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This is exactly the kind of situation where a little advice can be dangerous. Going from a sedentary lifestyle to sprinting, deadlifts, kettlebell exercises or

by gizmo 15y ago

This is exactly the kind of situation where a little advice can be dangerous. Going from a sedentary lifestyle to sprinting, deadlifts, kettlebell exercises or other intense activities is a recipe for disaster. I agree with most of your advice and the implicit part that carbohydrates are the enemy and fat/protein your friend. However, the part that's dangerously missing is that your body takes a lot longer to recover from exercise than you think and that overtraining can set you back weeks or even lead to permanent injuries.

mahyarm 15y ago
You ramp it up then, and go see a doctor first if your really bad/old. Instead of 150 kettlebell swings, you do 20 and add 10 every few days, etc.
- gizmo 15y ago
  "Oh, I'll just ramp up slowly". That's what everybody thinks. It's common sense. But it's terrible advice. Nobody is stupid enough to start on day one with the biggest kettlebell. The point is you have to warn people, over and over again, in order to drive the point home about the dangers of overtraining. Why? Because the first time you start exercising again it feels good and you start full of energy and so forth. So the day after you feel like exercising again, you got that itch, even though you "know" your body hasn't recovered yet and you're still sore in a few spots. This is where it really takes discipline to stick to the plan. Sometimes you'll go to the gym and realize you're still sore from 2 days ago. If you start lifting weights anyway the odds are you're either going to outright injure yourself or you're going to lift in a lopsided pose to compensate for a sore shoulder or something. It takes discipline to go home and skip a workout just after you've decided to get (back) into shape. If you tell people to just ramp it up and add a couple of swings every couple of days they're still going to make predictable and preventable mistakes and injure themselves.

by gizmo 15y ago

mahyarm 15y ago

You ramp it up then, and go see a doctor first if your really bad/old. Instead of 150 kettlebell swings, you do 20 and add 10 every few days, etc.

gizmo 15y ago
"Oh, I'll just ramp up slowly". That's what everybody thinks. It's common sense. But it's terrible advice. Nobody is stupid enough to start on day one with the biggest kettlebell. The point is you have to warn people, over and over again, in order to drive the point home about the dangers of overtraining. Why? Because the first time you start exercising again it feels good and you start full of energy and so forth. So the day after you feel like exercising again, you got that itch, even though you "know" your body hasn't recovered yet and you're still sore in a few spots. This is where it really takes discipline to stick to the plan. Sometimes you'll go to the gym and realize you're still sore from 2 days ago. If you start lifting weights anyway the odds are you're either going to outright injure yourself or you're going to lift in a lopsided pose to compensate for a sore shoulder or something. It takes discipline to go home and skip a workout just after you've decided to get (back) into shape. If you tell people to just ramp it up and add a couple of swings every couple of days they're still going to make predictable and preventable mistakes and injure themselves.