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I'll add myself as a second data point here. Lots of beer. Lots of cigarettes. Lots of sitting and programming. Now most of my friends think I'm some kind of e

I'll add myself as a second data point here. Lots of beer. Lots of cigarettes. Lots of sitting and programming. Now most of my friends think I'm some kind of elite athlete and I am not, I just rode around on a bike every couple of days for several years. It is incredible what a change in lifestyle can do. The average person can absolutely everest, or ride 100k, or whatever, given a bit of training. Of course, training for a year so you can ride your bike up and down a hill all day isn't that appealing to most folks. But it could still be done.

JamesBarney 4y ago
Both of you guys are relying one data point. If you look at the literature on exercise adaptation you actually find a incredibly large variance in the response. There are a decent amount of people, who just don't adapt to exercise.
- throwaway9191aa 4y ago
  Any links would have been great :) But yes non-responders do exist, and some people even discover serious cardiac conditions through exercise. In an attempt to clarify "decent amount", maybe this helps? https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-018-01041-1 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-018-01041-1 I don't generally understand these surveys. This one seems to indicate the term "non-responder" is not just unhelpful, but possibly damaging. "Thus, just because an individual does not improve their VO2max or 1RM with training, this does not mean that they have not derived a multitude of other benefits from exercise, many of which, such as increased social interaction seen in community exercise settings" What I don't see in this survey is anything related to "off the couch" improvements, which is clearly what we are talking about. Neither myself nor GP said we went from regionals to nationals. We went from cigarettes and beer to recreational riding. I have a hard time believing those gains aren't available to almost everyone. But, I didn't find a study so it doesn't exist :)
  - JamesBarney 4y ago
    If you look at all the positive benefits of exercise you find very few people who don't get some positive benefit from exercise whether that's better insulin sensitivity, better vO2 max, better cholesterol, or weight loss. But when you look at one specific benefit of exercise such as the endurance required to accomplish these feats you find far more non responders.

JamesBarney 4y ago

Both of you guys are relying one data point. If you look at the literature on exercise adaptation you actually find a incredibly large variance in the response. There are a decent amount of people, who just don't adapt to exercise.

throwaway9191aa 4y ago
Any links would have been great :) But yes non-responders do exist, and some people even discover serious cardiac conditions through exercise. In an attempt to clarify "decent amount", maybe this helps? https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-018-01041-1 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-018-01041-1 I don't generally understand these surveys. This one seems to indicate the term "non-responder" is not just unhelpful, but possibly damaging. "Thus, just because an individual does not improve their VO2max or 1RM with training, this does not mean that they have not derived a multitude of other benefits from exercise, many of which, such as increased social interaction seen in community exercise settings" What I don't see in this survey is anything related to "off the couch" improvements, which is clearly what we are talking about. Neither myself nor GP said we went from regionals to nationals. We went from cigarettes and beer to recreational riding. I have a hard time believing those gains aren't available to almost everyone. But, I didn't find a study so it doesn't exist :)
- JamesBarney 4y ago
  If you look at all the positive benefits of exercise you find very few people who don't get some positive benefit from exercise whether that's better insulin sensitivity, better vO2 max, better cholesterol, or weight loss. But when you look at one specific benefit of exercise such as the endurance required to accomplish these feats you find far more non responders.