Fitness

I try to do some daily bodyweight exercises in form of sit-ups & pushups and cardio usually by cycling.

I listen to podcasts during any kind of exercise. Unless I am playing with someone. My favorite sports are Tennis and Football. And skiing/snowboarding when season is right.

I try to not sit for prolonged times (by using a standing desk or taking breaks). Going on walks or cycling for a bit always resets my mind.

Sergey Kharkow has the ideal body type in my eyes but it's a lot of effort to get/maintain it. Fitness Wiki is a great read.

Andy Galpin's interview is insightful.

Notes

• Exercise helps make better use of the foods you are eating and produces the hormones you need to think clearly.
• It's been shown that the timing of your meals and more specifically your protein intake, doesn't make any difference to the growth of your muscles. Just get adequate protein and calories throughout the day, though you might want to eat something post workout anyway for energy.
• Massive calorie surplus isn't making you put on muscle any faster and is just being turned into fat. And that makes sense. There is only so much muscle you can actually build naturally every week/month/year. Extra calories beyond what will be used for that muscle growth aren't going to increase that limit.
• If you want a correlation between sitting at a desk and building strength to offset that, look at squats in all it's forms, and hamstring and quad dominant exercises. Your lower body is in much more trouble than your lower back from sitting at a computer. Hipflexer stretches with resistance bands will also do you wonders.
• Exercise is good for you, and what that exercise looks like is almost completely unimportant. Do what you enjoy and can sustain. If you have ten minutes in the morning, do HIIT. If you have an hour after work and want to get out of the house, go jogging or ride a bike. Anything is better than nothing.
• Your muscles do not distinguish resistance from external weights or from your own bodyweight.
• Try to walk outdoors every day. This is safe for almost every body and has been proven to help with depression. To give yourself those daily small wins, you gotta set the bar really low. I mean REALLY low, and then bask in pride when you hit your target.
• Cardio and body weight exercise train different qualities. Doing both would be better. I think endorphin release is higher with aerobic, same for increase in energy. Cardio is also better for anxiety. 2-3 sessions a week full body is better when starting. Bulking usually depend on your food intake. At maintenance, you wouldn't gain any weight. Fatigue from running is either because you do too much volume, or don't eat enough. You could bulk with 2-3 sessions/week, then drop to 1 session once you reach a weight/aesthetic you like. Cardio can help you lose or maintain weight, as it seems not to make you hungry.
• Most people are failing at the basics of training and diet but will then overwhelm themselves with these types of articles. Train close to failure(1-3 reps within), progressively overload, train a muscle 2-3x a week, do 6-12 reps, and do a decent amount of volume. There’s really no need to make it more complicated then that for beginners and intermediates. Sure you can do less reps, higher reps, periodisation etc. But those are good guidelines for a beginner.
• Volume is usually determined as reps x sets. But you only count the actual working/challenging sets not the warmups. General consensus is 10-20 sets per muscle group per week. If you look at the recommended routine it’s 6 sets per workout per upper body muscle group x 3 days = 18 sets per week. So that fits in nicely. If you’d only train a muscle once per week you’d probably do 4 exercises. At the end of the day it all works, higher frequency is slightly better though.
• Underestimated benefit of working out is increased mental resiliency. Make the hardest part of your day in the gym and everything else is easier in comparison.
• Moving on uneven ground lights up all kinds of places in the brain, and requires a brain/body feedback loop that is pretty impressive in bipeds. it's one of the best things you can do to keep your brain active as you age (face-to-face conversations with a group is another).
• Hiking is a great brain workout. Your brain needs blood and lots of it, so a healthy cardiovascular system (especially clean carotid arteries) is vital to brain health. In addition the act of navigating uneven terrain forces your smaller stabilizing muscles and your brain to work harder, planning for and reacting to what's under your feet and what's coming up. there are also mental benefits to being out in nature and to navigating unfamiliar terrain.

Links

• How to Build Muscle
• Workout Prep
• Strength Training
• The Fitness Wiki - Wiki and hub for fitness information. (FAQ)
• r/Fitness Basic Beginner Routine
• Running Tips (2019) (HN)
• Recommended Body Weight Routine
• BodyWeightStrength - Series of videos designed to take anyone form absolute beginner to a strong, functional physique with minimal equipment.
• What is the Most Brutal Training Program?
• 50 Ironmans, 50 Days, 50 States | James Lawrence (2019)
• Muscle Wiki - Select a muscle and it provides you with exercises to workout the selected muscle. (Reddit) (HN)
• Peloton - Workouts Streamed Live & On-Demand.
• How walking makes us healthier, happier and brainier (2019) (HN)
• tapiriik - Sync your runs, rides & more. (Code)
• Effect of exercise training for five years on all cause mortality (2020) (HN)
• Concept2 indoor rowing machines
• Melissa Wood Health
• The Feminine Physique: On Women's Bodybuilding (HN)
• A Guide to Metabolic Fitness (2020)
• Shona Vertue Fitness
• How fit can you get from just walking? (HN)
• THENX
• Chris Heria
• 10 Best Exercises To Build Muscle (2021)
• How much fitness can be achieved with simple home routines? (2021)
• Finding a Habitual EVERY DAY routine. Rest days mess me up (2021)
• How do I live a more active life outside of my purposeful exercise? (2021)
• What sport can I master in 4-8 years and make it to the Olympic?
• What kind of progress has been achieved by people who train consistently every single day? (2021)
• A walk in nature is better than microdosing (2021) (HN)
• RoutineDB - Community sourced fitness routine database. (HN)
• Barry’s - Best Workout In The World.
• Is Workout Volume Actually Killing Your Gains?
• What is the best way to lose body fat without losing so much muscle? (2021)
• Skadefri - Evidence-based resource developed for anyone who engage in or facilitate sport.
• FitHero - Gym Workout Tracker.
• Acute aerobic exercise to recover from mental exhaustion (HN)
• Apart from diet and exercise, What increased your energy levels drastically (2022)
• Do you lose muscle when you eat enough protein but don’t work out?
• FitTrackee - Simple self-hosted workout/activity tracker.
• How to Walk (12 miles a day) (HN)
• How do I go from skinny fat to a lean build?
• How to Do a Handstand: Get Your First Handstand in 30 Days (2022)
• Dr. Andy Galpin: How to Build Strength, Muscle Size & Endurance | Huberman Lab Podcast (2022)
• Introduction to Fitness: Technical Book on Fitness (Code)
• Can I get the "gym shape" without going to the gym?
• 70 Pages of Fitness Notes - A Collection (Reddit)