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Lots of people seem to make it to old age, still being almost as healthy and active as an average young person, sans any broken bones, without lifting much of a
by eternityforest 3y ago
Lots of people seem to make it to old age, still being almost as healthy and active as an average young person, sans any broken bones, without lifting much of anything heavy or playing any sports, they seem to just do causal swimming or hiking or tai chi or something.
And there are gym rats who have a life of all kinds of random aches and pains despite being very strong, then have heart attacks, so I'm super confused on what you're actually supposed to do, but it definitely seems like there's a limit to how much people really need for close to optimal health.
The science seems pretty clear that having muscle is better for your health, but it seems really hard to figure out how much is actually needed, and whether someone who's already reasonably in shape from walking and doing projects actually needs any lifting outside the "near zero injury chance and you probably won't be sore tomorrow" range for maximum health issues prevention.
- nradov 3y agoThere is certainly a genetic component to bone health, but on average most people aren't able to build up enough bone mineral density and skeletal muscle without lifting heavy weights. You're dreaming if you believe you can get in shape by walking and doing some casual projects (heavy manual labor is another story). Beyond a certain age it becomes essentially impossible to build those up, and then you start gradually declining year by year. Do you want to spend the last years of your life crippled because you fell down the stairs and broke a hip? In order to figure out how much muscle is needed, decide what you want to be able to do when you're old and then work backwards from there. https://peterattiamd.com/how-to-train-for-the-centenarian-decathlon/ https://peterattiamd.com/how-to-train-for-the-centenarian-de...