[mysterypie]

> I urge everyone here to take up lifting

Everyone I've spoken to got into lifting because they think it gets girls. They won't admit it directly or perhaps realize it themselves, but a series of questions leads to women: Of all types of exercise, why weights? -> So then why do you need to be toned? -> OK, then why do you need to look good in a T-shirt, or at bars, or in your profile pic? -> Because women like it.

Probably there are some fraction of women for whom this is an important factor in choosing men. Since I see many beautiful women choosing men with average physiques, I'm going to say that being highly muscled is not an important factor for most women.

NOTE: I'm not questioning exercise in general, cardiovascular fitness, being healthy, being free of disease, and not being overweight. All those are very important. I'm saying that of all the efficient ways of exercising, many people seem to pick lifting because of the misguided agenda that it attracts women.

[oskarth]

Perhaps this is more a function of your social group than anything else. Of the three people I know that got into lifting (including myself, one woman and two men, all in long-terms relationships at the time), none did it to "get girls", but in order to be stronger (as opposed to just looking strong a la hypertrophy/bodybuilding).

Why be stronger? Many reasons, but it boils down to health and being strong enough to do activities that you otherwise wouldn't be able to do, both now (such as hiking or cross-country skiing) but also 30-50 years from now (not breaking a hip bone when you fall in the shower, for example).

For me, lifting heavy weights is a great counterpoint to spending time sitting still in front of a screen. Humans weren't made for that, and most humans nowadays are, to put it simply, weak (compared to what we were evolutionary selected for). As much as we would like to, we aren't just brains on a stick, we are also animals with physical demands.

[alextgordon]

For men, cardiovascular health is most important aspect, heart disease being the largest cause of death[1].

While lifting weights is better than no exercise at all, it is not that effective. There are certainly many people who enthusiastically lift and are still fat and unhealthy. The same cannot be said for running enthusiasts.

Anyway, it's your right to do whatever form of exercise makes you happiest, but if someone is legitimately concerned about their health, they should start by running/cycling, etc.

[1]: http://visual.ons.gov.uk/what-are-the-top-causes-of-death-by...

[dpark]

> There are certainly many people who enthusiastically lift and are still fat and unhealthy. The same cannot be said for running enthusiasts.

That's mostly because running when you're overweight is murder on your joints. There are, on the other hand, plenty of overweight cycling enthusiasts.

I've rarely seen truly overweight people who spend much time lifting weights. Overweight people in general are not exercising much unless making intentional and significant progress toward the not-overweight category.

With that said, some people do lift enthusiastically and are happy to stay an a somewhat higher weight because they prefer to be "bigger", but these are not typically obese people. They're generally on the upper end of normal or slightly into "overweight" BMI, which is misleading/inaccurate for people carrying significant muscle anyway. Carrying some extra fat is also less of a concern for people who are doing significant amounts of exercise (cardio or strength). Sedentary and skinny is probably not healthier than active and chunky.

It's also worth noting that you can lift "enthusiastically" for 30-60 minutes 3 times/week and accomplish a lot. If you're a running enthusiast, you're sinking a lot more time in it than that unless you're actually doing sprints (which is more similar to weight lifting than it is jogging). Running enthusiasts are doing things like training for marathons/half marathons, which is a huge time sink.

[ruraljuror]

Do you have a source that shows lifting is not as effective for improving cardiovascular health as endurance exercise? Also keep in mind that endurance exercise in and of itself has a risk of heart attack while similar deaths are virtually unheard of in lifting. Most deaths from lifting are due to solo bench pressing and suffocstion, while many more people die on cardio machines. At least that is what I read in the book The New Rules of Lifting. I don't have it in front of me for the source.

[kbutler]

Happily married for 20 years. Definitely not doing it to "get girls". Health, longevity, stress reduction, facilitate physical work and recreation, etc.

Did some resistance training a few years ago - felt good, lost fat while doing it.

Shifted to cardio for a few years with an employee sponsored cardio-centric wellness program. Experienced a gradual fat gain and knee and back pain, although I was running 20-30 miles per week, using far too much time per week.

Shifting back to weights the last few months. Not being very rigorous, but doing the exercises in "Starting Strength". Back pain* and knee pain now very infrequent. Strength is increased. Some muscle definition improvement (though lots of excess fat still).

* Lower back pain actually made me very hesitant to do deadlifts. I started with the bar and the very lightest weights and gradually progressed, being VERY cautious about strain on the lower back. I'm only dead lifting ~200 lbs at this point, but my back is much happier.

[koide]

What I don't get about this comment, and many others, is why do you have to choose one type or the other. I believe a varied exercise plan will be more helpful than just focusing on a single exercise type.

Run one day, lift for upper body the next day, HIIT the third day, abs and light cardio the fourth day, lower body lift the fifth, rest day and go for a bike ride on Sunday.

Sites like fitnessblender.com can help you get there. (I've been mentioning them in these threads because I love them, the changes in my body and most importantly, in what can I do with my body have been nothing short of amazing in a relatively short amount of time)

[kbutler]

The Starting Strength book recommends that to maximize your strength gains, on your rest days, you really do /rest/. This facilitates recovery, and muscle growth and strength increase happen when resting, rather than when exercising.

I occasionally run/cycle/hike/shovel snow/etc. as well, but working for the three weight lifting workouts per week. I'm not faithfully "doing the program", but incorporating elements that work for me into my life.

[koide]

There's probably a comma missing in my sentence, I meant, if starting the routine on Monday, rest day on Saturday and in Sunday go for a ride.

I agree rest days should be rest days. I've paid the price of not resting a couple of times too many already.

[briHass]

For deadlifts, you might want to look into a hex bar (aka trap bar.) It moves the position of your hands to directly in line with your shoulders, which greatly reduces the shearing force placed on your spine.

As a tall guy, it feels much more natural and 'safe' for me. I've also switched to doing more warmup sets for my deadlift with increasing weight ranges. If any of those lighter weights feel 'off' that day, I abort the heavy sets. I also avoid testing my 1RM frequently...I'm content to add 5 pounds every time I can get through 3x5 at my heavy sets weight. I'm in my mid 30s, so safety is the name of the game for me.

[dpark]

The hex bar also pretty much turns a deadlift into a squat and eliminates a lot of the benefit. My back feels a lot better when I deadlift regularly, specifically because it's doing a lot of the work.

[ryanmonroe]

Think of the men that women tend to lust after on a large scale e.g. celebrities. How many of those men are more muscular than the average male? How many are much more muscular? Take a look at the all-time top scoring pics on the "ladyboners" subreddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/LadyBoners/top/ Of those men whose body is showing in the picture, how many have muscles significantly more developed than the average male? 75%? 85%? I'm not particularly "built" myself, but I think it's extremely misguided to suggest women don't, on average, prefer muscular men (all other traits being equal). Obviously you don't have to be muscular to attract women, there are very few desirable qualities which are actually necessary to attract a partner. That doesn't mean it doesn't help, all else equal.

[branchless]

Why are the women you say are beautiful "beautiful"? Because they are physically fit and have good child-bearing markers.

We are hard-wired for this.

That said I utterly agree with the other poster's assessment of the benefits of exercise - less stress, better sleep.

[mysterypie]

> [beautiful women] are physically fit

Being muscular is neither a necessary or sufficient condition for being physically fit. And in fact most beautiful women are beautiful despite not lifting weights, so why should lifting weights be a factor in the attractiveness of men. (I will grant that some women do want muscular men, but I don't think it's that big a factor for most women.)

> benefits of exercise - less stress, better sleep

Note again: I don't dispute that exercise is very important. I'm commenting only about the motivation for lifting as the choice of exercise.

[branchless]

Nobody said "muscular". They are physically fit.

This discussion is just silly. Most men don't like fat women and most women don't like fat men because they will get caught by predators / can't catch food. Like most men you trotted out the "beauty" bit because men never see the asymmetry in women not seeing fat men "for who they truly are" whilst wanting the babe themselves.

[dpark]

> Being muscular is neither a necessary or sufficient condition for being physically fit.

"Fit" for men is fairly muscular, because moderate amounts of physical effort by a man will result in some muscles. "Fit" for women is not muscular, because women do not put on muscle easily the way that men do.

Fit for men doesn't mean looking like a body builder, but it also doesn't mean having the same muscle mass as a woman of equal height.

> so why should lifting weights be a factor in the attractiveness of men.

Because strength is masculine. The standard for masculine attractiveness is basically unchanged for millenia. Look at ancient Greek statues. The idealized male physique is muscular and lean. This physique indicates health and athletic ability, and therefore good genetics as well as good ability to provide and protect.

> I will grant that some women do want muscular men, but I don't think it's that big a factor for most women.

Women will marry physically unfit men, and ugly men, and also mean men, and men with all kinds of other negative traits. That doesn't mean that these aren't factors in women's choices. It means that 1) you can't generalize from "some women" to "most women" just because it fits with your narrative, and 2) women can look past any factor if other factors outweigh it (men can do the same).

I'm short. I don't pretend that height isn't a factor in attractiveness to women, though. It's a huge factor, despite the fact that some (even many) women marry short men.

[dpark]

> but a series of questions leads to women

You could run through the same questions for cardio and land at the same result. Of all types of exercise, why running? -> So why do you need to be thin? -> Ok, then why do you need to look good? -> Because women like it.

Getting fit is, for most people, an issue of both health and attractiveness. People who chose weights might be leaning more toward the attractiveness issue, or they might believe it's the healthier option, or they might simply enjoy it more.

For me personally, I lift weights (though I've really slacked off again lately) because it makes me feel better in ways that cardio does not. My back feels much better. My posture improves. I'm stronger. These are the main reasons I prefer weights to running now.

[grecy]

> Everyone I've spoken to got into lifting because they think it gets girls.

I think it's common for a lot of guys to start lifting for that reason, especially when they're younger. Lifting helps immensely with posture, confidence, overall happiness, energy levels, etc. etc. which does actually help "get girls", even if you don't get "jacked".

As time goes on, that becomes less important and all the other benefits shine through. The reason I've been lifting for 10 years is because of how it makes me feel - I walk out of the gym feeling a million bucks, I sleep like a rock, and my neck/back never give me trouble.

[furyofantares]

> NOTE: I'm not questioning exercise in general, cardiovascular fitness, being healthy, being free of disease, and not being overweight. All those are very important. I'm saying that of all the efficient ways of exercising, many people seem to pick lifting because of the misguided agenda that it attracts women.

Most people seem to find it moderately to extremely difficult to exercise regularly. So I think you're looking at this wrong. Any time someone manages to stick with a regular exercise routine, my default assumption is that they stick with it because, for whatever reason, that is an exercise they are _able_ to stick with. The reasons they exercise are all the benefits you listed, the reason they choose a particular exercise is because they can find the motivation to do that particular exercise.

Maybe in your social group, being able to fantasize about being toned and hooking up in bars is a key component to being able to lift regularly, but -- and I know I am hypothesizing about people you know and I don't -- I would guess the first reasons they want to exercise regularly are all the benefits you listed, and the reason they stick with this particular exercise is because they are able to. So, OK, perhaps they are able to stick with it only because of the vision of being toned -- that's roughly your conclusion, as far as I can tell, but I think the perspective matters.

However, you also listed leading questions that lead directly to your conclusion that it's just about hooking up. Ask about what exercises their friends do, and you might find they have friends that lift, that it's a social commonality that helps them to keep exercising, or that they lift with friends. Ask about metrics and it might be that they find the metrics they can keep on lifting to be more motivational than they find metrics in other exercises. Ask about how they got started and you might find that this was just the first exercise where they found good information or a good mentor to start with that helped them feel competent and accomplished and helped them form a habit. What keeps people doing something is a lot more complex than can be divined by asking a few leading questions and coming to a conclusion that the interviewee won't directly agree with.

[khalilravanna]

While I think there are a lot of people who do it for this reason : making themselves seem more appealing to others, I think a lot of people do it for the right reason too: to look better for oneself and to be healthier.

I personally started lifting in college because I thought it was fun and was sick of being super skinny (6' 130lbs). I wanted to be stronger and healthier because lord knows the rest of my time was spent programming, playing video games, or drinking. And I think that's the key, you should be working out for yourself not for others. Do it because you want to look better for yourself, do it because you want to be healthier.

(Anecdotally, I didn't notice that girls found me any more or less attractive after working out and putting on 20 lbs of muscle. That would be have been shitty if that was my end goal.)

[mordocai]

Lifting is actually very efficient and having more muscle can help for lots of everyday tasks.

I think you are just hanging out with the wrong people if all (or even most) of the people you know who lift are doing it for "girls"

[mysterypie]

> having more muscle can help for lots of everyday tasks

When I've discussed the motivation with weight-lifting friends, they bring up that very point. Then I ask them to give an example of something they did with their strength today or in the last month, that I couldn't have done just as easily (I'm average strength).

After long thought they come up contrived examples like, I had to lift my motorbike to change a tire one time, or last year I gave my daughter a piggyback ride for an hour at a parade so she could see better.

[tsuraan]

Well, since I started working out regularly two years ago, I've definitely noticed that shoveling snow is a lot easier. I've always been able to slog through it, but I'd be sore afterwards. Now, I can clear the driveway, remove the snowplow's gift at the end, and clear the debris from my neighbor's driveway without any trouble. It's nice.

FWIW, my motivation for working out is to be better at parkour. It's helped a ton for that, but most people don't do that sort of thing regularly. Being good at shoveling snow is just great.

[dpark]

> After long thought they come up contrived examples

Probably because you put them on the spot. I can give you several examples off of when additional strength would be useful to me in day-to-day:

  * Loading jugs of water onto the water dispenser
  * Loading my daughter's stroller into the back of the car (somewhat heavy, very awkward)
  * Carrying large/heavy boxes to/from the basement
  * Loading heavy items (e.g. stand mixer) into overhead cabinets
  * Pulling salal from my flower beds (deep, extensive roots make this a  major chore)
  * Carrying an Aeron chair up/down the stairs (I've done this several times)
  * Moving heavy furniture
  * Moving wooden sheet goods (plywood, MDF)
  * Hanging my bike overhead for storage
  * Holding heavy light fixtures overhead for installation

These are all real things that I've dealt with, some very frequently. These can all be done by a man of average strength, but they are all things done much more easily by a man of above-average strength. There are many, many cases where general strength is helpful in day-to-day life.

[ryanmonroe]

I'm all for people working to improve their body, and there are many good reasons to weight-lift, but the idea that an average person might rationally choose to weight-lift in order to reduce their day to day struggle with putting strollers in cars and bringing boxes up from the basement is really just absurd. If your objective is to encounter the limits of your strength less often, paying for membership to a gym and going there multiples times a week to exert maximum effort in moving objects so heavy you can only pick them up a few times at once is clearly not the thing to do.

[dpark]

> If your objective is to encounter the limits of your strength less often

Less often in day-to-day life. Hitting your limits in the gym means that you don't hit your limits in day-to-day life as easily, so when you need to move a loaded bookshelf, or pick up your spouse and carry them across a threshold, or whatever, it's not a problem.

It's exactly like running so that when you need to run, you can. Want to make it easier to sprint when you need to catch the bus? Sprint more in general. Want to make it easier to climb the 5 floors of stairs to your office? Climb 50 on the weekends.

It's also exactly like anything else you would ever practice for. Need to do complex math at work that you don't understand? You should probably study. Annoyed that you suck at the piano? Spend time practicing at night. Is your broken Italian not satisfactory to you? Spend time speaking Italian.

It's not absurd to spend time and effort improving an area you want to improve. We practice specifically so we can perform when we need to.

(Also, the muscle mass put on when younger has a huge impact on quality of life when older. Strong people hold up better to aging in general. You might not have trouble lifting a 45lb jug of water now. Do you want to have trouble with that when you're 65, 75, 85? Putting on additional muscle early makes it easier to retain a healthy amount of muscle later in life.)

[Lawtonfogle]

Weekly examples are moving large electronics. Maybe it is just psychological, but it feels as if I have far better control moving heavy bulky things the stronger I am. They are still bulky and not easy to move in tight spaces, but they are easier than they use to be. I also do some outside work (more seasonal), but things like chopping firewood, removing trees after storms, and the like are easier.

Finally, I'm better at taking all my groceries in with a single trip.

[kbutler]

Last month I went on a technical canyoneering & rappelling trip through slot canyons in Zion National Park with a bunch of teenagers.

Last week I was moving 150lb barrels of chicken feed.

This month, shoveling snow for myself and multiple elderly neighbors.

Mid-forties, desk job. Weight lifting helped.

The daughter piggyback example is interesting - my initial experience with back pain came when playing with my toddler daughter several years ago. "Threw out my back". Yes, strength helps with everyday tasks.

[koide]

Yesterday dropped something behind a bookshelf I had never been able to move by myself, not even when empty.

Guess what? Could lift it up, picked the dropped item, found a couple more that had been lost months ago, and put it back into place.

Additionally, the feeling of accomplishment is awesome, being able to do things you could never do before is just incredible.

[isolate]

You can walk bookshelves if you tilt to one side and rotate, then tilt to the other side and rotate. Just in case you ever lose those muscles... hey, it happens!

[koide]

Sure, but even that doesn't work when there's the right combination of being too weak and the shelf being too heavy.

[TeMPOraL]

Maybe this is a case where geek interests and casual interests converge. Some people may literally be doing for chicks. Personally, I'm about to start because a) I want to be healthier (= longer life and better life quality in old age) and stronger (= more capabilities), and b) because it's efficient. I have shit ton of things I'd love to do in little time that's left after dealing with work and other people, so I want to minimize time spent on things that I don't care about per se, but only seek their outcomes.

Oh, and c), I heard it helps with depression.