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> I really doubt this information overload is the limiting factor. It's definitely a factor. Even if you filter out the utter bullshit (which is a task in itse

> I really doubt this information overload is the limiting factor. It's definitely a factor. Even if you filter out the utter bullshit (which is a task in itself), there's a huge amount of stuff out there around the theme of "exercising wrong", most of which doesn't agree about anything outside a handful of basics (e.g. sit-ups aren't very good at engaging abs) and much of which warns of injury if you fail to heed the advice. Are crunches a good exercise, or will they wreck my spine? How deep should I squat? What are the tradeoffs between high weight/low reps versus low weight/high reps? Are resistance bands or dumbbells worthwhile, or is barbell training so superior that anything else is a waste of time? The answers all seem to depend on which "school" of exercise you subscribe to. > Everyone knows what a pushup is. I know what a pushup is, but I can't actually do one, and it's not obvious how to progress it in a practical way ("wall pushups" aren't challenging, but going down to chair level is too much). There are a lot of practical issues like this that are glossed over by mainstream exercise advice (most of which seems to be written for relatively young, fit people with no chronic health issues that might interfere). > But exercise sucks. There's a huge amount of disagreement on this as well. Statements like "your body wants to move" are a common refrain from fitness gurus, for example. The chemical and neurological responses to exercise seem to vary quite a bit throughout the population, all the way from exercise triggering euphoria to exercise triggering depression (but it's only socially accepted to advertise the former). It's also pretty common in exercise studies for a given outcome measure to get no better or even get worse in ~10% of subjects, even when the average response is a statistically significant improvement. Conversely, there's often a ~10% with a markedly above-average improvement; this has been spun by the popular press as some people being "superexercisers" and others being "non-responders", but it seems to be much more complicated than that (i.e. one can be a "superexerciser" on one axis but a "non-responder" on another).

Jach 9y ago
I pretty much entirely agree with that, there is a lot of complexity and it can play a role in deciding to just avoid everything. Though in practice I think the complexity effect is overblown, and the role in deciding to do nothing is small (I'd bet the role is larger in deciding to do lots of different things unsuccessfully because one quits the current thing after it becomes difficult). Though if the complexity mattered all that much, this just sounds like the OP's desire for a government-approved 'average' outside of what exists in required PE is even more ludicrous.

Jach 9y ago

I pretty much entirely agree with that, there is a lot of complexity and it can play a role in deciding to just avoid everything. Though in practice I think the complexity effect is overblown, and the role in deciding to do nothing is small (I'd bet the role is larger in deciding to do lots of different things unsuccessfully because one quits the current thing after it becomes difficult). Though if the complexity mattered all that much, this just sounds like the OP's desire for a government-approved 'average' outside of what exists in required PE is even more ludicrous.