This is exactly why there are a decent handful of gym bros up in the top 100 ranked players. There is a surprising overlap in interest in incremental gains digitally and physically.
This is EXACTLY why I hate working out for the sake of working out! What’s the point of that grind? I don’t want to be the meat department from my local mall, and my joints are happy with 30 minutes of fucking about with stretches and some dumbbells.
Working out as part of physical labour, though? Hell yes! Give me a purpose for my flexing those muscles! I could chop wood for a week without stopping!
I’m 48 now, used to be like you. Now I have to do exercises to sort the bits that manual work and sports don’t reach … if I don’t exercise properly I can’t do the manual labour without a lot of pain :-/
It’s not so bad once you get used to it, just put on some pumping music and enjoy the endorphins :-)
Increased muscle mass will improve your quality of life into old age, so I guess that’s a pretty compelling reason to cultivate some.
Getting completely massive requires far less than accidental effort, with quite specific dietary needs and high attention to diet, so unless you’re already doing those, you don’t need to be worried about joining the local mall meat department.
That’s my point, relevant muscle mass increases can be obtained by just generally staying active, with physical labour pushing those numbers into redundancy, even. Daily walk, morning stretches, maybe fling a heavy backpack around for 5 minutes or so, and a balanced diet, and you’re golden.
Daily walk, morning stretches, maybe fling a heavy backpack around for 5 minutes or so, and a balanced diet, and you’re golden.
Bingo.
Yes, you can bulk further with a gym, or if you’re significantly overweight (as the majority of Americans, at least, are), more strenuous excersise can be an important part of getting to a healthy baseline.
But the vast majority of people have no real need for constantly working out. Not saying its just flat out bad or should be abolished or anything like that… but in most cases, for most people its overkill… and then you also have to factor in that if you don’t know what you are doing, you can seriously injure yourself.
A reasonable weekly stretching and workout and cardio routine, and perhaps most importantly, an actually healthy diet… blam, you’ve extended your lifespan by something like 10 years, minimum.
… I am currently crippled and have been doing PT for over a year now. It is fucking painful, but it is working, and well… I’ve already got the diet part figured out, and I can’t wait to be able to return to what was previously my normal, daily, light stretching and workout routine.
IANAD, but according to my doctor the PT (on your own at home) is permanent. 😩 I keep thinking it’s a lie and I’ll be fine skipping it if I’m active, and then wind up on another round of prednisone so that I can actually walk.
Not to discourage you, the PT definitely gets less painful! And if they say you don’t have to keep it up then I’d listen to them. But basically don’t be me and think you can cheat on PT after finishing in person appointments, lol.
I mean, you’re not wrong, but I have been improving significantly… and my PT routine literally is a bunch of stretchs and excercises, just targetting specific muscle groups… which are regaining function.
I know I will need to keep up with these, I’m just trying to say that I am almost at the point where I can get back to my normal routine of walking and more involved stretches and such.
Basically, I have astoundingly severe tendonitis in about half my body, but … seemingly no permanent, completely unrecoverable injuries?
If possible, avoid becoming homeless and then walking 2000 miles in 9 months. Do not recommend, 0 stars out of 5.
But uh, none of the tendons or muscles seem to be utterly torn apart, and my bone fractures have since healed. I got basically my entire body xrayed once I finally managed to set up a new bank account and health insurancd.
I haven’t like… lost a limb, or suffered irrecoverable nerve damage… and I know I will almost certainly never 100% get back to normal…
But if I ‘have to’ keep up with routine PT, thats fine, I’m trying to say that I look forward to that, to being able to do the same excersises with less and less pain, and then be able to get back to my normal ‘PT’ / excersize routine.
I used to do Karate, did it for 10+ years, have a black belt… I am no stranger to regular physical activity and pain, lol.
I was in a wheel chair a year ago.
Now I can get around with a cane.
That would be ideal but many people just don’t have opportunity to do that. I sit on my ass 8 hours a day for my job, not cultivating mass there. Have to add physical labor that doesn’t accomplish anything other than the labor itself.
I work 9 hours a day, but cycle a pedal bike in at relatively high speed while stopping at all the lights. That comes to about 30 minutes (25 moving) of 170+bpm exercise each way, so 50 minutes per day. Even after showering, that’s comparable timewise to how long it’d take on public transport (20 mins walk & 20 on trains, so not much longer outside either), and you remove the need to pay for a gym subscription (as long as you’re ok being built like a t-rex).
Even if you don’t have showers in the workplace, you can go easy on the way in and hard on the way back for a still significant effect.
I partially agree with you, in that it’s easy to not get enough exercise. I disagree in that it’s not that hard to get it, either.
Had a desk job, too, but I’d just walk around with my laptop in my hand if I didn’t have a lot of typing to do (list management, ticket management, etc.). Usually did this while I had meetings, too. If it was a Daily, I’d get a cheat sheet in hand and do laps through my apartment with my headset. Same when it was a huddle, or brainstorm, or something informal like that, I’d usually handle the laundry (while dancing around and putting an extra flourish and flex to everything - I do this pretty much all the time while doing stuff at home).
I also took that one hour for lunch even while working from home and used it to take a walk. Used to eat while reading documentation, anyway…
In addition to this, it is vital to take that 10-minute break every hour, which I did, and used it either to stretch, or to do intensive stuff around the house (I always try to do chores faster and faster for the physical effort).
define “for the sake of working out” I guess
I work out because I have to schedule my breaks away from my screen during my work day because I’m busy, and I don’t want to spend my entire life sitting down stationary
Basically, any significant and/or scheduled time spent doing physical exercises, without it being for the purposes of physical therapy and such. Going to the gym, in short, or home work-out routines.
I fully accept this as a quirk of my psychology, but I’d rather do anything - anything! - other than running on a treadmill, or pumping iron, or what have you.
However, I do compensate for this in my general behaviour, I’m fidgety and active. I always skip, or hop, or stretch, or flex when doing stuff like checking Lemmy on my phone, or texting someone, I always put in more effort when doing chores, or try to do them faster and faster (I like things which pose a challenge to my dexterity), I dance or contort around the house randomly, etc. And stretching in general is closer to a reflex than anything else, which is why I, personally, don’t consider it a work-out.
I’m still a little lost on what does and does not count. You mentioned not wanting to run a treadmill, but what about running on a quiet street or a trail or path? What about if someone is training for a marathon, or to improve their 5k PB at their local Parkrun? Is that “working out for the sake of working out”? Or does having the extrinsic goal change the equation somehow? Does it change if instead of running, the sport they’re training for is triathlon? What if it’s weightlifting? Or they want to have sufficient fitness to be a valuable member of their casual Touch team?
You don’t even get a cool cape. :(
Oh, don’t even get me started on capes! I’ve finally caved in and started playing Elder Scrolls Online and it doesn’t have capes! How does that make sense, every single Elder Scrolls title has a billion different cape mods, how could they not learn from that? Friggin WoW has capes!!!
When I get to working out I don’t want to be bulky at all, just work out for my own health and to be strong. Also I don’t believe you can get that massive by just working out and eating protein, you gotta use some drugs for that.
The bulk was just an extra qualifier, my point was gyms/working out make my brain melt out of sheer boredom.
The prayer room next to fire pit at the gym does this no favours.
