane.
      - matwood 17y ago
        Adding a weighted vest is much different than adding ankle or wrist weights. I would advise against ever adding weights to your ankles or wrists while doing cardio. In that scenario your legs and arms are acting like big levers and even light weight can wreck havoc with your mechanics that in turn can lead to injuries. The body just wasn't designed to operate in that manner. While not exactly the same issue look up 'open chain' versus 'closed chain' exercises.
- nandemo 17y ago
  Doing a set with a large number of reps is neither easy nor useless. It's not easy because you're supposed to do it until failure. And if you're aiming at improving your muscular endurance, then lots of reps with a light weight are more useful than low reps with a heavier weight. There are several studies that show this. Example: http://www.springerlink.com/content/t96qmxyaa7x7le0c/ http://www.springerlink.com/content/t96qmxyaa7x7le0c/ Subjects were divided into four groups: a low repetition group (Low Rep, n=9) performing 3–5 repetitions maximum (RM) for four sets of each exercise with 3 min rest between sets and exercises, an intermediate repetition group (Int Rep, n=11) performing 9–11 RM for three sets with 2 min rest, a high repetition group (High Rep, n=7) performing 20–28 RM for two sets with 1 min rest, and a non-exercising control group (Con, n=5). (...) Maximal strength improved significantly more for the Low Rep group compared to the other training groups, and the maximal number of repetitions at 60% 1RM improved the most for the High Rep group.
- matwood 17y ago
  There are so many things wrong in this post I'm not sure where to start. First, 5 reps is fine sometimes. Look up periodization. The body adapts quickly so while 5 sets of 5 might work for a few weeks you eventually need to change it up. Plus your joints, tendons and ligaments get tired always lifting heavy. Cardio has nothing to do with 'toning.' The old saying is 'abs are made in the kitchen not in the gym.' If you want to look tone (horrible term but we'll go with it) you need to have some muscle and then remove the fat from over top of it. The easiest way to remove fat is the cut calories. You can burn calories through exercise, but not nearly as much as people think. Dips and pullups is nothing close to enough for a well rounded workout. If you want to do a workout without a gym Google bodyweight training. If you have access to a gym then look at the books 'Starting Strength' or 'New Rules of Lifting.' Both are good books by excellent authors and give you plenty of workout plans. With either, expect to spend about an hour in the gym 3 times per week.
  - nazgulnarsil 17y ago
    heavy weight lifting is beneficial to your ligaments tendons and joints. it's doing dozens or hundreds of reaps that are bad for them. periodization is crap. you let your muscles recover and then you workout again. diet is outside the purview of this discussion for now. of course diet has a massive impact. that's not what we're talking about. I am well aware of various bodyweight routines. complicated programs are not needed. I'll admit I forgot a core routine, but between that and jogging on hills you're working every major muscle group.
    - matwood 17y ago
      Have you actually lifted heavy for any amount of time? If you have you'll know that you need times where you let your tendons and ligaments rest. Your joints will thank you too. Muscles recover much faster than your connecting tissues (and your CNS for that matter). Look at something like the 5/3/1 workout. It's set up in a manner that you can do it indefinitely because it has built in periodization. For 3 weeks you work up to near maximal weights then a 4th week of deload. This 4th weeks gives everything else (again - connector tissue, CNS) a chance to fully recover. A complete program is not necessarily complicated. Running is NOT a replacement exercise for a squat and DL variation.
jadence 17y ago
I don't see the "for Hackers" angle in this article. Yes, you can think through problems while lifting but that's hardly unique to weight lifting. Ditto for books on tape. I'm not hating on weight lifting here (I've been lifting consistently for 9+ years) but I just don't see this as being Hacker News. PS - I think you meant to write "read" instead of "ready" here: "In particular, the Freakonomics audio books are quite good as they are ready by the author, as is Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell."
- marknutter 17y ago
  The "for Hackers" angle is in the fact that most hackers (and I admit I'm generalizing here) don't lift weights regularly. He's basically saying, "if you have written off weightlifting because you think it's just about vanity or because the gym is full of asshole jocks, you might want to reconsider because it can actually help your confidence in business, help you to solve problems, and isn't that hard to get into after all."
  - philk 17y ago
    I think it's mostly a gimmick to make this article popular on sites like HN. In a similar vein, stay tuned for my next two articles "Making a sandwich for Hackers" and "Cleaning your bathroom for Hackers".
    - marknutter 17y ago
      For sure. I can think of no better traffic for a site's google adsense revenues than the highly tech savvy and ad-wary HN crowd... To reiterate my point, making sandwiches and cleaning bathrooms is something most hackers do regularly. Lifting weights is not. A better analogy would be a "learning calligraphy for hackers" article that explained how learning calligraphy can be a benefit to hackers and how, given hacker's programming knowledge, one should go about it.
      - starkfist 17y ago
        ? I've never met a hacker who regularly cleaned a bathroom.
philk 17y ago
Good stuff although the rep scheme isn't optimal. I'd stick to sets of fives. A few additional points: a) Form, particularly on Squats & Deadlifts, is key. If you do them wrong you'll fuck yourself up. The stuff by Mark Rippetoe, particularly Starting Strength, is awesome for this. b) If you want to make progress you'll need to consume a surplus of calories. A good way to do this is to add full fat milk to your diet (a liter of full fat milk is approximately ~700 kCal). If you aren't gaining, eat more. If you're a young, skinny guy just starting out it's very easy to put on 15 lbs in a month[1] from squatting three times each week and drinking a fuckload of milk. c) The advice on lowering the bar slowly then exploding upwards is mostly crap. Just move the weight under control. [1] Some of this will be fat but most will be muscle.
- enjo 17y ago
  On top of that: If you don't build muscle very easily, then you need to be careful with extraneous physical activity. As an ectomorph, I find that I need ALL of my 4500 daily calories to build muscle. I generally lift 3 times a week with a 4th day of dedicated to cardio at the end of the week. I rotate between 4 week sets of cardio/muscle-building as well. That works well for me. The authors suggestion of doing daily cardio might very well be sabotaging your results.
  - tjogin 17y ago
    It's well established science that cardio has a net negative effect on muscle gain.
- stiff 17y ago
  I agree with the general advice, especially with the Starting Strength recommendation, but the milk advice (also from this book), speaking from own experience, is a recipe for disaster unless you are aiming for a powerlifting physique, with plenty of muscle hidden underneath plenty of fat or unless you are __really skinny__. "Starting strength" is great for exercise technique, but go also get a good nutrition book and make sure you are actually following a nutrition plan in the same way you are following an exercise program. It's easier to do it then it is to loose the fat belly afterwards, or to get rid of the stretch marks from a too rapid weight gain.
greenlblue 17y ago
In my experience cardiovascular exercise is way better for almost everything he mentions and for strength training one doesn't really need weights, various push-up routines are more than enough.
- philk 17y ago
  I'm having a hard time imagining how push-up routines can match the muscle building power of heavy squats and deadlifts.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
    - philk 17y ago
      Neat book, but I'm still not seeing it. And even including the huge variety of weird gymnastics holds [1] out there I'm not sure how you can compare with a squat or deadlift with 300+lbs of weight. For example, a full squat works the thighs, calves (somewhat), and core very hard. A deadlift works the hamstrings, core, lats and forearms very hard. At the very least the panopoly of push-ups out there will have real trouble working most of your lower body, and heavy compound exercises tend to help development of your upper body too. [1] There's a book called "Building the Olympic Body" by Coach Sommer that has a whole lot of nifty gymnastics stuff in it, but it requires rings and other equipment.
      - deleted 17y ago
        [deleted]
  - TNO 17y ago
    Stand on your head and start pushing.
    - tjogin 17y ago
      And when you've developed the strength to do that, how do you increase the resistance (and how do you develop the strength when you can't even do a single pushup like that)? It's well established science that you should be doing about 5-15 repetitions per set, depending on whether you're focusing on hypertrophy or strength (overkill for non-professionals to even make the distinction, just stay between 8-12) — if you can do more than that then the exercise does not offer enough resistance, and if you can't do enough repetitions then likewise it's suboptimal (just like trying to lift a truck is a suboptimal exercise). So, whenever your exercise using your own body weight as resistance offers you just the right amount of resistance to keep you within that range, then it's great. Most of the time though, it will be well outside of that range — so in the general case, using body weight as resistance is bad advice.
80billion2010 17y ago
I know first you should disipline your mind and body to be the best what ever you want to be in life!
polymath21 17y ago
I wholeheartedly agree with this article. A great blog I recommend is musclehack.com. For each exercise, I do 3 sets of 8-12 reps and increase if I can get to 12 or decrease if I can only do 8. I think one of the biggest errors I see at the gym are people NOT pushing 110%. No gains will be made unless you push yourself to the max. The way I judge a successful workout is how hard it is to lift my arms up to shampoo my hair in the shower afterward, how much my legs feel like jelly walking down stairs after, etc. I also love feeling sore the next day. It equals muscle fiber recruitment. Diet also has a big impact, but... I won't delve into that here. I'm also starting to add in a bit of cardio post-lifting so I can get below 10% body fat (post lifting is the best time to run as your body is in the optimum state to burn fat), and just bought a pair of vibram fivefingers in preparation. Excited! Research barefoot running if you haven't heard of it, it is enlightening.
- polymath21 17y ago
  Oh, and I also totally agree about the audiobooks. I have gotten through numerous Malcolm Gladwell books on my drives btwn socal and norcal. I can't get myself to listen to anything at the gym though, as wires annoy me to the max.
  - Psyonic 17y ago
    wireless headphones? pricey, but might be worth it
- martinp 17y ago
  "I think one of the biggest errors I see at the gym are people NOT pushing 110%. No gains will be made unless you push yourself to the max." This is essentialy the most important of working out in my eyes. If you're not pushing yourself to the max, you won't see any results.
tomjen2 17y ago
Real weight lifting for hackers would be if you found a way to do it in second life, or outsource it (while still getting most of the benefits). Actually doing it, is something everybody can do.
JesseAldridge 17y ago
Or you could keep things simple and just do this: http://www.rosstraining.com/articles/burpeeclip.htm http://www.rosstraining.com/articles/burpeeclip.htm It's my favorite exercise by far. Except the way I learned it is you bring your knees to your chest when you jump (that forces you to jump high). I do 1, then 2, then 4, etc, taking about a 30 second break in between. It does both muscles and cardio. It's super-intense. Just go until you collapse. It gives you a solid workout in around five minutes.
- mark_h 17y ago
  Second that. Ross sells a few training manuals that are all excellent value; they're quite scientific too, albeit distilled down to what you need to know (+ citations). Check out any video clips of him in action if you need any further inspiration -- the guy is a machine.
seanos 17y ago
"...emphasize the lowering of the weights... This helps strengthen the inverse muscle, your triceps for arm curls, and improves your overall control." Not true. Lowering the weight works the same muscle as lifting it.
- darshan 17y ago
  Indeed -- it's called eccentric contraction, and the reason you do it is that it works the same muscles in a different way. Exercise routines that combine eccentric and concentric contractions (where the muscle shortens as it contracts) are probably more effective at increasing strength than ones that focus only on concentric contractions. This is a really big error, and I don't see how it could be a typo. Agonist ("doer") and antagonist (opposing) muscles contract simultaneously when stabilizing a joint, but when lifting weights, the antagonists of the primary action (triceps and to some extent anconeus for curls) are relaxed both during concentric and eccentric contraction of the agonists (biceps, brachialis, and to some extent brachioradialis and a few other muscles of the forearm for curls). That is to say, the author's claim is absolutely wrong. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_contraction#Eccentric_contraction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_contraction#Eccentric_co...
- yread 17y ago
  That's true but it has been proven that it is more efficient than lifting the weight and for best performance you should combine both: http://us.commercial.lifefitness.com/content.cfm/benefitsofconcentricandeccentricstrengthtraining http://us.commercial.lifefitness.com/content.cfm/benefitsofc.... Besides it feels so good to just put some crazy amount on Scott's bench ask somebody to help you lift it and then just try to put it down as slowly as possible :)
punkrockgeekboy 17y ago
"So you’re sold on weight lifting and are ready to put a little pride in your stride, a little strut in your stuff, but you don’t know where to get started." After reading that, I didn't need to look at his about page to know he worked in marketing. What a douche-bag.
deutronium 17y ago
I've recently started Bouldering (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouldering http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouldering, "rock climbing undertaken without a rope and normally limited to very short climbs over a crash pad") in a Uni bouldering wall and am finding it a good way to increase muscle strength, whilst also enjoying the strategy aspect of deciding how to complete a particular route (which to me is more appealing than the repetitiveness of lifting weights).
- khafra 17y ago
  Most of the fittest geeks I know either do bouldering or martial arts.
mark_h 17y ago
I love lifting and exercising, but I don't get at all how you're supposed to listen to audio-books or think through problems (consciously anyway; that wasn't made explicit) while you're giving it proper effort. I've always found that it clears the mind like nothing else, and often found that you have a better perspective on an issue afterwards, but it's the last thing on your mind when you're under the bar or gasping through a set of burpees (as another poster recommended). Also, since people are recommending their personal favourites, I think you can do a lot worse than 5/3/1: http://www.tmuscle.com/free_online_article/sports_body_training_performance/how_to_build_pure_strength http://www.tmuscle.com/free_online_article/sports_body_train... He sells (very cheaply) the program, but it's actually almost all in that interview. One thing not included is his own method for estimating your 1RM, which differs a bit from the article's: weight + weight * reps / 30. It has been a pretty useful approximation in my experience.
marknutter 17y ago
I'm glad to see this article on Hacker News. I started lifting weights way back in High School for the same reason most people start - to get girls. I went through a long cycle of going hard for 3-4 months and not lifting at all for 3-4 months. It took me a long time to realize that it's much more effective (as in it actually works) to go medium for all 12 months out of the year. The most important bits of advice I ever got came from an ex-Olympic weight training coach: don't rely on a partner to spot you and motivate you and don't make the workout so hard that it's not enjoyable. The former is important because your motivation is not tied to someone else's. Over the years I've had weightlifting partners come and go, but in the end my success has been tied to my own motivation. The latter is really the key: if you go extremely hard and kill yourself working out, this will be what you remember on the days you don't so much feel like lifting, and ultimately it will cause you to procrastinate. Consistency is the most important thing, not intensity. Once weight lifting becomes something routine that you "just do" every day, and not part of some major life changing period of your life, it starts to work.
- pstevensza 17y ago
  I agree with you on the spotter/partner. I started lifting about six months ago, and specifically built a program that didn't require a spotter, ramping up as I get stronger. Lifting is my time to zone out and relax, and I'm not dependent on other people's scheduling problems or requirements. I also find that at a certain time of day, I just grab my bag and go to the gym. Fortunate to have one on the campus where I work, which helps.
CoachRufus87 17y ago
made a quick excel spreadsheet using the formulas from the article. i plan on using this as i (hopefully) get back into shape. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3095590/Workout.xlsx http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3095590/Workout.xlsx
patrickgzill 17y ago
I will say very frankly that you should NOT be lifting weights. I have exercised both with weights and without, and I think for the time spent, and given that like me most of you probably sit at a desk, you will get more benefit with less chance of injury, by doing calisthenic/pilates style exercises. The reason is that posture and the use of small muscles to make adjustments, plus working the abs/core, are more important when sitting down, and help you avoid injury. The simplest plan is Canada's "5BX" plan designed for their air force. A more complex set of exercises are the series done by John Peterson, such as "Pushing Yourself to Power" that focus on using your own body resistance plus variations on pushups and what are variously called "burpees", "Hindu squats", etc. (I have no financial or other interest in his company, which is at http://www.bronzebowpublishing.com/ http://www.bronzebowpublishing.com/ )

69 points by jcnnghm 17y ago

ugh....the large number of reps at low weight meme has spread because people want to believe that they can do an easy workout. if you can do more than 5 reps your weight is too light. there's no such thing as "toned instead of bulk". lifting casually a few times a week is not going to turn you into a hulkish freak. and if you want toned you do CARDIO. treating weightlifting as cardio is stupid. for the average person doing weighted dips and pullups is more than enough. do those combined with jogging up hills a few times a week and you'll be in great shape. if you want to take it further you should be doing olympic lifts. anything else is really for professionals with specific needs or people with medical problems.

bombs 17y ago
If you're lifting for hypertrophy, more reps is better than more weight, e.g. 15 reps of 100 lbs instead of 6 of 150 lbs or whatever your maximums may be.
- philk 17y ago
  If you're just starting out lifting for hypertrophy is irrelevant. You need to focus on lifting heavy and eating to match.
- nazgulnarsil 17y ago
  are you a professional bodybuilder? no? then you're talking about minimal differences. you get plenty of hypertrophy from low reps high weight. you're talking about specialized training for the specific circumstances.
- nandemo 17y ago
  No, it's the other way around. See my other comment and this: Physical education students were matched into three groups; G90 (n = 9) trained with a load of 90%, G35 (n = 11) with 35%, and G15 (n = 10) with 15% of 1RM (1 repetition maximum). Training consisted of three to five sets, performed three times a week for 9 weeks. Each set consisted of two, seven and ten repetitions in G90, G35 and G15, respectively. Training was performed with the nondominant arm, and the dominant arm served as control. The 1RM increased 15.2 (SD 4.5)% (P < 0.001) in G90, 10.1 (SD 5.9)% (P < 0.001) in G35 and 6.6 (SD 7.9)% (P < 0.05) in G15. This bit was surprising to me: In the untrained arm, 1RM also increased for G90 and G15. In contrast to G90, G15 showed a similar increase in 1RM in both arms. http://www.springerlink.com/content/qwwpy506jtmdt7v6/ http://www.springerlink.com/content/qwwpy506jtmdt7v6/
hendzen 17y ago
While I agree in general with the content of your first paragraph, your second paragraph has some inaccuracies that I found bothersome. 1) You claim that "weighted dips and pullups" combined with "jogging up hills a few times a week" amounts to a complete exercise regime. As far as dips and pullups go, the average person would benefit much more from a simple weightlifting routine like Starting Strength. Additionally, HIIT(High Intensity Interval Training) is a far more effective than steady-state cardio. 2) You state that the average person should pursue Olympic lifts if they want to "take it further". Olympic lifts are some of the hardest exercises to perform correctly, and can be dangerous when attempted by untrained novices. While this makes for good competition, this is impractical for the average trainee. The complex movements involved in performing Olympic lifts can be broken down into more isolated sub-movements, e.g. military press and the power clean rather than the entire clean and jerk. These sub-lifts are far easier to master, and thus more worthwhile to any trainee not looking to compete in an Olympic-style lifting competition.
- nazgulnarsil 17y ago
  of course they would benefit more from more intense, comprehensive exercise. the point is that you can get in excellent shape with 1/10th of the commitment and effort that such a comprehensive program demands. constantly worrying over your next major gains is what makes the fitness habit so hard to maintain.
peterwwillis 17y ago
"treating weight lifting as cardio" is intended to build muscle that can perform. take anybody who uses a standard lifting program and they'd die 30 minutes into a p90x/insanity/conditioning program. do the same cardio with weight, or weight with more reps, and your muscles adapt to more continuous strain. if you just care about looking buff or losing/gaining weight quickly, do few high-weight reps. if you're training to be a fighter or just want to be highly conditioned, do lots of reps.
- nazgulnarsil 17y ago
  cardio with weight is bad for your joints. if you want to build endurance swim, jog, and spar.
  - peterwwillis 17y ago
    yes, but if you are careful you can add a weight vest or light ankle/wrist/dumbbell weights and do various cardio exercises with minimal risk (if you use proper form). you should reduce your weight if your exercises are too high impact. small to medium dumbbells in combination with different exercises (squats, lunges, burpees, squat jumps, etc) can definitely give you an edge in your overall conditioning. jump training is very effective with a good amount of extra weight (30lbs or more) - of course watch your landing. even punching for 3 minutes with 5lb dumbbells is insane.
    - matwood 17y ago
      Adding a weighted vest is much different than adding ankle or wrist weights. I would advise against ever adding weights to your ankles or wrists while doing cardio. In that scenario your legs and arms are acting like big levers and even light weight can wreck havoc with your mechanics that in turn can lead to injuries. The body just wasn't designed to operate in that manner. While not exactly the same issue look up 'open chain' versus 'closed chain' exercises.
nandemo 17y ago
Doing a set with a large number of reps is neither easy nor useless. It's not easy because you're supposed to do it until failure. And if you're aiming at improving your muscular endurance, then lots of reps with a light weight are more useful than low reps with a heavier weight. There are several studies that show this. Example: http://www.springerlink.com/content/t96qmxyaa7x7le0c/ http://www.springerlink.com/content/t96qmxyaa7x7le0c/ Subjects were divided into four groups: a low repetition group (Low Rep, n=9) performing 3–5 repetitions maximum (RM) for four sets of each exercise with 3 min rest between sets and exercises, an intermediate repetition group (Int Rep, n=11) performing 9–11 RM for three sets with 2 min rest, a high repetition group (High Rep, n=7) performing 20–28 RM for two sets with 1 min rest, and a non-exercising control group (Con, n=5). (...) Maximal strength improved significantly more for the Low Rep group compared to the other training groups, and the maximal number of repetitions at 60% 1RM improved the most for the High Rep group.
matwood 17y ago
There are so many things wrong in this post I'm not sure where to start. First, 5 reps is fine sometimes. Look up periodization. The body adapts quickly so while 5 sets of 5 might work for a few weeks you eventually need to change it up. Plus your joints, tendons and ligaments get tired always lifting heavy. Cardio has nothing to do with 'toning.' The old saying is 'abs are made in the kitchen not in the gym.' If you want to look tone (horrible term but we'll go with it) you need to have some muscle and then remove the fat from over top of it. The easiest way to remove fat is the cut calories. You can burn calories through exercise, but not nearly as much as people think. Dips and pullups is nothing close to enough for a well rounded workout. If you want to do a workout without a gym Google bodyweight training. If you have access to a gym then look at the books 'Starting Strength' or 'New Rules of Lifting.' Both are good books by excellent authors and give you plenty of workout plans. With either, expect to spend about an hour in the gym 3 times per week.
- nazgulnarsil 17y ago
  heavy weight lifting is beneficial to your ligaments tendons and joints. it's doing dozens or hundreds of reaps that are bad for them. periodization is crap. you let your muscles recover and then you workout again. diet is outside the purview of this discussion for now. of course diet has a massive impact. that's not what we're talking about. I am well aware of various bodyweight routines. complicated programs are not needed. I'll admit I forgot a core routine, but between that and jogging on hills you're working every major muscle group.
  - matwood 17y ago
    Have you actually lifted heavy for any amount of time? If you have you'll know that you need times where you let your tendons and ligaments rest. Your joints will thank you too. Muscles recover much faster than your connecting tissues (and your CNS for that matter). Look at something like the 5/3/1 workout. It's set up in a manner that you can do it indefinitely because it has built in periodization. For 3 weeks you work up to near maximal weights then a 4th week of deload. This 4th weeks gives everything else (again - connector tissue, CNS) a chance to fully recover. A complete program is not necessarily complicated. Running is NOT a replacement exercise for a squat and DL variation.

jadence 17y ago

I don't see the "for Hackers" angle in this article. Yes, you can think through problems while lifting but that's hardly unique to weight lifting. Ditto for books on tape. I'm not hating on weight lifting here (I've been lifting consistently for 9+ years) but I just don't see this as being Hacker News. PS - I think you meant to write "read" instead of "ready" here: "In particular, the Freakonomics audio books are quite good as they are ready by the author, as is Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell."

marknutter 17y ago
The "for Hackers" angle is in the fact that most hackers (and I admit I'm generalizing here) don't lift weights regularly. He's basically saying, "if you have written off weightlifting because you think it's just about vanity or because the gym is full of asshole jocks, you might want to reconsider because it can actually help your confidence in business, help you to solve problems, and isn't that hard to get into after all."
- philk 17y ago
  I think it's mostly a gimmick to make this article popular on sites like HN. In a similar vein, stay tuned for my next two articles "Making a sandwich for Hackers" and "Cleaning your bathroom for Hackers".
  - marknutter 17y ago
    For sure. I can think of no better traffic for a site's google adsense revenues than the highly tech savvy and ad-wary HN crowd... To reiterate my point, making sandwiches and cleaning bathrooms is something most hackers do regularly. Lifting weights is not. A better analogy would be a "learning calligraphy for hackers" article that explained how learning calligraphy can be a benefit to hackers and how, given hacker's programming knowledge, one should go about it.
    - starkfist 17y ago
      ? I've never met a hacker who regularly cleaned a bathroom.

philk 17y ago

Good stuff although the rep scheme isn't optimal. I'd stick to sets of fives. A few additional points: a) Form, particularly on Squats & Deadlifts, is key. If you do them wrong you'll fuck yourself up. The stuff by Mark Rippetoe, particularly Starting Strength, is awesome for this. b) If you want to make progress you'll need to consume a surplus of calories. A good way to do this is to add full fat milk to your diet (a liter of full fat milk is approximately ~700 kCal). If you aren't gaining, eat more. If you're a young, skinny guy just starting out it's very easy to put on 15 lbs in a month[1] from squatting three times each week and drinking a fuckload of milk. c) The advice on lowering the bar slowly then exploding upwards is mostly crap. Just move the weight under control. [1] Some of this will be fat but most will be muscle.

enjo 17y ago
On top of that: If you don't build muscle very easily, then you need to be careful with extraneous physical activity. As an ectomorph, I find that I need ALL of my 4500 daily calories to build muscle. I generally lift 3 times a week with a 4th day of dedicated to cardio at the end of the week. I rotate between 4 week sets of cardio/muscle-building as well. That works well for me. The authors suggestion of doing daily cardio might very well be sabotaging your results.
- tjogin 17y ago
  It's well established science that cardio has a net negative effect on muscle gain.
stiff 17y ago
I agree with the general advice, especially with the Starting Strength recommendation, but the milk advice (also from this book), speaking from own experience, is a recipe for disaster unless you are aiming for a powerlifting physique, with plenty of muscle hidden underneath plenty of fat or unless you are __really skinny__. "Starting strength" is great for exercise technique, but go also get a good nutrition book and make sure you are actually following a nutrition plan in the same way you are following an exercise program. It's easier to do it then it is to loose the fat belly afterwards, or to get rid of the stretch marks from a too rapid weight gain.

greenlblue 17y ago

In my experience cardiovascular exercise is way better for almost everything he mentions and for strength training one doesn't really need weights, various push-up routines are more than enough.

philk 17y ago
I'm having a hard time imagining how push-up routines can match the muscle building power of heavy squats and deadlifts.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
  - philk 17y ago
    Neat book, but I'm still not seeing it. And even including the huge variety of weird gymnastics holds [1] out there I'm not sure how you can compare with a squat or deadlift with 300+lbs of weight. For example, a full squat works the thighs, calves (somewhat), and core very hard. A deadlift works the hamstrings, core, lats and forearms very hard. At the very least the panopoly of push-ups out there will have real trouble working most of your lower body, and heavy compound exercises tend to help development of your upper body too. [1] There's a book called "Building the Olympic Body" by Coach Sommer that has a whole lot of nifty gymnastics stuff in it, but it requires rings and other equipment.
    - deleted 17y ago
      [deleted]
- TNO 17y ago
  Stand on your head and start pushing.
  - tjogin 17y ago
    And when you've developed the strength to do that, how do you increase the resistance (and how do you develop the strength when you can't even do a single pushup like that)? It's well established science that you should be doing about 5-15 repetitions per set, depending on whether you're focusing on hypertrophy or strength (overkill for non-professionals to even make the distinction, just stay between 8-12) — if you can do more than that then the exercise does not offer enough resistance, and if you can't do enough repetitions then likewise it's suboptimal (just like trying to lift a truck is a suboptimal exercise). So, whenever your exercise using your own body weight as resistance offers you just the right amount of resistance to keep you within that range, then it's great. Most of the time though, it will be well outside of that range — so in the general case, using body weight as resistance is bad advice.

80billion2010 17y ago

I know first you should disipline your mind and body to be the best what ever you want to be in life!

polymath21 17y ago

I wholeheartedly agree with this article. A great blog I recommend is musclehack.com. For each exercise, I do 3 sets of 8-12 reps and increase if I can get to 12 or decrease if I can only do 8. I think one of the biggest errors I see at the gym are people NOT pushing 110%. No gains will be made unless you push yourself to the max. The way I judge a successful workout is how hard it is to lift my arms up to shampoo my hair in the shower afterward, how much my legs feel like jelly walking down stairs after, etc. I also love feeling sore the next day. It equals muscle fiber recruitment. Diet also has a big impact, but... I won't delve into that here. I'm also starting to add in a bit of cardio post-lifting so I can get below 10% body fat (post lifting is the best time to run as your body is in the optimum state to burn fat), and just bought a pair of vibram fivefingers in preparation. Excited! Research barefoot running if you haven't heard of it, it is enlightening.

polymath21 17y ago
Oh, and I also totally agree about the audiobooks. I have gotten through numerous Malcolm Gladwell books on my drives btwn socal and norcal. I can't get myself to listen to anything at the gym though, as wires annoy me to the max.
- Psyonic 17y ago
  wireless headphones? pricey, but might be worth it
martinp 17y ago
"I think one of the biggest errors I see at the gym are people NOT pushing 110%. No gains will be made unless you push yourself to the max." This is essentialy the most important of working out in my eyes. If you're not pushing yourself to the max, you won't see any results.

tomjen2 17y ago

Real weight lifting for hackers would be if you found a way to do it in second life, or outsource it (while still getting most of the benefits). Actually doing it, is something everybody can do.

JesseAldridge 17y ago

Or you could keep things simple and just do this: http://www.rosstraining.com/articles/burpeeclip.htm http://www.rosstraining.com/articles/burpeeclip.htm It's my favorite exercise by far. Except the way I learned it is you bring your knees to your chest when you jump (that forces you to jump high). I do 1, then 2, then 4, etc, taking about a 30 second break in between. It does both muscles and cardio. It's super-intense. Just go until you collapse. It gives you a solid workout in around five minutes.

mark_h 17y ago
Second that. Ross sells a few training manuals that are all excellent value; they're quite scientific too, albeit distilled down to what you need to know (+ citations). Check out any video clips of him in action if you need any further inspiration -- the guy is a machine.

seanos 17y ago

"...emphasize the lowering of the weights... This helps strengthen the inverse muscle, your triceps for arm curls, and improves your overall control." Not true. Lowering the weight works the same muscle as lifting it.

darshan 17y ago
Indeed -- it's called eccentric contraction, and the reason you do it is that it works the same muscles in a different way. Exercise routines that combine eccentric and concentric contractions (where the muscle shortens as it contracts) are probably more effective at increasing strength than ones that focus only on concentric contractions. This is a really big error, and I don't see how it could be a typo. Agonist ("doer") and antagonist (opposing) muscles contract simultaneously when stabilizing a joint, but when lifting weights, the antagonists of the primary action (triceps and to some extent anconeus for curls) are relaxed both during concentric and eccentric contraction of the agonists (biceps, brachialis, and to some extent brachioradialis and a few other muscles of the forearm for curls). That is to say, the author's claim is absolutely wrong. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_contraction#Eccentric_contraction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_contraction#Eccentric_co...
yread 17y ago
That's true but it has been proven that it is more efficient than lifting the weight and for best performance you should combine both: http://us.commercial.lifefitness.com/content.cfm/benefitsofconcentricandeccentricstrengthtraining http://us.commercial.lifefitness.com/content.cfm/benefitsofc.... Besides it feels so good to just put some crazy amount on Scott's bench ask somebody to help you lift it and then just try to put it down as slowly as possible :)

punkrockgeekboy 17y ago

"So you’re sold on weight lifting and are ready to put a little pride in your stride, a little strut in your stuff, but you don’t know where to get started." After reading that, I didn't need to look at his about page to know he worked in marketing. What a douche-bag.

deutronium 17y ago

I've recently started Bouldering (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouldering http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouldering, "rock climbing undertaken without a rope and normally limited to very short climbs over a crash pad") in a Uni bouldering wall and am finding it a good way to increase muscle strength, whilst also enjoying the strategy aspect of deciding how to complete a particular route (which to me is more appealing than the repetitiveness of lifting weights).

khafra 17y ago
Most of the fittest geeks I know either do bouldering or martial arts.

mark_h 17y ago

I love lifting and exercising, but I don't get at all how you're supposed to listen to audio-books or think through problems (consciously anyway; that wasn't made explicit) while you're giving it proper effort. I've always found that it clears the mind like nothing else, and often found that you have a better perspective on an issue afterwards, but it's the last thing on your mind when you're under the bar or gasping through a set of burpees (as another poster recommended). Also, since people are recommending their personal favourites, I think you can do a lot worse than 5/3/1: http://www.tmuscle.com/free_online_article/sports_body_training_performance/how_to_build_pure_strength http://www.tmuscle.com/free_online_article/sports_body_train... He sells (very cheaply) the program, but it's actually almost all in that interview. One thing not included is his own method for estimating your 1RM, which differs a bit from the article's: weight + weight * reps / 30. It has been a pretty useful approximation in my experience.

marknutter 17y ago

I'm glad to see this article on Hacker News. I started lifting weights way back in High School for the same reason most people start - to get girls. I went through a long cycle of going hard for 3-4 months and not lifting at all for 3-4 months. It took me a long time to realize that it's much more effective (as in it actually works) to go medium for all 12 months out of the year. The most important bits of advice I ever got came from an ex-Olympic weight training coach: don't rely on a partner to spot you and motivate you and don't make the workout so hard that it's not enjoyable. The former is important because your motivation is not tied to someone else's. Over the years I've had weightlifting partners come and go, but in the end my success has been tied to my own motivation. The latter is really the key: if you go extremely hard and kill yourself working out, this will be what you remember on the days you don't so much feel like lifting, and ultimately it will cause you to procrastinate. Consistency is the most important thing, not intensity. Once weight lifting becomes something routine that you "just do" every day, and not part of some major life changing period of your life, it starts to work.

pstevensza 17y ago
I agree with you on the spotter/partner. I started lifting about six months ago, and specifically built a program that didn't require a spotter, ramping up as I get stronger. Lifting is my time to zone out and relax, and I'm not dependent on other people's scheduling problems or requirements. I also find that at a certain time of day, I just grab my bag and go to the gym. Fortunate to have one on the campus where I work, which helps.

CoachRufus87 17y ago

made a quick excel spreadsheet using the formulas from the article. i plan on using this as i (hopefully) get back into shape. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3095590/Workout.xlsx http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3095590/Workout.xlsx

patrickgzill 17y ago

I will say very frankly that you should NOT be lifting weights. I have exercised both with weights and without, and I think for the time spent, and given that like me most of you probably sit at a desk, you will get more benefit with less chance of injury, by doing calisthenic/pilates style exercises. The reason is that posture and the use of small muscles to make adjustments, plus working the abs/core, are more important when sitting down, and help you avoid injury. The simplest plan is Canada's "5BX" plan designed for their air force. A more complex set of exercises are the series done by John Peterson, such as "Pushing Yourself to Power" that focus on using your own body resistance plus variations on pushups and what are variously called "burpees", "Hindu squats", etc. (I have no financial or other interest in his company, which is at http://www.bronzebowpublishing.com/ http://www.bronzebowpublishing.com/ )