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Ask HN: What resources do you use to workout efficiently and without injuries?

2 points by vicek22 4y ago

I'm in my mid-30s. I've been following P90X for roughly five years, working out at home three times a week: legs and back, shoulders and arms, chest and back. Each session takes roughly an hour. I also run. I'm happy with my fitness, but I injure myself quite often (pulled muscle, weird pains in joints). I don't think I have a good form. I want to learn more about warming up, stretching muscles (like yoga), reducing the chance of injury and working out to increase my healthy life span and feel good rather than look good. What is the best resource for your fitness? What did help you the most to understand your body and how to treat it? Ideally, I would like to work out at home, not in a gym. This "foundation training" comes to mind as an example resource that helped me https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BOTvaRaDjI

rcarr 4y ago
You’re probably not going to want to hear this but it is most likely the running. It is very, very hard on the body, particularly if you are heavy (doesn’t have to be fat, could just be muscle from working out) and for most people it will take its toll on the body, particularly as you get older. If you haven’t already, go to a specialist running shop and make sure you are wearing shoes that are designed specifically for your gait, and potentially look at getting coaching to make sure you are running with the proper form which will reduce injury. If you don’t mind switching to another form of cardio, look at low impact options such as swimming, cross trainer, rucking, eliptigo, rowing and cycling. The last two are particularly good, especially for home workouts, as there are really good apps such as Zwift, EXR, Fulgaz etc that make them fun to do. The science around FTP training is also firmly established at this point, and following along with an FTP plan will raise your fitness levels more effectively than just about anything else. For recovery, there are all kinds of options. Sauna, cold plunge, myomaster, massage guns, all of these things do work. I’m personally not a fan of rollers and lacrosse balls and think they’re a waste of time compared to a massage gun. Vibration plates are a waste of time for exercise but are really good to use just before a yoga session and will unlock a bit more range of motion. For yoga, I am a massive fan of the DownDog yoga app. You can substitute a warm up with 10 to 15 minutes of one of the more active yoga types they offer (and you can verify this by wearing a heart rate monitor and seeing if you hit zone three). For flexibility, I prefer yin yoga (long static holds) which down dog also offers. There is all kinds of conflicting information surrounding flexibility e.g some people say you shouldn’t static stretch and should only do dynamic stretches, some people say you should stretch with light weights etc. My recommendation would be to try things out and see what works for you. I personally find static stretching to be good for improving my flexibility and well-being. When you’re doing the poses, don’t be afraid to move about a bit and explore your body; small tweaks to your position can often have drastic effects in how effective the stretch is. This is especially important when you’re just starting out or doing a new pose you’ve never done before. I recommend doing it continuously though: as you get more flexible, you will often find that you will have to tweak your positioning to get the best stretch for your more flexible body. For resistance training, get a few PT sessions to evaluate your form and make sure you’re doing things correctly. Do more work with sandbags, dumbbells and kettlebells and less work with barbells which are far more punishing on the body. Bodyweight stuff like the p90x you mentioned or weighted bodyweight stuff is also good. If you’re feeling twinges from your current split, look at switching to doing all body workouts or push/pull rather than hammering an individual body part in one session. Also potentially look into getting your testosterone levels checked out by a doctor and potentially supplemented to bring them to the same level you was at when you were in your twenties. This will massively aid in recovery. If you feel hesitant about this, it is highly likely that the majority of fitness YouTubers, actors and whoever else jacked and over 40 is on HRT or steroids. HRT prescribed by a doctor is most likely healthy. Steroid use over and above your normal levels is most likely not unless you’be done your research and know what you’re doing. Make sure your diet is good and you are getting enough sleep. Look at GLC2000 or another chondroitin supplement for joint health. If you feel something twinge in a workout, stop immediately and avoid that muscle group for the rest of the workout. No pain no gain is for when your muscles are burning because of lactic acid buildup, not when they’re injured.
- vicek22 4y ago
  Thank you so much rcarr for your thoughtful response it's an overview of the topic that I was looking for. I'll respond to each point in a thread.
- vicek22 4y ago
  > it is most likely the running. It is very, very hard on the body, particularly if you are heavy You are right, it's not easy to hear. I'm doing my best to run only on toes and mainly on soft trails rather than pavement. But I'll look into improving my form. I'll probably rely on online resources rather than coaching. I'm not sure I would find person I would trust in my small town. I live in a mountain area and running is my favorite outdoor activity, I'll just have to do my best to improve my form to reduce the toll it takes on my body.
  - rcarr 4y ago
    > I'll probably rely on online resources rather than coaching. I'm not sure I would find person I would trust in my small town. You could look into getting a Stryd power meter. I believe it gives you insight into your running form as well as allowing you to run using power as your main metric rather than pace or heart rate. This should be more accurate as after a while you’ll know exactly how much watts you can sustain over a given interval. It’s the standard way of doing things in the cycling world (so much so that in Zwift the imaginary cycling world is called Watopia). If not, I’m sure there’s an app or coach out there that you’ll be able to send video clips to who can review your form. The problem is that everyone’s form starts to go to shit when they start getting tired or sprinting. I don’t know what kind of training you’re doing at the minute but a lot of triathlon training has moved to an 80:20 model as well so that’s something you could potentially look into. You basically spend 80% of your cardio workouts in zone 2 and 20% in zone 4 or 5. Obviously how much time you have available makes a big difference, if you’ve only got twenty minutes a day then doing 4 x 20 minute zone 2 sessions a week and 1 x 20 minute zone 4 is probably not going to do a lot as you need to be doing long sessions in zone 2 to really see the benefits. During the pandemic, I was struggling with running because of injuries and discovered rucking and really enjoy it. It’s worth trying out to see if you enjoy it because you’ve probably got all the equipment you need (rucksack, something heavy) and you still get to spend time out in the mountains. If you give it a go just make sure the rucksack you use has padded straps or it will suck. Take with a pinch of salt as it’s by the company who popularised rucking as a civilian sport but this white paper has a lot of science comparing the the impact of running vs rucking: https://blog.goruck.com/rucking-training/the-rucking-white-paper-beta/#PART_3_-_THE_SCIENCE https://blog.goruck.com/rucking-training/the-rucking-white-p... The main jist of it is that you can burn a very similar amount of calories from rucking as you can from running in the same space of time but with only half the impact on your joints.

vicek22 4y ago

Re: Yoga I've been following Yoga With Adriene (https://www.youtube.com/user/yogawithadriene https://www.youtube.com/user/yogawithadriene) for half a year and I was quite happy with the variety of routines. Especially the Move 30 day program (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pmlh6AHFW0E&list=PLui6Eyny-Uzyp5P3Vcuv5qCHQOC8W6grN https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pmlh6AHFW0E&list=PLui6Eyny-U...). Even though the routines are great, her style didn't quite resonate with me (it's too spiritual/positive for an engineer like me). I installed Down Dog and I'll try that app for a while. Thank you for the recommendation. > When you’re doing the poses, don’t be afraid to move about a bit and explore your body I struggle with this, I want to get through the poses as the instructor says and moving around to stretch a bit differently is not something I remember to do unless the instructor explicitly suggests it.

rcarr 4y ago
> Even though the routines are great, her style didn't quite resonate with me (it's too spiritual/positive for an engineer like me). Yeh this is what I like about down dog, it’s very customisable. You can choose all kinds of things, instructor voice, how much instructing you want, different music types, body part focus, type of yoga, difficulty level and duration. > I struggle with this, I want to get through the poses as the instructor says and moving around to stretch a bit differently is not something I remember to do unless the instructor explicitly suggests it. Literally just listen to your body. If you’re doing a pose and you can’t feel a stretch then just start moving about a bit. You might have to twist a bit more, or straighten a limb, or straighten your hips, straighten your back, move an arm to a side, any number of things really. It helps if you have a few basic pieces of equipment: a stretching strap with loops like this https://amzn.eu/d/fAuEeio https://amzn.eu/d/fAuEeio (far better than your standard plain yoga strap), a yoga bolster (essential for saddle pose if you’ve got tight quads), a crescent cushion and yoga blocks. I also recommend not using a yoga mat and instead getting a decent rubber exercise mat such as a Miramat and a yoga knee pad such as this: https://amzn.eu/d/fP2aPQ8 https://amzn.eu/d/fP2aPQ8. If you’re doing active yoga most of the time you want a stable surface to stand on and if you’re doing long holds in yin yoga it’s far easier to just move one of these into position under your knee or whatever than it is to deal with a yoga mat that is constantly moving about every time you change positions.

vicek22 4y ago

> HRT prescribed by a doctor is most likely healthy. This is a really interesting topic. I've heard Joe Rogan talking about it. I might have to visit private clinic to get my testosterone measured, it's not something that the public healthcare in Europe would be keen on doing without underlying medical condition. This is something I'll have to do much more research and definitely visit a doctor before taking any hormone supplements. If you remember which resources convinced you about the procedure being useful and relatively safe, please link them :)

rcarr 4y ago
Yeah I can’t speak much to this I haven’t tried it so I’m not a massive authority but I can share the little I do know. I also found out about HRT through rogan and later just how widespread steroid use (estimated 1 million users in the UK according to an article in the Guardian). The reason I mention it is that there is a widely cited paper out there which basically states that testosterone is so effective that people taking extra testosterone above their base levels can do absolutely zero exercise and will still put on more muscle and gain more strength than someone taking no testosterone and training as hard as they possibly can on an optimised training plan. It’s that effective. Like I always knew it boosted performance but it wasn’t until I found out about that paper that I knew it boosted performance to quite that extent. For steroids, Derek from More Plates, More Dates seems to be the guy everyone goes to to find out information. He has quite a bit of stuff on his site and well as his YouTube. Over the last few years there’s a class of drugs called SARMs that have emerged that seem to be generally safer than steroids as they only effect skeletal muscle tissue rather than all muscle tissue such as the heart which is what often causes many issues for steroid users. The downside is that they’re much newer so not as much research has been done on them so people don’t know yet with absolute 100% certainty that they are better in the long term but it currently looks that way. For HRT, there is a YouTuber called Mark Lewis who is mainly an endurance athlete who speaks openly and very positively about his HRT protocol and how it helps him with his training and also helped him overcome depression. These three videos here: https://youtu.be/U2cRVhwQP4A https://youtu.be/U2cRVhwQP4A https://youtu.be/hJtJOtTKuVM https://youtu.be/hJtJOtTKuVM https://youtu.be/qrIm9ZDBehY https://youtu.be/qrIm9ZDBehY It’s definitely something I will be looking into in more detail when I hit my late 30s. Like you say it’s not generally available through public health care systems and you have to go private to get it which is what Mark Lewis did, so cost is another thing that has to be taken into account. And then also the fact that once you’re on HRT, you generally have to be on it for life. With how unstable the world and supply chains are atm I’m not sure if I want to be tied down to requiring a medicine for the rest of my life unless I really have to. But thought I would mention it as something to look into as it obviously does have massive performance benefits when done properly.