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Find an exercise/activity that you enjoy or makes you feel good. Doesn't matter if it is weight lifting, road cycling, or dancing. Once you find it, just keep

• dalbasal 5y ago
  Also.... Your primary goal (IMO) should be "I will want to do it again tomorrow," not a performance goal. Those are secondary. Go hard enough to feel achievement, but not so much that your are sore or worn out, either physically or mentally. Everything emanates from not quitting anyway, and quitting is the reason most people don't achieve what they want. Willpower is a scarce resource, don't overtax it.
  • TulliusCicero 5y ago
    > Go hard enough to feel achievement, but not so much that your are sore or worn out Why not? I like feeling sore, means I know I'm improving.
    • jimhefferon 5y ago
      I'm 63. I know a lot of people who took up running, ran hard for a couple of years (maybe won a few races), got a lot of injuries, and no longer run. I ran for the first time on Oct 1 1971, and the most recent time is 12 miles this morning. I'm for sure not saying I am better than them, because I certainly am not. But I am saying that there is something to just enjoying yourself. I have little adventures four times a week, and still like it. I'm rarely really worn; I'm just not going for that. So that is one reason to think to stay away from sore. (Of course, if what you want is to win races then go for it.)
      • ak217 5y ago
        > there is something to just enjoying yourself. I have little adventures four times a week That's what people often don't get about outdoor exercise. You can combine physical and mental exercise - exploring new areas, impromptu orienteering, just the sheer focus required to run or bike in complicated terrain is a huge plus and makes it easier to stay engaged.
      • emerged 5y ago
        I’ve been cycling for many years and do a careful mix of: 1) Relaxing recovery rides 2) Long endurance rides (50-100mi) 3) Race pace 1-2 hour rides 4) Intense sprints I’m usually a little sore after 3 or 4, and take a relaxed day after. That is when progress happens.
    • chrishynes 5y ago
      Soreness really only tells you that you've done something new, not that you're improving. Do the same exercise for just a couple of weeks and soreness will rapidly decrease.
      • wrycoder 5y ago
        Not necessarily. There is such a thing as overtraining. To get consistent results, you have to allow time to recover between sessions. The older you are, the longer it takes. The more advanced you are, the longer it takes. At my age, it takes two days off to recover.
  • 123pie123 5y ago
    top advice, the only two things to add is never underestimate the power of some sort of stretching. Before any work out and after the work out (if your doing resistance training also stretch if you can during the recovery ie build phase) if you do some sort of workout try and make it symmetrical eg if you excercise your chest then do your back otherwise it will give you a hunch
    • saurik 5y ago
      (As far as I understand, the current research is that static stretching specifically-before working out is contraindicated as it will reduce performance and doesn't actually prevent injury.)
      • 123pie123 5y ago
        I've never done any form of static stretching before an excercise, for resistance training (10+ years) I just warm my muscles up (20 reps) with the lowest weight - but I do static stretching on the area I've worked on the days afterwards people who are hypermobile may (or will) have issues with out static stretching my friend is seriously hypermobile - she struggles to do anything without proper static stretching - YMMV I wish I could be motivated to keep doing yoga or pilates
      • blunte 5y ago
        I have read the same. It does seem that modern advice is to just do some warmup movements rather than static stretches. After, however, stretches are really important. Without proper post-workout stretching, you can wake up with muscles so tight that you can barely stand up. Not only is that hard on joints, it seems to slow the recovery process.
  • blunte 5y ago
    That's a good point. And then if you find something you love so much that you want to go (and go hard) every day, get some advice from someone more experienced. Too much is often detrimental, even if you think you feel capable of it. Ideally you can end up with a mix of weight building activities and cardio activities. As people elsewhere have mentioned, playing sports can be a really fun way to get cardio without "doing cardio". Same goes for dancing or regular good sex.
  • pferdone 5y ago
    Really depends. If you are competitive chasing numbers can be motivation. And ofc it‘s easier if you enjoy what you‘re doing, but you also have to be able to just pull through at times. Motivation has to turn into disciplin. IMO establishing physical exercise as a part of your life should be the goal. It’s as essential as brushing your teeth. And a big problem I see is people are always presented with short term solutions. Do this workout for 6 weeks and get a Men’s Health cover body. Yet the reality is you have to eat healthy, consistently work out and keep working out to stay in shape and healthy.
    • dalbasal 5y ago
      Yes. True. My advice is for the 90% of us, the serial jan-march gym goers. If you already have that habit, compete, and exercise is a given... don't take advice from me. That said, I suspect that even for advanced athletes, "Take steps to avoid burnout" is probably still relevant.
• sershe 5y ago
  It's kinda sad that this is the top comment. Why would that be true, as in, why would enjoyment mean anything here? Most people enjoy eating cake, I sure do, but it's probably a negative to their long term health and well-being. For an example, my understanding is that weight lifting is better for weight loss than cardio, contrary to the popular perception... if your goal is to lose weight, you'd better do what works best and not what you enjoy, or at least choose the activity that you enjoy most out of the ones best for the job.
  • swsieber 5y ago
    I believe I could sum up the original comment as "perfect is the enemy of good, and enjoyment greatly contributes to something sticking". I do think a lot of people (myself included) get hung up on doing it the Right Way (TM) that we don't do anything it all.
    • dalbasal 5y ago
      A pathology of our day. Look at it this way... (1) Basically any class on offer at your gym, taken daily, will get you fit, sexy & healthy. Pilates, weights, swimming, wall climbing. They all work good, as long as you keep doing them and don't quit. (2) Quitting is extremely likely. Most of us quit most of the exercise regimes we start. Given these two points, the only thing worth optimising is "how not to quit." A good start is aiming for that "sweet spot" where you feel satisfaction, but not soreness or burnout. If you have to make yourself take a recovery day, that's a good place to be. Obviously also life stuff. Scheduling, social stuff, etc.
  • koonsolo 5y ago
    You will never keep doing something if you don't enjoy it. So it's better to do something suboptimal that you enjoy, than not do the optimal thing because you hate it. And cardio definitely helps with weight loss, because all the bodybuilders do it for cutting. For me it's bodyweight excercises and running. And I don't really care if there would be something else that's better. And about the cake example, you probably want to replace that with healthy food that you enjoy, not with the most healthy that you detest. Otherwise you will drop out immediately.
• samatman 5y ago
  It's true that any exercise is better than no exercise. It isn't true that no form of exercise is better or worse than any other for general health. If you have to pick one, I strongly recommend compound lifts of free weights. The benefits in terms of bone density, joint health, tendon strength, muscular power, hormone production, are simply irreplaceable with any amount of "cardiovascular" exercise. I put that in quotes because it should be called endurance training, lifting weights will emphatically exercise your cardiovascular system. I was dancing every weekend and walking a couple miles a day when I started lifting. I started lifting because, in my late 30s, it started to be the case that when I would knock something to the floor, I would hitch up my pants and carefully lower myself down to retrieve it, complete with joint pain in my knees. I extrapolated where that problem would take me in a couple decades, and decided to do something about it. It worked.
  • vosper 5y ago
    I think yoga might be an alternative for people wanting to maintain their bodies well into the future. I’ve done weightlifting and yoga, I like them both, I think if I was picking one for effectiveness and longevity of practice it’d be yoga. But why pick one? You can totally mix in some yoga with lifting :)
    • samatman 5y ago
      I've noticed that I lift easier (and it's not a subtle difference) when I do some deep spine-stretching yoga on recovery days. So I certainly agree! I view stretching (calisthenics, yoga, Pilates, whatever you want to call it) as a natural adjunct of weightlifting, something which most lifters discover is useful, even necessary. But it's not as obvious to a dedicated yogic practitioner why they might want to lift weights. So in terms of "pick one" I'm going to advocate for the one which naturally points in the direction of both (:
  • riku_iki 5y ago
    What about some form of HIIT with lighter weights? My concern with heavy lifting is that it trains only one body's energy system out of three..
• wrycoder 5y ago
  Every time this comes up, someone shows up to say it doesn’t matter what exercise program you follow. That’s not correct. There’s a big difference between someone lifting weights somewhere near their genetic capacity and someone spending many hours per week racking up long, slow distance on the road. Or someone spending a few hours waving one pound dumbbells around. If you want to be able to get out of your chair at 95 and not develop osteoporosis, you need to engage in load bearing exercise. If you want to add cardio to that - do it faster. You’ll get your HR to 80%, no problem. I’m 80. I lift about twice a week for about 90 min each time. On the off days, I walk for an hour, usually over hills, since walking on the flat doesn’t get my HR up enough, and I don’t want to stress my knees by jogging. I think the lady looks great, probably a lot better than she would if she was a runner.
  • TaupeRanger 5y ago
    Some real Nassim Taleb style advice right here. As a guy in his mid-30s, I'm glad to have come across this kind of advice early on so I can keep up healthy habits for the later decades (assuming I'm not hit by a meteor first).
    • mi_lk 5y ago
      > Nassim Taleb style advice what does that mean
      • TaupeRanger 5y ago
        He's a popular author that offers very similar advice as far as lifting and walking.
    • michaelcampbell 5y ago
      It if were Nassim Taleb advice, it'd use 10x the number of words, and glorify Nassim Taleb's advice given by Nassim Taleb.
  • mandeepj 5y ago
    > I walk for an hour, usually over hills, since walking on the flat doesn’t get my HR up enough, and I don’t want to stress my knees by jogging >usually over hills Are you sure that's also not stressing your knees?
• throwntoday 5y ago
  Weightlifting in particular is extremely beneficial for men, particularly as they age because of the testosterone gains and their affect on mood, weight, muscle building, etc...
• goatkey 5y ago
  One rule I have for trying new exercises is to try it five times before giving up. This is particularly true for classes with an instructor. The first time you have absolutely no idea what’s going on. The 2nd - 4th times you are starting to get the hang of it and will see the slight derivations across different classes. By the 5th time you’ve probably gotten enough exposure to be able to say “yeah ok this really isn’t my thing” or “these of the parts of this I really enjoy”. I agree with other commenters that there is something important about weight lifting, though. Certainly having cardio as your main exercise is fine, but I think diversity of exercise is important, too.
• hintymad 5y ago
  Choice of exercise matters because of our age. For instance, a person will start to lose muscle mass after age 35 or something, and the bone density will decrease as well. Therefore, weight training becomes increasingly crucial as we age because it reduces the rate of reductio of our muscle and bone density and it keeps our remaining muscle strong.
• jjav 5y ago
  > Once you find it, just keep doing it. The harder part, IMO, is finding a job in tech industry that will allow the free time to keep doing it.