3 ms·

The reason I compare it to construction is that at some point, pursing lifting to a high degrees involves putting in the amount of repetitions that amounts to a

The reason I compare it to construction is that at some point, pursing lifting to a high degrees involves putting in the amount of repetitions that amounts to a job with high statistical injury rate. If you follow bodybuilding and powerlifting closely, the amount of people who wash out due to injury is staggeringly high, to the point where an injury free career is anomalous and often credited to great genetics (tendon strength) than smart training. In fact the majority of the injuries happens on routine warm up reps, and because these people are enthusiasts and treat lifting almost like a job, they don't manage healing properly and will often continue training while injured leading to long term detriment. The particularly bone headed people will lift until they break their body and washout, but even smart lifters (who plan stress and fatigue sensibly) will eventually get injured past a certain level. This is like working in construction, people accrue damage over time, small injuries compound or big injuries take them out. The amount of work required in these occupation/hobbies are not calibrated for "health". [1] https://www.strongerbyscience.com/powerlifting-injuries-results/ https://www.strongerbyscience.com/powerlifting-injuries-resu... >The overall number of people injured may surprise you. Of the 160 people who finished the study (either sustained an injury or made it through the whole year uninjured), almost ¾ of them sustained an injury. That seems to conflict with the finding that injury rates in powerlifting are only ~3-5 per 1000 hours of training. Assuming someone trains for five hours per week, that would mean you’d expect a lifter to get injured about once every four years, on average (or, stated another way, you’d expect about ¼ of lifters to get injured per year). However, keep in mind that we used a pretty broad definition of “injury” , compared to the more conservative definition used in other research. In another study on powerlifters using a pretty liberal definition of “injury,” 70% were injured at the single point in time when data was collected, so I’d say the overall injury rate seen in our study is to be expected. Taken collectively, the data suggest that powerlifters sustain minor injuries pretty frequently, but more serious injuries are pretty rare; comparable to triathlon training, but less common than long distance running or most team sports.

eru 7y ago
> The reason I compare it to construction is that at some point, pursing lifting to a high degrees involves putting in the amount of repetitions that amounts to a job with high statistical injury rate. Why? You can increase the weight, and keep the repetitions constant.
- dirtyid 7y ago
  In context of semi-serious strength training, virtually no one progresses long on increasing intensity only. Increasing weight + maintaining rep scheme, basically linear periodization exhausts itself in months. Medium-term, it's an inefficient method to gain strength due to repetitive bout effect, and fairly dangerous - lots of people injure themselves pushing too hard on 3x5s (i.e. starting strength) when the periodization scheme simply stops working for them. Sooner than (not or) later, people have to periodize, mess with variations, delve into programming. Even if you're smart about it injury is very common. For a general population extra complexity and injury risk is something to be optimized against when it's simply not necessary to ever develop that much strength for daily functioning. I would say the vast majority of people are not capable of lifting in a maximally safe manner. In the powerlifting injury survey around half of trainees suffer some form of injury, this includes novice trainees. My experience in the body building community is similar. That's too high on a population scale. Lifting enthusiasts get hurt all the time for the hobby, that's their prerogative. But no reason to endorse it for people who don't share strength/aesthetic goals and could get most of the benefit from extremely modest and much safer training. I'm not trying to denigrate barbell training, I think it's essential component to physical well being, but I don't think most popular strength templates are well aligned to overall public health or the mentality to train for general health. Their philosophy is based around training which will quickly lead people to conflate pursuing personal best with essential fitness, and TBH most people drop out of the habit they stop progressing after a few years and lose motivation. The people who lift the longest are those who can accept putting 4-8 hours at a gym every week for a year to add 5lbs to a lift or those who don't fixate on numbers and are content with just going through the motions for health.
  - eru 7y ago
    Oh, we mostly agree. My point was more that the amount of strength people can get out of something like Starting Strength is more than sufficient for anything useful for general healthy fitness. The limits of linear progression (and three sessions a week) put a nice limit on how much you can wear out your body. Basically, when you can no longer go up, just stay there. I did Starting Strength myself for a while, and even for too long. Once I switched to the same author's Texas Method (a simple weekly program), I managed to eke out a bit more progress on my lifts again.

eru 7y ago

> The reason I compare it to construction is that at some point, pursing lifting to a high degrees involves putting in the amount of repetitions that amounts to a job with high statistical injury rate. Why? You can increase the weight, and keep the repetitions constant.

dirtyid 7y ago
In context of semi-serious strength training, virtually no one progresses long on increasing intensity only. Increasing weight + maintaining rep scheme, basically linear periodization exhausts itself in months. Medium-term, it's an inefficient method to gain strength due to repetitive bout effect, and fairly dangerous - lots of people injure themselves pushing too hard on 3x5s (i.e. starting strength) when the periodization scheme simply stops working for them. Sooner than (not or) later, people have to periodize, mess with variations, delve into programming. Even if you're smart about it injury is very common. For a general population extra complexity and injury risk is something to be optimized against when it's simply not necessary to ever develop that much strength for daily functioning. I would say the vast majority of people are not capable of lifting in a maximally safe manner. In the powerlifting injury survey around half of trainees suffer some form of injury, this includes novice trainees. My experience in the body building community is similar. That's too high on a population scale. Lifting enthusiasts get hurt all the time for the hobby, that's their prerogative. But no reason to endorse it for people who don't share strength/aesthetic goals and could get most of the benefit from extremely modest and much safer training. I'm not trying to denigrate barbell training, I think it's essential component to physical well being, but I don't think most popular strength templates are well aligned to overall public health or the mentality to train for general health. Their philosophy is based around training which will quickly lead people to conflate pursuing personal best with essential fitness, and TBH most people drop out of the habit they stop progressing after a few years and lose motivation. The people who lift the longest are those who can accept putting 4-8 hours at a gym every week for a year to add 5lbs to a lift or those who don't fixate on numbers and are content with just going through the motions for health.
- eru 7y ago
  Oh, we mostly agree. My point was more that the amount of strength people can get out of something like Starting Strength is more than sufficient for anything useful for general healthy fitness. The limits of linear progression (and three sessions a week) put a nice limit on how much you can wear out your body. Basically, when you can no longer go up, just stay there. I did Starting Strength myself for a while, and even for too long. Once I switched to the same author's Texas Method (a simple weekly program), I managed to eke out a bit more progress on my lifts again.