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In this comment section: techies giving confident fitness advice. Exercise is good for you when done right. There is risk of injury when done wrong. Much like a

In this comment section: techies giving confident fitness advice. Exercise is good for you when done right. There is risk of injury when done wrong. Much like any other skill, exercises can be learned, and how fast you learn things varies. If you can, get someone knowledgeable to guide you, it makes the learning process both easier and less frustrating.

rootusrootus 4y ago
> In this comment section: techies giving confident fitness advice Aside from the well earned reputation programmers have for believing they can solve any problem, this is good old bro science. Popular on the Internet. And worth ignoring, or at least being very skeptical about. Bad advice can be pretty dangerous.
- dymk 4y ago
  What here is "bro science"? It's a standard handstand progression. Basically what you'd teach a kid starting gymnastics. The only things I might change are: - practice methods of bailing out from the start - after wall-walk, rather than taking both legs off the wall with your body facing the wall, kick up so you're facing away from the wall and try to achieve balance
  - 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
    It's bro science because this page shows a bunch of already quite fit looking dudes - so already at an advantage - do handstand progressions with the headline "How to Do a Handstand: Get Your First Handstand in 30 Days". And then they try and sell you something at the bottom. I have seen a lot of gym going adults attempt to learn handstands. Vast majority will give up. Teaching even the gym population to hand balance is not easy.
    - smohare 4y ago
      The response to your message is just further proof of the bro science component.
      - dymk 4y ago
        Lmao let me go get you a peer reviewed meta study of hand stand progressions
        taneq 4y ago
        Make sure the studies they use are all double-blind, just to be sure.
    - trentgreene 4y ago
      As someone who majored in broscience with a minor in broceanography, this is def not broscience (henceforth “bs”). There’s none of the hallmark bs features like rigid adherence to a simplified / half true physiology or an assumed idea of what “fitness” is. This is really something I think of as “fitness fluff”. It’s not really science, it’s a simple training plan that’ll probably work for >50% of the reasonably fit population. It’s also a training plan to accomplish a specific thing, do a handstand. It doesn’t really feel like a discussion on whether handstands are good and what regressions to apply where; why judge it so. The bs and “real” science on nutrition and exercise both face a replicability crisis. The salt you take with all this bs (or studies, advice) will also help you achieve bigger pumps during hypertrophy training. p.s. Don’t take the “bro” in bs too literally. It comes from all genders and identities equally. Anecdotally the biggest purveyor of bs in my life was a woman who went to med school. I still hear and say plenty of bs in my circle of crunchy climbers. You apply it moderately and trust your gut on what’s reasonable in the face of _massive_ complexity.
  - test1235 4y ago
    I think the comment about bro science was about the other comments here on HN, rather than about the article.
softcactus 4y ago
Why do you think that being physically fit/active and being a techie is mutually exclusive? Wouldn't the high incomes from being in tech mean more money and time to spend on health and wellness? I have always found the stereotype of un-athletic nerd to be silly and not remotely true in real life.
- JadeNB 4y ago
  > Why do you think that being physically fit/active and being a techie is mutually exclusive? Nothing in the comment seems to say that: > In this comment section: techies giving confident fitness advice. Exercise is good for you when done right. There is risk of injury when done wrong. Much like any other skill, exercises can be learned, and how fast you learn things varies. If you can, get someone knowledgeable to guide you, it makes the learning process both easier and less frustrating. I think it rather says that techies, whether physically active or not, are prone to give confident advice that doesn't necessarily become less confident when it leaves their field of expertise. That is, I took it to be caveat lector—some techies are physically active and knowledgable (which is important!) and some aren't both of those things; you can't tell from reading a confident comment whether it is the voice of earned expertise or the voice of presumed expertise; and, if you're one of the techies who isn't yet physically fit, then getting in over your head (literally, I suppose, for handstands) or developing bad form can be quick paths to injury.
  - softcactus 4y ago
    Ah my mistake. I mistook them to be decrying most of the responses offhand.

rootusrootus 4y ago

> In this comment section: techies giving confident fitness advice Aside from the well earned reputation programmers have for believing they can solve any problem, this is good old bro science. Popular on the Internet. And worth ignoring, or at least being very skeptical about. Bad advice can be pretty dangerous.

dymk 4y ago
What here is "bro science"? It's a standard handstand progression. Basically what you'd teach a kid starting gymnastics. The only things I might change are: - practice methods of bailing out from the start - after wall-walk, rather than taking both legs off the wall with your body facing the wall, kick up so you're facing away from the wall and try to achieve balance
- 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
  It's bro science because this page shows a bunch of already quite fit looking dudes - so already at an advantage - do handstand progressions with the headline "How to Do a Handstand: Get Your First Handstand in 30 Days". And then they try and sell you something at the bottom. I have seen a lot of gym going adults attempt to learn handstands. Vast majority will give up. Teaching even the gym population to hand balance is not easy.
  - smohare 4y ago
    The response to your message is just further proof of the bro science component.
    - dymk 4y ago
      Lmao let me go get you a peer reviewed meta study of hand stand progressions
      - taneq 4y ago
        Make sure the studies they use are all double-blind, just to be sure.
  - trentgreene 4y ago
    As someone who majored in broscience with a minor in broceanography, this is def not broscience (henceforth “bs”). There’s none of the hallmark bs features like rigid adherence to a simplified / half true physiology or an assumed idea of what “fitness” is. This is really something I think of as “fitness fluff”. It’s not really science, it’s a simple training plan that’ll probably work for >50% of the reasonably fit population. It’s also a training plan to accomplish a specific thing, do a handstand. It doesn’t really feel like a discussion on whether handstands are good and what regressions to apply where; why judge it so. The bs and “real” science on nutrition and exercise both face a replicability crisis. The salt you take with all this bs (or studies, advice) will also help you achieve bigger pumps during hypertrophy training. p.s. Don’t take the “bro” in bs too literally. It comes from all genders and identities equally. Anecdotally the biggest purveyor of bs in my life was a woman who went to med school. I still hear and say plenty of bs in my circle of crunchy climbers. You apply it moderately and trust your gut on what’s reasonable in the face of _massive_ complexity.
- test1235 4y ago
  I think the comment about bro science was about the other comments here on HN, rather than about the article.

softcactus 4y ago

Why do you think that being physically fit/active and being a techie is mutually exclusive? Wouldn't the high incomes from being in tech mean more money and time to spend on health and wellness? I have always found the stereotype of un-athletic nerd to be silly and not remotely true in real life.

JadeNB 4y ago
> Why do you think that being physically fit/active and being a techie is mutually exclusive? Nothing in the comment seems to say that: > In this comment section: techies giving confident fitness advice. Exercise is good for you when done right. There is risk of injury when done wrong. Much like any other skill, exercises can be learned, and how fast you learn things varies. If you can, get someone knowledgeable to guide you, it makes the learning process both easier and less frustrating. I think it rather says that techies, whether physically active or not, are prone to give confident advice that doesn't necessarily become less confident when it leaves their field of expertise. That is, I took it to be caveat lector—some techies are physically active and knowledgable (which is important!) and some aren't both of those things; you can't tell from reading a confident comment whether it is the voice of earned expertise or the voice of presumed expertise; and, if you're one of the techies who isn't yet physically fit, then getting in over your head (literally, I suppose, for handstands) or developing bad form can be quick paths to injury.
- softcactus 4y ago
  Ah my mistake. I mistook them to be decrying most of the responses offhand.