Articles / opinions like these used to be very detrimental for accomplishing anything for me. In real life it's not that important that you do the ideal thing, the biggest issue is not doing anything at all. Partly because of being obsessed about finding the ideal thing. Doing squats regularly is an order of magnitude better than spending a lot of time figuring out the ideal and then doing it infrequently.
I now exercise a lot more than before and other than paying attention to not causing an injury, I do not care at all about doing optimal things. It's a big motivator to start when I know I can just do whatever I like at that moment in time.
While I generally agree with what you say, specifically with squats its a bit more tricky. Especially if you use additional weights, but even just body weight for sedentary or bigger injury recovery person.
There are numerous ways how to mess up your body with squats, spine and knees are major source of focus if you do squats improperly. The problem is, injury may not reveal itself immediately with some snap and pain, but rather in few hours/next day, or even worse it can take many months of continuous joint degradation without a hint. A prime example would be ie weighted squats with knees not stretching out but inward, or putting too much weight in front of your feet and toes (when most weight should be handled by heel, many bulked up folks in gyms literally put some plank on floor and stand on edge of it on heels while squatting).
In fact, in regular weightlifting, squats are by some considered too injury-prone to advise to beginners, at least not without some good supervision. Deadlifts, another massively compound exercise (meaning it activates many many muscles/tissues in the body, many of them as stabilizers) is considered safer. You can lift literally a grocery bag or random stone if you want, doesn't matter as long as you keep the good form.
I personally am huge fan of squats, but I am not a beginner anymore. I don't put massive weight, rather light and many repetitions, that's much better training for real life usage like sports. I don't have mental issues that I work around by getting uselessly massive, cca lean reasonably muscular strong body with lot of endurance is much better for anything in real life. Lunges are great too and IIRC safer, I use them without weights for warmups, the longer the steps the better.
I agree, but I specifically said other than paying attention to injuries. Also, the article is about wall squats, I guess these are not done with weights.
But the part about deadlift brings me again to my point. When I started working out about two years ago, a friend gave me a few tips and this included squats, and no deadlift. So to this day, it stayed like that. In the past I would've spent way too much time figuring out what is better for beginners, and probably wouldn't have done anything. Now I have a routine, so I am thinking about trying out some more things, or checking for tips on how to do existing things better etc. Slow and steady works really well for me.
Sort of related, it always surprises me how little we teach our children about the importance of exercise (why we need muscles, how we move them to protect the joints) and nutrition (why we eat macronutrients, what vitamins and proteins do in our body).
Most of school sports is pretty horrible and they barely teach you anything useful (in germany). But rather way too many dangerous exercises, like rolling over the head or standing on the head with little guidance, etc.
All the important bits, I learned somewhere else, mostly in martial arts.
How to savely fall. How to control your breathing to relax or engage. How to stand or sit for a longer time, but not getting uncomfortable. Being conscious of your body and listen to it.
I almost killed myself on high school gym classes on this, if you combine it with subtle lunge forward, and end up hitting your head&neck perpendicularly to the ground. Vertebras shifted in my neck, doctor said if 1cm more I would be dead on spot. Absolutely stupid and useless exercise for school gym classes, I am pretty sure it creates tons of issues with neck, head and back decades down the road.
But try to bring yoga (without the spiritual aspects, just workouts) into gym classes and in primitive societies like back home in eastern Europe, and religious fanatics with a lot of political power will go nuts and fight it like Satan's coming (and of course they won).
It really depends on your teachers tbh. I had loads of poorly formed sport teachers, 2 that were OK, one who was great (he was an ex-professional diver and I think that's why he was great.)
Nutrition or diet is very important if not the most important thing and then just do a couple hours of walking at a fast pace (3+mph). If you add in a gram of nicotinic acid aka vit b3 that gives you the sunburn effect, you can end up with a six pack, but your risk of oesteomalacia (putty bones) will increase with the nicotinic acid. I know I've done it in the past.
My idea of heaven is wake up, a blast in the car to the gym (which I used to have all to my self so could bang the tunes on nice and loud) , exercise to exhaustion one or two sets on each machine, then back home for a cooked breakfast.
So today, that would be living somewhere near the nordschleife, wake up, a lap around the nordschleife, then hit the gym then have breakfast. You'll be buzzing all day!
Problem is, as we age we need to get the body back to what it was like in our teens and twenties chemistry wise to enjoy that sort of adrenalin fuelled routine. I say the nordschleife because its a very long track 7-8mins to complete, most of the race tracks which we can drive our cars around (assuming they would be open first thing in the morning) are they are too short 2-3mins and don't have the same adrenalin inducing effect imo. Get that adrenalin pumping then hit the gym for a massive short but intense work out. Give it 6months and you will end up craving to run where you can then run for miles on the running machine with ease.
And here is is why I say you need to get the nutrition right, the number of military personnel with fubar knees is an embarrassment and disgrace to the so called medical experts. Alcohol will accelerate the decline in your knees and hips.
I havent tried injecting myself with an epi pen as a substitute for driving around a race track yet, but that might work as well!
And potassium is great for lowering blood pressure and slowing up a racing heart. If you present in A&E with a racing heart, they will inject a potassium solution into the vein on you left shoulder/chest which goes directly to the heart and that will slow up your heart rate and lower you blood pressure, but dont do this at home, just find a drink with potassium in, or some off the shelf medical lozenge with lots of potassium in.
While I don't doubt the value in finding the very best percentile in something, at the end of the day this is very much yak shaving. As the article admits, regardless of the exercise, these are relatively small drops when looking at the bigger picture. The general problem we need to find good answers for is that as a society, on average we just don't move enough.
The general problem we need to find good answers for is that as a society, on average we just don't move enough.
And in general, folks dismiss some of the easier ways to do this. Walkable and bike-friendly cities. Fare-free mass transport (gotta walk to bus stops). Electric bicycles that require foot pedaling (folks are more likely to use them when they have the electric assist vs a regular bicycle). Taking care of walking/biking infrastructure (sidewalks to little if you don't treat them as well as the roads). Heck, we could make gyms affordable too. Reasonable work hours - for everyone - that allow for time to move would be a bonus as well.
We aren't even teaching folks how to do this stuff in ways that even poor folks in studio apartments or rented rooms can do. I spent more time learning parts of the body, the dangers of sex, and rules for sports than I did anything that would lead to lifelong health and strength and I doubt that has been fixed now.
These aren't cure-alls, but pushes folks in the right direction. It at least should work better than the shaming we do now.
There is one more thing: a culture of sitting for white-collar jobs. This is changing, but very slowly. When you are not WFH and say you are on a meeting, everybody is expected to be sitting. Even if it takes hours. If you start to move everybody is giving you looks and finally someone in a senior position will tell you, "Sit down, you are distracting others".
And of course offices when you can move while working are still a minority. It looks like we brought this upon ourselves.
Also it talks about planking for 2 minutes. Several studies have suggested that for most people there is little point in this due to diminishing returns. Two one-minute planks with rest between, or four 30-second ones (and so on) if you can't do a full minute, are far more effective. A 20-second plank is far better than nothing. A 20-second plank done right is likely better than a 60+ second one done wrong (arching your back, etc.).
Pretty much. About 2 years ago I couldn't even do a single pull up without it being a huge strain. Now 20 to 30 is absolutely nothing. I couldn't tell you when it became like that, it just eventually happened.
I couldn't get around for nearly 15 years without a wheelchair, and in my recovery, I've been using a bicycle quite a bit. But wall squats are the hardest thing I do all day.
It also hurts more when I fall off my bike than it does to lean forward exhausted after 30 seconds of wall squatting. It's brutal on the tops of my thighs, which are still pretty deflated from disuse, despite the bike riding.
Mine swings wildly. Around 130/100 while resting due to having taken BP meds for months now, but can get as low as 110/80 after exercise/cardio to the point of easily passing out.
I now exercise a lot more than before and other than paying attention to not causing an injury, I do not care at all about doing optimal things. It's a big motivator to start when I know I can just do whatever I like at that moment in time.