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The meathead margin: how lifting weights might have saved my life

• Khelavaster 3y ago
  But really, shoot up some Lidocaine/analogues: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/odi.14819?af=R#:~:text=Lidocaine%20exhibited%20suppressive%20effects%20on,stability%20by%20decreasing%20IGF2BP2%20levels https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/odi.14819?af=R#:.... (Anticancer role of lidocaine in oral squamous cell carcinoma through IGF2BP2-mediated CAV1 stability)
  • pavel_lishin 3y ago
    Don't forget to give her Smeckler's Powder.
  • A_D_E_P_T 3y ago
    That's an in vitro study, in isolated cells, which used a totally non-physiological dose of lidocaine. It's not even a mouse or rat study. It's less valuable than that. Lidocaine, taken systemically, is associated with serious side effects. It's the only known "cure" for tinnitus, but its side effect profile is so nasty that pretty much nobody uses it. Don't give irresponsible advice.
    • Khelavaster 3y ago
      That's a single in vitro study which represents Lidocaine's well-studied effects on certain kinds of cancers. Locally-delivered lidocaine to SCC-diseased oral areas and tumorous lymph nodes is totally feasible.
      • A_D_E_P_T 3y ago
        Feasible, maybe. But has it ever been done before? Are you aware of any papers where lidocaine is used as a treatment for solid tumors, and not simply as an analgesic during or following surgery? Studies in humans would be most relevant, but I'd even be interested in rodent studies if lidocaine is used systemically. (i.e. given orally or injected IP/SC/IV. Having researchers inject lidocaine directly into mouse tumors is not terribly relevant to what you were recommending.)
    • Khelavaster 3y ago
      Your post is also mistaken. The study tested "In vivo tumor growth...using a tumor xenograft model." It's humanized tumors in mice with humanized immune systems. Totally a mouse/rat study. Don't be the guy who misleads researchers and sick people out of deep ignorance.
    • pavel_lishin 3y ago
      About half of health-related HN submissions feature someone willing to throw out wild medical advice. They'll usually double down, too, by linking to a study - a study that neither they, or 99% of commenters, are capable of effectively evaluating. Treat them the same as you would that one weird guy who tells you that drinking urine will cure everything that ails you.
• deleted 3y ago
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• Waterluvian 3y ago
  Whenever I read these kinds of stories, I eagerly seek details on what might have caused the cancer. I think it’s very unsettling to imagine that it’s random. I’m not looking to find blame, but to find anything that I can grasp onto as an explanation for why I’m different and I won’t randomly lose an organ or limb. I can’t imagine wanting to live through that horror of detachment, which makes me admire people like Jake who demonstrate an extreme level of courage.
  • andrewvc 3y ago
    That’s natural, I think the same way, but in person try to stick with the here and now. Anyone who’s ever been sick with anything knows that other people often probe with questions and advice that is often unwanted and takes the focus off the sick person.
  • systems_glitch 3y ago
    Read one of his other posts, no family history, no tobacco use, not a heavy drinker. Live every day, folks. That promise of finally getting to do what you want after you retire is cheap and hollow.
  • cinntaile 3y ago
    > I’m not looking to find blame, but to find anything that I can grasp onto as an explanation for why I’m different and I won’t randomly lose an organ or limb. That would be nice but unfortunately the human body doesn't seem to work like that. You can try to live a healthy life but there is no guarantee you'll make it into your eighties.
    • systems_glitch 3y ago
      Friend in college died of some super fast cancer at 21. Navy cadet, high speed, PT superstar. We don't like to think of it that way but it's often just a roll of the dice. Some cosmic ray flips a bit and the immune system was taking a nap that day or something.
  • ctrw 3y ago
    People are living past 30 with startling regularity, when you realize that for most of human history that wasn't the case. Cancers were one a very long list of things that could kill you and no where near the top.
• FredPret 3y ago
  Some good recs in here: Starting Strength How to be a supple leopard Two ideas that are much better together than apart
  • voisin 3y ago
    Interesting! I’ve about six weeks into StrongLifts, based on the Starting Strength program (which I am reading concurrently). What about the Supple Leopard book do you think makes it pair well with SS?
    • pc86 3y ago
      Any flexibility/mobility routine will help new strength come faster, and will help prevent injury. A major source of injury is not completely movements to full range of motion - not squatting below parallel, not locking out at the top of a deadlift, not touching your chest with the bar on a bench press or overhead press, etc. Not everyone has the flexibility/mobility to do that, but you're more prone to injury if you don't. So if you work a mobility program congruently with strength you will gradually get the mobility you need to complete the entire movement and not just part of it.
    • FredPret 3y ago
      Nothing Supple-Leopard specific; just being flexible. I find that if I don't stretch frequently, squatting and deadlifting makes me tighter and tighter over time until I get injured. You can't really get into the right positions, especially at the bottom of those lifts, if you have tight muscles from the waist down.
    • Fluorescence 3y ago
      Mobility is pretty important for compound lifts for both good form and injury prevention. You'll regret getting strong and moving heavy-weight with bad mobility - you get those long term injuries you can't shake because now your own musculature is pulling things out of alignment too. The wrong muscles get activated in movements to overcome mobility flaws and they only get stronger and more dominant so it's like compounding interest on a debt.
  • 3y ago
• andreareina 3y ago
  OP, a plate refers to 90lbs on the bar, i.e. one plate on each side not 45.
  • epiccoleman 3y ago
    I had to go back and reread to find the mistake, because when I saw his mention of 225 I automatically thought "2 plates". My goal when I was lifting seriously was to get to 1/2/3/4 plates on my overhead press, bench, squat, and dead respectively. The middle 2 numbers are easier than the outer two - it's surprising how much harder OHP is to increase than bench. And the 4 plate DL is attainable for sure, I was up to about 365 at my best, and had hit the 315 target for squats - but it takes a long time to build up to 405 incrementally. I've just recently got back on the wagon and it's been interesting to see how much strength I lost - where I was usually squatting in the 225-240 range at my peak, i started back up w? squatting 135 and it was surprisingly difficult. Crazy how much our bodies can change with a little stimulus.
    • pc86 3y ago
      The strength will come back much quicker than it took to attain the first time. I never worked out a day in my life until I was almost 30, and with the exception of the deadlift, all my numbers are quite a bit lower than anyone my same age who worked out even sparingly in their 20s. The people my age who were high school athletes make me look like an old man, and the people my age who were college athletes make me look like an even older woman. I always liken it to blowing up a balloon, you feel a certain amount of resistance the first time, but if you let the air out (lose strength) and blow it up again it's much easier.
      • epiccoleman 3y ago
        Yeah, for sure! I've already experienced that once or twice after other start/stops. I made what felt like relatively quick progress when I first started lifting a few years ago, and I definitely think having been moderately athletic through my youth was a factor. (Never was particularly great at any sport, but at least they kept me in shape!)
• dukeofdoom 3y ago
  I'm kind of curious to what degree lifting weights is actually beneficial. I like lifting weights. But more than once, I've seen very red, almost inflamed looking people that lift weights. not sure if its the meat diet, or if they self select. My cousin died of a Brian aneurism, from a vein that popped due to high blood pressure. He used to get very red in the face. So I think I recognize that look now. There's a youtube channel called Boho beautiful. It's a couple that does yoga videos, and are fit vegans. I would be curious if you did blood work on them, vs a fit weight lifter who would have the better results, and possibly life expectancy. So if you were to chose one life style (meat eating weight lifter) vs Vegan Yoga Training. Which would be better for you. I suspect the vegan yoga would be better.
  • cinntaile 3y ago
    Why would blood work tell you the answer rather than measuring their blood pressure?
    • dukeofdoom 3y ago
      Good point, blood pressure is probably the key indicator. But I also suspect that maintaining a lower body weight is probably better for the cardiovascular system. I watched a video from Brian Johnson, a guy that is spending millions to try and live longer, and get all kinds of tests. The way he measures progress is by comparing how well his organs function vs someone that is younger. I think blood work is big part of that.
  • analog31 3y ago
    This is my thought. For most of us, any exercise is more than what we're actually getting, and the best form is the one you're likely to keep doing. Even people who look unhealthy may be healthier than if they didn't exercise. My main source of exercise, for 40+ years, has been cycling. Therefore I have very little upper body strength. This may be a liability when I get older and start losing that strength, increasing the chances of injury. I personally think that young people should do some strength work in addition to the easy and fun aerobic activities like walking and cycling. The dangers of over training are their own beast, but not a worry for most people.
• pc86 3y ago
  > Eating can be a pleasure or pain, but eating for weight gain isn’t fun, particularly when the weight gain is elusive. I've never been the recipient of cancer surgery or had to undergo this kind of long recovery the author has, but I was a professional nutrition coach in a previous life and I have eaten for weight gain in the traditional weightlifting sense, both "clean bulks" and "dirty bulks" and about everything in between. I would much rather be 30 pounds overweight and try to lose that weight than be 15 pounds underweight and try to gain it. If you're really killing it in the gym, 4-6 days a week, 60-ish minutes of heavy weight training at bulking RPEs of 8-9, and hitting the numbers of sets you need to be for muscle hypertrophy, eating becomes the worst part of your day. The classic "dirty bulk" of a couple big macs and a non-diet soda for lunch is great for the first few days (maybe) but it becomes a chore very quickly, and it's easily 5x worse when you're trying to eat clean and realize your lunch is going to be 2.25 pounds of chicken breast plus multiple normal servings of rice and broccoli. It's a big part of why people bulking end up eating less healthy foods (the caloric density), and seeming eat all day every day (because they do).
  • jacquesm 3y ago
    That's a ridiculous quantity of poultry to consume for an individual.
    • pc86 3y ago
      And pretty common for a clean bulk unless you only weigh 150 pounds or so. If you're in the 200-225 pound range you're probably eating 250-300g of protein a day, which if it's only chicken breast will be approaching 3 pounds daily. To be clear, this is for traditional bulking. And you only really do that if you're trying to get bigger weightlifting numbers for the sake of getting bigger weightlifting numbers. Nobody casually gets a 450 lb backsquat, they do this kind of stuff to get there.
      • jacquesm 3y ago
        That's the food intake of what, 4 or 5 'regular' people? And probably 25 in the poor part of the world. I'm not a vegetarian but I wonder if the people that do this sort of thing realize the impact of what they are doing, it's the equivalent of consuming 1000+ chickens on an annual basis and that's not all they eat. I get it that kids in their teenage years eat a lot because they grow so fast and really need it but this feels excessive to me.
• penjelly 3y ago
  not to be pedantic but > and I was working my deadlift reps towards 225 lbs—four plates, in meathead parlance.[1] in meathead talk that means 2 plates, because they typically count one side only. at least in my experience thats always been the case. so 405lbs deadlift is 4 plates (aside) 8 plates total.
  • geraldwhen 3y ago
    This. I would also call a 145lb squat and 225 deadlift “completely untrained” These aren’t uncommon numbers for someone who has never exercised before.
    • jvanderbot 3y ago
      Well, depends on weight. These are reasonable goals for a 160lb person after a bit of working out. Not a lifetime, but not untrained. Here's the reference I use: https://exrx.net/Testing/WeightLifting/StrengthStandards https://exrx.net/Testing/WeightLifting/StrengthStandards
    • canaus 3y ago
      Sure, a completely untrained 6ft+ 200lbs male. Try to get someone under 150lbs that weight untrained and they’d be immovable objects.
    • IAmGraydon 3y ago
      This sounds like something a scrawny/short little guy would say to compensate. Tell us you’re insecure without telling us you’re insecure. Your other comments are just as laughable. A teenage girl can dead 405? I bet you have a lot of friends :) As someone who does actually understand this topic, no untrained person is going to start squatting at 145 or deadlift at 225 unless they want to injure themselves upfront. They would start both with an empty bar and move up slowly from there once they have the form perfect. Untrained people don’t lift actual weight. From there, most would move to a 75 pound squat and a 95-115 pound deadlift.
      • geraldwhen 3y ago
• shnp 3y ago
  I have a similar story, but not as serious as OP. A couple years ago, out of the blue, I started having almost constant unbearable back pain. Doctors I saw didn't know what it was. Eventually, one of the neurosurgeons, after I showed him an old MRI scan told me it was a cyst in the spine that was 80% of the time asymptomatic and unlikely to have caused the issue. That cyst required surgery and only 3 doctors in the world have done it before. During this time I started to go to the gym and train, and after some time, the pain went away on its own. Not sure if it was because of the better food I was eating or stronger back muscles that got rid of it. Since it's a neurological issue, some postures and chairs still cause pain, but it usually goes away quickly now.
  • kfk 3y ago
    Same here, 14 years lifting, suddenly I had to be in bed for back pain for a week. After that I spent 4 years with backpain and stopped training following the advise of various doctors. Met a guy who does power lifting, we became friends, he is also a phisio and told me to gradually go back to the gym, pain almost disappeared after 6 months. Now I am almost back to lifts I used to do 20 years ago, but I manage pain actively and avoid overdoing it. Most doctors don’t train and don’t understand how mind/body works. Sometimes pain is not linked to a “real” physical problem, then you do MRIs, talk to doctors, and they find a problem somewhere, they always do, but it could have nothing to do with the pain.
• deleted 3y ago
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• dorkwood 3y ago
  One very noticeable effect it has on me is a reduction in anxiety. Lifting weights close to failure for weeks on end tends to put my brain into a state of calm, where things affect me less. When I'm living a more sedentary lifestyle, something as simple as a person not responding to a text message can send me into an anxiety spiral, where I promptly begin imagining all the things I may have done to upset them. When I'm exercising regularly, I'm much more likely to think "oh well, they must be busy", and go about my business. I don't know the exact physical mechanism behind this effect, but I can say that the intensity of the exercise seems to be important. Before starting to lift weights, my primary forms of exercise were walking and casual cycling, and those didn't have anywhere near the same effect.
• mft_ 3y ago
  For me, the most interesting part of that article wasn't related to weight-lifting, but the relatively brief critique on the state of the healthcare system and its inability to provide optimal care for individual patients. Maybe it's confirmation bias, but I strongly agree with Jake's observations; working in a related field, I'm ever-more struck by the absolute inequality of care offered to people. Of course, obvious societal inequalities (e.g. socioeconomic status, age) have an impact here, but there are less obvious issues which can have quite an impact: one's level of education multiplied by confidence to interact with (rather than just be a passenger within) the system can have a big impact. And there's sheer dumb luck, too - being physically located near a good center, or having a good doctor (many aren't) who specialises in your cancer available to you, or even just having an acquaintance who can support and guide with research and advice, can have a 'Sliding Doors'-like impact on the course of someone's life. (If anyone knows meaningful work that's being done to address such issues, I'd be very interested to hear...)
  • dhd415 3y ago
    This is most definitely true, but I think it highlights the mistaken idea that individual healthcare is a commodity. I think we all recognize that an excellent home builder, auto mechanic, attorney, software developer, etc., can have an outsized impact on the outcome of potentially severe or expensive situation but we often put less effort into finding a healthcare provider for a particular malady. I've had some severe negative outcomes from questionably competent, focused-on-billing doctors where I would have been better off not seeing a doctor at all than seeing them. Unfortunately, there's no reliable way to separate the truly skilled doctors from the ones who barely passed their boards.
    • mft_ 3y ago
      Hah, someone IRL gave me a very similar answer. I guess I hold the (idealised) view that doctors and hospitals should be held to higher standards than the other professions you listed, to varying degrees. It's probably also harder make an evidence-based decision about a doctor than some other professions.
• MegaDeKay 3y ago
  > Unfortunately, whatever physical pleasures lifting once brought have dissipated. Now, it’s more chore than not. An important chore, but a chore. It used to be fun. I used to know how to make it fun. I’m sad that that sense of fun is gone, and I’ve not really been able to rekindle it. I definitely understand how this poor fellow would feel this way. Lifting when feeling sick or emotionally / physically tired is not fun. What can help is to mix things up. Doing nothing but squats, bench, overhead press, and deadlifts? Go to a park and do a bunch of bodyweight exercises on the climbinb bars. Switch your barbell routines over to dumbbell workouts - they are generally less neurally taxing and easier to tackle but can still get you plenty strong. Change up sets, reps, weights, and rest periods to add variety. You're not prepping for a meet in two months so specialization is not a paramount concern.
• dukeofdoom 3y ago
  If anyone wants to get into weight lifting, on the aesthetic side. Here's a 4 day split ChatGPT helped me design: Each session is designed to take around 45 minutes: *Day 1: Push (Chest, Shoulders, Triceps)* 1. *Compound Movements:* - Bench Press: 4 sets x 8-12 reps - Overhead Press (Barbell or Dumbbell): 3 sets x 10-15 reps - Incline Dumbbell Flyes: 3 sets x 12-15 reps 2. *Isolation Movements:* - Lateral Raises: 3 sets x 15-20 reps - Tricep Dips: 3 sets x 12-15 reps - Tricep Rope Pushdowns: 3 sets x 15-20 reps 3. *Core Strength Exercise:* - Plank variations: 3 sets x 45 seconds to 1 minute *Day 2: Pull (Back, Biceps)* 1. *Compound Movements:* - Deadlifts: 4 sets x 8-12 reps - Bent Over Rows (Barbell or Dumbbell): 3 sets x 10-15 reps - Pull-ups or Lat Pulldowns: 3 sets x 10-15 reps 2. *Isolation Movements:* - Face Pulls: 3 sets x 15-20 reps - Hammer Curls: 3 sets x 12-15 reps per arm - Barbell or Dumbbell Shrugs: 3 sets x 15-20 reps 3. *Core Strength Exercise:* - Russian Twists: 3 sets x 20 reps per side *Day 3: Legs (Quads, Hamstrings, Calves)* 1. *Compound Movements:* - Squats (Back or Front): 4 sets x 8-12 reps - Romanian Deadlifts: 3 sets x 10-15 reps - Leg Press: 3 sets x 12-15 reps 2. *Isolation Movements:* - Leg Extensions: 3 sets x 15-20 reps - Hamstring Curls: 3 sets x 12-15 reps - Standing Calf Raises: 3 sets x 15-20 reps 3. *Core Strength Exercise:* - Hanging Leg Raises: 3 sets x 12-15 reps *Day 4: Push (Chest, Shoulders, Triceps)* 1. *Compound Movements:* - Overhead Press (Barbell or Dumbbell): 4 sets x 8-12 reps - Push-Ups (weighted if possible): 3 sets x 10-15 reps - Dumbbell Lateral Raises: 3 sets x 12-15 reps 2. *Isolation Movements:* - Tricep Skull Crushers: 3 sets x 12-15 reps - Cable Crossover: 3 sets x 15-20 reps - Close Grip Bench Press: 3 sets x 12-15 reps 3. *Core Strength Exercise:* - Bicycle Crunches: 3 sets x 20 reps per side