Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by AppeasingRoko 3273 days ago
An entirely sedentary lifestyle has incredibly high mortality. Similarly so for extreme exercise/steroid abuse.

By definition, there is a point in between which maximises longevity on average. This may not be the same as the point which maximises quality of life.

How exactly does exercise "damage all your parts"? You need proof to back up that bizarre claim. Humans are evolutionarily designed to be long distance athletes.

2 comments

A LOT of functions of your body work by simply accepting damage and working around it. That's how your muscles build strength: first cells overexert themselves and a portion of them die. If this happens a few times the other cells will overcompensate while replacing them and you become stronger, up to a point.

Both processes have both short term and long term cost and accelerate senescence. More cells need more replacing under normal circumstances and this is limited by your genes. The absolute number of cells that will ever get replaced in your muscles is strictly limited in what is probably a measure against cancer. So increasing strength in muscles brings the day you get cancer forward. Not by much.

To a point this can be a worthwhile trade off, as it improves other aspects of your body.

But if you need or use food additives, or, god help you, steroids, you're far past that point.

In the short term over exerting muscles releases toxins, and over taxes your liver, heart, sometimes lungs, pancreas, and more. Needless to say this can trigger problems, and cause cell death in those organs too.

And lastly physically stressing your body can and will of course damage it. Even when there aren't large scale injuries there is damage. Any exercise will cause blood vessel ruptures. Will cause cell deaths due to crushing. It will bend or reshape your bones. Minimally, but nonzero. Of course, having a bmi of 35 will do cause more of this stress.

Lifting weights literally shreds the muscle fibers. You eat to recover the damage your body underwent. Diet is 80%. Exercise is 10%. Sleep is 10%.