[ekidd]

I powerlifed for years, with a truly excellent coach for much of that time. For what it was worth, she was Starting Strength certified and a successful international masters competitor. She fixed a subtle problem with my deadlift using nothing but the wrinkles on my T-shirt; my recovery improved dramatically.

At 40, I was stronger than I was as a high school wrestler. I loved lifting. I remember casually picking up a piece of equipment that took two burly guys to lift and jumping down from a pickup with it.

But over the course of several years, I picked up several small but persistent injuries lifting. Two can be worked around. One makes it very hard to squat for more than a few weeks of training. None of the injuries, fortunately, affects me noticeably in daily life. But I'll never wide-grip bench press again, either.

When I was coming to terms with these injuries, I had a long talk with the oldest natty lifters in my gym. The powerlifers were all dealing with various chronic injuries. (Seriously, Rippetoe has published a bit of his medical history. He's a mess of injuries.)

But you know who was still lifting in their 60s and even 70s, injury-free for decades at a stretch? The natty bodybuilders. One of the oldest looked over at me one day, and said, "You know, I don't like the risk/reward on heavy squats. You do them flawlessly for years, and then one day, a group of muscle fibers decides to misfire for a moment when you're under the bar."

So, enjoy Starting Strength, or whatever other beginner program Reddit likes this year. And the two Starting Strength certified coaches I've known were excellent. Good technique is absolutely worth it. But once you've gotten those sweet beginner gains, talk to the old lifters, and think long and hard about where you want to go next. Because nothing is as important as remaining injury-free. And every older powerlifter I met was dealing with chronic injuries.

Once gains get difficult, think about what you really want out of lifting.

[hifromLA]

Man I wish somebody told this to a young me (although I probably wouldn’t have believed them).

Once you start making gains it does become addictive especially if (like me) you have some uh let’s call it mental health challenges.

After sustaining a number of injuries I finally learned to stop looking at the numbers, to stop comparing myself on exrx or symmetric strength. I just go to the gym and have fun. I still do the major movements but I always make sure to leave a little in the tank. I always listen to my body first and foremost. If it doesn’t feel right, it doesn’t feel right.

[oarfish]

Your experience is surely valid, but I wouldn't just generalize this to the population at large.

When you say "powerlifters", are those people who compete or just people who train? I can imagine this to make a difference.

And in any case, I wouldn't take Rippetoe as an example of good scientific programming these days. It's good for getting people into lifting, but Starting Strength has a powerlifting fetish for no good reason, and the advice to aggressively gain weight is also not appropriate for everyone (GOMAD etc.). Then recently I saw a Starting Strength video in which they claimed that the really grindy reps at the end of the set are the ones that make all the difference (for strength anyway), which as far as I'm aware is false and probably harmful, as you can do way more training volume with less risk of injury (I would expect) if you keep some reps away from failure.

[ekidd]

> and the advice to aggressively gain weight is also not appropriate for everyone (GOMAD etc.).

Yeah, don't do GOMAD unless you're a 17-year-old teenage boy with a BMI of 18.5 who wants to be a linebacker or something. Some of the Starting Strength advice is... very situational, to put it politely as possible.

Their coaching certification, however, means more than 95% of the "personal trainer" certifications you'll see in the average gym.

> When you say "powerlifters", are those people who compete or just people who train? I can imagine this to make a difference.

The oldest powerlifer I knew well who wasn't dealing with chronic injuries was a 40-year-old women's masters competitor. She competed around 135 or 139 lbs bodyweight, I think? She was absolutely a beast, with near flawless form and an excellent coaching eye.

Besides her? Almost every other long-term powerlifter I met was nursing some injury. But what really stood out to me was the absence of old powerlifters in my local gyms. There were old lifters in amazing shape. But none of them were grinding out the really heavy squats and deadlifts.

But don't take my word for it. All I'm recommending is that when new powerlifters max out their newbie gains, they take a good hard look around their local gym, and see who has decades of happy lifting under their belt. Ask those folks about their training plans and injury histories and PED use. You may see different patterns than I did. But for lifelong fitness, avoiding chronic injuries is everything.

[coffeebeqn]

It’s a very interesting shift in fitness culture as you age. In my teens and twenties I was adoring people like Ronnie Coleman and thinking that’s the life. Now I see him in clips often in a wheelchair - still with a great attitude but obviously not healthy.

Seems like in your 30s you start to realize the limits and tradeoffs and by your 40s most have accepted that longevity is the main goal - if it’s not too late and they destroyed a knee or back or something else.

[boppo1]

How does one know when newbie gains are maxed out? I mostly do calisthenics because I actually got into working out because it was part of injury-recovery. I'm enjoying my gains and would like to push myself to get bigger gains, but lifelong fitness maintenance has always been #1 in my mind. I'd like to figure out how to identify what the "maximum maintenance point" is.

[stewarts]

This depends on lift frequency, the lift itself, etc.

In general, for a compound lift (squat/bench/deadlift/overhead press) most would consider newbie gains exhausted once you can no longer linearly add weight/reps on a weekly basis (assuming a normal weekly schedule). This is the point when various forms of periodization (waving weight/reps/frequency up/down in many possible ways) need to start to support the increase of weight/reps over time.

[nwiswell]

> most would consider newbie gains exhausted once you can no longer linearly add weight/reps on a weekly basis

This is likely to happen after about 3 months.

I don't really agree that the kind of weights you can achieve after 3 months pose a meaningfully elevated injury risk, unless your form is terrible or you have some existing condition.

[zemvpferreira]

I can review myself in ekidd's experience. I've been in the gym for 20 years and plenty of stronger (but not competitive) people I know picked up injuries from grinding out tough sets of 5 or 3. Heck I have two abdominal hernias and a 'sensitive' back that gives me problems from time to time that I can directly blame deadlift PRs for, even with great technique.

The gym is generally a safe hobby, but scientific bodybuilding, with its large sets, slow eccentrics and focus on the stretch is definitely the safest way to lift for longevity.

[qtk8]

Do you have a good source or book (preferably) to start learning more about scientific body building?

[zemvpferreira]

Look up Renaissance Periodisation's stuff, they do a great job of explaining this approach.

[coffeebeqn]

Layne Norton is another if you want more of a natty point of view (IFBB pro). Mike is very enjoyable but I do find his advice often leans toward enhanced people and might not be the best for natties

[trogdor]

Since when do "natty" and "IFBB pro" go in the same sentence?

[Jarmsy]

About grinding reps, I look to the example of Lasha Talakhadze, arguably the strongest weightlifter ever. Of all the clips I've seen of him training I don't think I've ever once seen him grind a rep. It's always submaximal(though huge by normal standards) weights done at such high speed it looks easy.

[throwaway4good]

I used to do karate. There were all these character who had seemingly superhuman physical fitness yet they would die really early. I always wondered why was that?

Now I believe that a lot of physical training isn't that healthy. And if you put your whole personal identity on your physical abilities then when your abilities start to decline, as they naturally do from age 40 and up, you may spiral out of control and literally die.

[pc86]

Anything to an extreme is unhealthy, and making your whole personal identity any single thing - being an athlete or a pilot or a parent or gay or disabled or a Christian or whatever - is a bad idea. But the statement "a lot of physical training isn't that healthy" is pretty objectively wrong.

[layer8]

I know several martial arts practitioners who had to have hip surgery at a relatively young age. It’s really easy to overestimate what your body can handle.

[kortex]

Going from a black belt in Taekwondo (age 7-16) to doing Isshin-Ryū karate (with some BJJ, aikido, and budokai in between) was really eye-opening. Taekwondo is all about sharp form, clean lines, high kicks. Punches and kicks go to full extension, and the stances are fairly deep.

In Isshinryu, there's none of that. You stop the punch/kick before the joint goes to lock. The stances are much shallower. The movements are less dramatic. My sensei told me it is much more sustainable this way, and many of the old taekwondo folks end up with joint issues specifically in knees and elbows. I don't know if it's related, but my knees and elbows are the two parts of my body which are most problematic.

It's also possible my taekwondo instructor just didn't know about this, that was a long time ago.

[xnx]

> There were all these character who had seemingly superhuman physical fitness yet they would die really early. I always wondered why was that?

Performance enhancing drugs

[rayxi271828]

Were you referring to people like Andy Hug of Kyokushinkai?

I believe he suffered from an illness, but in general I suppose having a full-contact punching and kicking bouts with gigantic men isn't very good for your long-term health anyway. Especially in Kyokushin where they have (had?) no weight classes.

[throwaway4good]

Yes. For example.

I actually don't think it is the direct damage from fighting that gets them but more the inability to stop and scale your commitment to what you can and can no longer do.

[ominous_prime]

Direct damage from combat sports can catch up to you eventually. CTE is pretty serious, but unfortunately you probably don't realize the extent of that damage until it's far too late.

[nlawalker]

Thanks for this! Do you (or does anyone) have any suggested resources for transitioning out of powerlifting into something more maintenance/lifestyle?

I got a good base of coaching in high school and later in life came back to lifting through Starting Strength. Recently I’ve gotten a lot out of Stronglifts 5x5 and a modest garage barbell setup to reach kind of a local maxima. I could keep going with it, and it would be nice to continue taking advantage of the simplicity of that program to stay in shape (or move to madcow, or something similar) but there’s no value to me in getting any bigger/stronger - I’d rather “diversify” a bit into other activities and avoid the injuries that come with heavy weights, but I would like to maintain what I’ve got.

I’m not sure if the answer is simply “just stop increasing weights” or if there’s something better I can do that would further reduce chance of injury, conserve energy for other activities, save time etc.

[eitally]

Well, one of the easiest paths is to stop doing oly lifts and start using DBs instead of a bar where possible. If you don't think you might have great form with DBs, just spend a few sessions at the beginning with a coach. The one thing it's hard to emulate with DBs are heavy deadlifts. For that, I built myself a resistance band platform similar to this: https://www.reddit.com/r/homegym/comments/kx57ho/i_made_a_re...

My experience is that it becomes equally fun for a data driven person to start tracking aerobic performance (rowing was where I started because we have a C2 at home, and then diversified into running and biking).

[kortex]

Can you define the technical terms? Oly, DB, C2?

I'm guessing DB is dumbbell (and bar is barbell).

[Jarmsy]

Oly - The competitive sport of Olympic weightlifting, which has 2 lifts, the snatch (bar from floor to overhead in one explosive movement)and the clean and jerk (from floor to chest height and from there to overhead).

Those who do it tend to just refer to it as weightlifting (one word), but we sometimes say Oly weightlifting when talking to others to avoid confusion with the more general weight lifting/lifting weights, which encompasses powerlifting(another competitive sport consisting of bench press, squat and deadlift), weightlifting and general resistance training.

Weightlifting is more dynamic and requires a lot of skill to control the timing and momentum, whereas powerlifting is closer to a test of raw strength(not that it doesn't require some technique).

[ImPostingOnHN]

not that any of this is common parlance:

Oly is Olympic weightlifting, a set of weightlifting movements/lifts. In various workouts, like in dieting, some folks decide on a subset of all the things (movements, food) which is good (or bad) and focuses on them. Powerlifting is another opinion of a good set of movements which focuses on weightlifting abilities.

DB is indeed dumbbell, yes

C2 is apparently Concept2, a rowing machine

[yCombLinks]

Oly, the Olympic weightlifting lifts. C2 is a brand of rowing machine

[superbiome]

I’ve found Marcus filly to be a great starting point for “functional bodybuilding”. He is an ex cross fitter with amazing physique but after rehabbing many injuries his programs and youtube videos emphasizes functional movements as a key foundational principle to all workouts.

[tastysandwich]

That's why I appreciate starting strength. It's a novice program and the gains come fairly quickly and easily. Rippetoe himself in Practical Programming makes the point that after the novice phase, you need to assess what your goals are and program accordingly. A football player will have different goals from a runner, who will have different goals from the general sedentary public.

I myself am pretty happy with where I'm at and don't plan on trying to squat 300KG. I appreciate there's a higher risk of injury pushing myself to my limits. And the amount of investment (time in the gym, getting a coach or learning enough to program for that level) is not worth it.

I'm not suggesting that everyone goes and tries to become a powerlifter. I'm just suggesting that for anyone who isn't strong and is looking to become strong quickly, Starting Strength is the best method in my opinion. And as others have pointed out, going from a 20KG to an 80KG squat will make a huge improvement to your life, and is very manageable for pretty much anyone.

[ookblah]

yep, as i got older chasing the 1RM became something that wasn't worth the risk/rewards. i would tweak something every once in a while and set back weeks as i recovered. wasn't competing and didn't make any difference in my health or how i was perceived.

at some point it becomes less about progress and more about being injury free and CONSISTENT (which can't happen without being injury free lol). it scares me that this margin becomes even less as you get older. i can imagine someone in their 70-80s being diligent and all it takes is some minor injury that takes you out for a week to begin a downward spiral.

[trabant00]

Injuries are not talked about enough on the internet. And they should be the number one topic for amateur fitness enthusiasts of any kind. Everybody is focusing on impressive performance results but:

- you will never achieve anything resembling impressive as an amateur natty no matter what you do. PED use is so common now they're the standard for comparisons

- your pay check does not depend on achieving certain results. Look at the pros when they stop competing, they know it's not worth pushing it any more

- any persistent injury significantly affects your life quality. A very mild shoulder RSI makes sleeping and sex complicated

- training 3 times a week for decades offers plenty of opportunities to make mistakes so you need to leave a big margin for safety

- 80/20 rule applies to the effort and results and to the risk and rewards

[memefrog]

I think the number one topic should be actually doing it at all. Too many people just talk about getting exercise, or endlessly watch videos about it, or endlessly read blogs and articles and guides, but never actually do it, or do very little.

[ImPostingOnHN]

I think it should be injuries, because of the reasons mentioned above.

It's better to not work out and not be injured than it is to work out and be injured, so the focus should first be on avoiding injury and second on actually going out and doing stuff. Same reason we watch safety videos before we do the thing they concern.

[globular-toast]

I'm 36 and I've now transitioned from being a natty quasi-powerlifter to a natty bodybuilder. I should have done it earlier. I haven't hit a strength PR in years.

I started with a strength programme called Greyskull LP which descends from the Starting Strength school of thought (although far superior IMO). I got some really good results with it. I'm naturally quite strong, so it took less than a year before I was doing things like 200kg deadlifts. I would watch other natties in the gym and, according to my own observations, I was usually the strongest guy in the room.

But the easy progression quickly stops. Once you get to lifting 2.5x your bodyweight off the floor, or dipping with 100kg attached to your waist, it starts to become really hard. I mean, yes, you've trained for it, but it's still incredibly taxing on the system and, let's be honest, not reflective of any real work anyone might carry out. Real work involves lots of toing and froing, not lifting one enormously heavy weight then going home.

I developed a really hard to change mindset that said if it's not heavy there's no point. I was still doing 3x5 reps of everything, often to failure, after years and years of lifting and never making any strength gains anyway. I eventually developed an elbow injury thanks to too many weighted chin ups. I prided myself on being able to chin up 3 plates when most people can't even do bodyweight. Well, now I can't do bodyweight either (not without pain at least).

I made the change after watching some of Scott Herman's more recent videos on Youtube. He's now 39 and still in excellent shape. Unlike most on Youtube, I believe he is natty too. He does high volume work which, naturally, will be nowhere your strength limit. I was still doing 3x5 reps, now I'm doing 3x8 with drop sets. Way more volume, way more variety of movements, way less weight. It's been so much better.

I'd still recommend a starting strength programme to beginners, but you really need to get off it after a year or so and decide whether you want to be a bodybuilder or strength athlete. And before you decide to be a strength athlete, look at seasoned strength athletes and decide if you want to look like them when you are their age, or not.

As for juiced bodybuilders/athletes, don't even consider it. You think you'll get more women (be honest, that's why you do it). But, in fact, the love of your life doesn't care how strong you are or if you are 10% body fat. All you'll do is destroy your body. Lifting heavy just destroys it even more (see Ronnie Coleman).

[RankingMember]

> As for juiced bodybuilders/athletes, don't even consider it. You think you'll get more women (be honest, that's why you do it). But, in fact, the love of your life doesn't care how strong you are or if you are 10% body fat.

Agreed. It also occurred to me while reading your comment that there are a lot of parallels to this in the auto enthusiast world- guys going deep into debt on a depreciating asset, sometimes overtly to look cool for women, when in reality all they end up with is a sausage-fest of guys rubbernecking and coming up to them in parking lots.

[mlrtime]

I want to add to this. I'm also a Starting Strength alumni, moved on to the advanced programs and last stopped at 5/3/1.

One thing I learned: When I was peak-ego my DL/SQ/BP was ~1300lbs. I remember actively thinking the people on the machines and especially the "Smith" machine were wasting time.

Then after awhile, I switched gyms and noticed the biggest/oldest guys were not olympic lifting, they were all on machines. I got to talking to them and they said the same thing, they weren't chasing power numbers, they wanted to stay safe and the machines allowed them to do that.

You can still get injured on a leg press machine, but it offers most of the advantages without the huge risk of 350lbs dropping on your neck.

[saiya-jin]

I partially agree - pushing limits is plain stupid given enough time, every single time injuries happen, to everybody out there. If they say not to them they are either lying or just begun the sport recently.

I have different approach, with similar result so far to those bodybuilders without actually doing it - don't lift your max, but do it with free weights as much as possible, in good form (the most important bit long term). You don't need to look ridiculously bulked, say well-defined is more than enough, even for women's attractivity. Those massive muscles always hide very unhealthy eating habits (ie > 200g of protein every day will mess up your organs and joints badly over decades) and tons of injuries, plus they are very hard to maintain if you actually want to be happy in your life and do other stuff.

I strongly recommend removing some weights and adding repetitions, you can still reach failure threshold if you want, but in much safer way. Easier to maintain perfect form for each exercise too. You mention lifting heavy stuff in weird positions - that's recipe for injury regardless of age or shape, rather just be a bit smarter with lifting.

What is much better to be able to have some stamina - weightlifting on the limits alone ain't going to give you much of that (saw more than once a ripped guy who didn't do any cardio trying to make >1000m altitude difference hike, well he struggled a lot, on a way up and then knee pain started say in the middle of descent).

There are tons of things apart from main, most visible muscle groups that you really want to train - small stabilizing muscles, tendons, ligaments, joint flexibility, and stamina for all of those. Body is a complex and interconnected system, no point overdeveloping just few main parts for the show or mirror look, rather work on everything.

[rayxi271828]

Do you think one can lift heavy but with machines, and get the same risk/reward ratio as bodybuilders?

In other words, train for power (rather than hypertrophy), but instead of using barbells, use dumbbells or machines, to minimize the risk of injury?

[ekidd]

I think it makes sense to get started exercising, using any kind of good program at all, and to pay attention to technique.

I don't have injury stats on machines versus free weights. Almost all the serious lifters I knew (bodybuilders or powerlifters) did plenty of free weight work. This included one 67-year-old bodybuilder in amazing shape who'd been injury-free for decades. He used a mix of free weights and machines, but he didn't squat the kinds of weights the serious powerlifters did, either.

You can make yourself a lot stronger than the average person with pretty low risk of injury, if your technique is good. As far as I can tell, you can do it pretty safely with a squat rack, some safety bars, a bench, a bar, and some weights. According to BroScience(TM), lol, the advantage of free weights is that if you have good technique, then you wind up working large parts of your body as a unified system, or something. (Bro science is like blog posts on unit testing; everyone's got a theory and almost nobody has numbers.)

But once you hit "a lot stronger than the average person", where do you go next? Do you maintain? Do you keep trying to lift more? Do you decide to go for a bit of hypertrophy?

And that's where I think it makes sense to talk to the old lifters, and look for patterns. Don't believe me. I'm just some guy on the Internet. Go talk to the old guys who've been doing it for 40 years and who aren't wearing tons of wraps and tape. By the time you need to make these decisions, you'll likely know some old guys at your gym, anyways.

[omnimus]

I am not sure if you minimize risk of injury that much. You might get injured on machine or dumbbell if you go heavy.

Anyway with most machines you won't be able to load it heavy enough quite soon.

I think there is also happy middle ground where you train for strength but not into extremes - you progress at slower pace and prioritize form. I would say bodybuilders can also be strong and healthy but they can't use that strength properly (because of the type of training they do) and destroy their health with drugs.

[RankingMember]

> I am not sure if you minimize risk of injury that much. You might get injured on machine or dumbbell if you go heavy.

The thing machines have that free weights don't are in-built safeties, either by design or as a discrete component (e.g. smith machine). The only machine I can think of that you can get seriously injured on is a leg press machine, whereas there are a multitude of ways to hurt yourself with free weights, especially any exercise where you're under the bar. I say this as someone who has historically trained with a ton of emphasis on the Big 5/Golden 5 compound movements (i.e. not machines). The safety aspect is a big reason casual fitness clubs (e.g. Planet Fitness) have no barbells on the premises.

[omnimus]

You are right. I meant it if you do excercises “properly” it shouldnt be big difference. But of course that already means freeweights are more dangerous.

[Broken_Hippo]

and destroy their health with drugs.

I mean, if they are the type that are using steroids and such things, sure. The other sort that are into drugs just gets stoned and lift weights. The risks just aren't the same: Sure, you are going to do some damage with pot, but not the same sort and you'll certainly not be so much worse than the person that gets stoned and plays games a lot of the day or gets stoned and works at a gas station.

(I worked with an ex-professional body builder: He was the second type and couldn't compete with the steroid crowd. He was OK with that)

[mlrtime]

Power Lifting != Bodybuilding

One group goes after the raw numbers regardless of aesthetics.

The other is mostly aesthetics.

[malfist]

That's a bit of an over simplification.

You can't go for aesthetics without chasing numbers to some degree. You do, after all, have to build that muscle you want to show off.

[tashoecraft]

My focus has been on calisthenics, but I still do some lifting. My thoughts have been that lifting free benefits from increasing the strength of all the stabilizing muscles. machines take away a lot of that so that you can target a particular muscle/group very effectively.

So my completely uneducated opinion is, machines might be worse in the long run.

[pyinstallwoes]

What does natty mean in this context? As in like non-natural? Testosterone supplemented workouts?

[nkurz]

"Natty" means natural, and describes those who lift without performance enhancing drugs such as steroids, although some questionable supplements might be allowed. The opposite, describing those who use such drugs, might be "enhanced".

[sk0g]

What's the questionable supplements allowed? Herbal stuff like ashwagandha or whatever, or not-technically-steroids-but-close-enough substances like SARMs?

[ekidd]

Creatine is common among people who've maxed out their beginner gains but who are still chasing PRs. You get a fair bit of it naturally in food, and it's been studied to death by nearly every sports medicine program in the world: https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/17674-creat...

Creatine will let you push an 8 rep set to 9 or 10. And when every pound on the bar is bought with two weeks of complicated periodization, that little bit helps. And creatine is allowed by basically every athletic league.

Real PEDs are a whole different ball game. Much bigger risks.

[Jarmsy]

I think most people would count anything not forbidden for Olympic athletes as natty (not that most Olympic athletes actually are, but that's another discussion).

[michaelhoney]

Yes. Bodybuilding (big muscles and low body fat, for aesthetics) is very much a place where chemical assistance is common. But there are those who prefer to do it natural (and are way less likely to die young).

[_hush_]

If your squat problem is knee or back related, I recommend checking Ben Patrick aka KneesOverToesGuy and his programs. I'm not affiliated to it by any mean but I've been a paying customer for a year and a half and his method of training has been life changing. My knees and legs are now robust and bulletproof, they used to be weak and painful

His approach to shoulder training might be of interest too if one of your injuries is shoulder related

[ekidd]

Thank you for the thoughts! My injuries have all been professionally rehabbed, some of them by MDs who treat competitive lifters. I didn't give up easily. :-)

But to take an example, there's not much you can do to rehab a partial TFCC tear in your 40s. There just isn't enough blood flow. I could get surgery, but my TFCC is already better than 90% of surgical outcomes.

It rarely affects me in daily life, but I can't train wide grip bench presses without immobilizing the wrist with a steel brace.

Once you hit 40, you can still get strong. But sooner or later, a doctor's going to sit down with you and say, "There's nothing I can do to fix this that won't make things worse."

But as another doctor told me, "Look, you have a choice. As you age, you can spend too much time talking to your orthopedic surgeon, or too much time talking to your cardiologist." Physical activity is essential, but it comes at a price. Staying as injury-free as you can manage is everything.

[rip_netrunner]

I think it's important to point out to people that are hesitant to lift due to the perceived risk of injuring themselves is that lifting has a much lower injury rate than most other activities (with proper coaching and programming).

Citing from Bigger, Leaner, Stronger by Michael Matthews, he points to a review of 20 studies performed by Bond University that found the average injury rates for the following activities:

1. Bodybuilding - 1 / 1000 hours

2. Crossfit, Olympic Weightlifting, Powerlifting - 2-6 / 1000 hours

3. Long Distance Running - 10 / 1000 hours

4. Hi Impact Sports (Hockey, Football, Soccer, Rugby) - 6 - 260 / 1000 hours

I'm personally committed to progressively lifting heavy until I turn 40 at which point it becomes more difficult to add muscle. At that point, I'll look into transitioning into a sustainable program that will let me preserve as much muscle as possible as I age with minimal risk.

[ekidd]

> 2. Crossfit, Olympic Weightlifting, Powerlifting - 2-6 / 1000 hours

This seems about right? Let's say you powerlift 6 hours a week, 50 weeks a year. (This is believable after a year or so.) That's 300 hours. And you're picking up an injury every 170-500 hours. That seems... plausible?

What matters is how quickly and completely those injuries heal. If you tweak something, maybe you can just ice it, and maybe you're all healed up in two weeks, no problem.

But once you've been powerlifting seriously for a year, you're moving around real weight. Granted, you know you can handle the weight, you're moving it carefully, and you've got safety bars to catch anything you drop.

But some of the injuries you might pick up don't go away so easily. And over 40 years of heavy lifting, those numbers can add up.

> 1. Bodybuilding - 1 / 1000 hours

This represents a 2-6 fold reduction in injury. And you'll be working slowly with lighter weight, so physics probably offers fewer chances for disaster.

So I'd guess that bodybuilding has a lower baseline injury rate, and possibly less severe injuries on average?

[pulpfictional]

What's the plan to stay injury-free? I don't know any bodybuilders.

[piva00]

You can either choose to lift until you find a sweet spot of strength you are content with and not push past it, avoiding injury from ever-heavier lifts. Or you'll want to progress slower when you are at intermediate-advanced level, lifting is pretty safe as a sport if you do it with proper form until you get to the upper boundaries.

Rest well, eat enough, don't push it when something is feeling a "little weird" with some muscle. My worst injury as a beginner 10+ years ago was to finish a deadlift routine after feeling a muscle slightly pulled after the first rep, I had a bad lower back pain for weeks that left me uncomfortable doing anything: laying down, sitting, walking, etc.

If you don't know any bodybuilders I'd recommend getting a good coach on your beginner phase to fix your form, you don't need to keep a coach after you learn the basics, and bad form is the #1 source of injuries at lowest levels. Starting Strength is a decent beginner routine but over time you'll want to add some auxiliary exercises to work smaller muscles, in my routine I like to start the training session with big lifts (deadlift, squat, standing barbell rows, chin ups/pull ups, bench press, and overhead presses) and after those I follow with auxiliary movements (face pulls, dumbbell presses/curls, calves, etc.).

I chose to not push myself past a level I got comfortable with, never tried a deadlift heavier than 220kg, my squats hover between 130-140kg, bench press around 80kg, military press around 55-60kg. I feel strong enough and been injury-free for years, it's a good maintenance level and my goal with lifting has always to just keep mobility in older age, not to keep growing muscles/strength as far as I could push.

[omnimus]

Also for most people being able comfortably deadlift even 1x of their weight in a set would be big improvement and they would probably get most of the benefits.

The problem is once people get to that - why would they stop?

[semireg]

I’m 40. I do 3 sets of 8 deadlifts about 5-10% over my body weight. This routine wears me out but each single rep feels easy. I can do this routine every day. You could say I’m maintaining, but I’m still reaping benefits years later. I consider it effective cross training for cycling. In between sets I do bicep curls and tricep kickbacks. My goal is to find a routine that will follow me until old age.

[RankingMember]

Especially if you're a cyclist, I think maintenance weight training like this is huge. Cycling, for all it's benefits, seems to be more likely to have a negative impact on bone density than a positive one.

https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1741-...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3230645/

[rayxi271828]

I wonder how to tell whether one's reached that sweet spot. Is it when the lift hasn't increased for months?

And of course there's the variable of age as well.

[piva00]

For me it was when I start noticing that the bad days where I'd fail my intended lift happened more often than the days I progressed.

An example, when I was trying to push my bench press over 87,5kg I was going with 1-2 sets of warm-up (~8-10x 70kg then adding 5kg to the 2nd warm up), followed by: 1 set of 5x85kg, 5x87,5kg and trying to go 3x90kg but noticed I was failing the 3x90kg set for 4+ weeks in a row, I kinda knew it was going to take more effort and a different approach than just my very basic way to increase load, I was happy with lifting 87,5kg on the bench and just stopped trying to push it further.

Age has definitely affected my recovery time, stamina, etc. but because I've been lifting on-off since my teens playing tennis, and only focusing on strength training for its own sake later in my 20s. I do have a "baseline" that I can reach in about 4-6 months even when I stop training completely for a while, the strength you gain changes your muscles (I think it creates extra nuclei in muscle cells, unsure how true that is, lots of pseudoscience in fitness-world) and it comes back. That's one of the main reasons I recommend all of my sedentary friends to try lifting for a while, it will help when one is older.

[pulpfictional]

Thank you!

[zemvpferreira]

-Develop excellent technique. -Learn to stop at technical failure, never muscle up reps at any cost. -Focus on slow eccentrics, deep stretches under load. -Keep your sets over 10 reps.

[rqtwteye]

From some age on (40-50?) you have to train to maintain, not to improve. Some can train really hard up to old age but most people tend to accumulate nagging injuries that can take away the ability to train at all.

[oarfish]

Don't exceed your recovery resources. Anecdotal reports are not helpful when determining injury risk.

Overall injury incidence in strength sports is very low. But if you do it to compete, maybe there is an argument to be made that pushing the limits increases it.

Overall though, the much greater risk is to not train. Whether you do barbell movements or machines is not a determinant of of health outcomes, as far as we know.

I would not put stock in anecdote without some numbers on injuries among non-competing powerlifters.

[pulpfictional]

Thank you.

[kugla]

Lift hard but do let life get in a way.

[semireg]

By natty do you mean natural? Like … the opposite of power?

[coffeebeqn]

Opposite of enhanced. Someone who hasn’t taken any performance enhancing drugs

[swores]

Am I right to assume there aren't any PEDs that are useful without having negatives?

I have no interest in competing/fairness, the only weight training I do is a) very light and b) just to have slightly stronger muscles to make the life I want to live easier (from going on nice walks to cycling to being able to pick up a heavy object without stress etc.)

So I don't care about stats or achievements or how my muscles look, but if there was a pill that could make me stronger for less effort without any side effects or risks I'd be more than happy to take it. But I guess that's still a pipe dream and I just need to keep on putting up with doing exercise more than I particularly want to?

[RankingMember]

There are always negatives to PEDs- some of the impact can be mitigated, but you're taking a long-term risk for a short-term result. If your goal is healthy longevity, I would steer clear.

That said, one supplement (not a PED) that is widely used and well-studied in the body-building world is creatine. Just make sure you drink enough water, as it causes you to retain a bit of water (I learned this the hard way, waking up with a bloody nose it dried my sinuses out so much).

https://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements-creatine/art-20...

[ekidd]

Creatine has the advantage of being well supported by science, and safe for most people.

But for a beginning lifter, I wouldn't bother. Early on, literally every single workout will bring you bigger gains than creatine will. Do your 3x5 or 5x5 sets, go back a few days later, add 5 pounds. Easy.

Creatine makes the most sense once you've been lifting for a few months, and once you've figured out your diet, and your progress is starting to slow. As I understand it, it's tweaking your intramuscular energy storage just enough to turn a 9 rep set into a 10 rep set. Which is a good deal once you've exhausted your newbie gains.

But it's not going to do much for someone who's exercising casually.

[RankingMember]

Agreed on all counts- those gains when you first start on a 3x5 or 5x5 are exhilarating and, short of making sure to eat enough, I wouldn't recommend anyone waste effort complicating that magical phase.

[coffeebeqn]

They are all varying levels of dangerous. The most common warning I hear is that the heart is also a muscle. But there are many complex issues that come with PEDs. Anyone who had used them and is a serious person will tell you, a) don’t do it, b) if you really must, do it after you’ve reached your genetic peak as a natural with 5-10 years of heavy training.

[memefrog]

Far more people are hurt by not doing enough exercise than are hurt by doing too much.

[dghughes]

I think people get into the mindset of needing to go nuts when exercising/health or they need to be at a gym. All they need to do is be active for about 30 minutes each day by going for a walk or biking.

Many cultures and countries ranked as healthy, and I mean overall like children to elderly are places where people walk everywhere. They aren't all power lifting or even going to gyms.

Strength training is good but overall daily activity is best.

[lo_zamoyski]

True, but statistics has nothing to do with correctness. Something done in excess, in either direction, is done in excess regardless of how many people do it.

The via media comes with difficulty as it requires reason and discernment, whereas extremes are easy and mindless, and people either under-exercise (the more common case) or over-exercise.

But historically, I would argue that we see more extreme "fitness" fads today than we did previously. Really dumb stuff that no longer has anything to do with health or fitness or beauty and more to do with some weird obsession.

[Martinussen]

We're talking about the set of people that actually weight lifting exercises, though, not the population.

Someone that goes for regular long walks is better off than a powerlifter, I doubt you would consider that a convincing argument against the gym.

[sk0g]

To put it in programming terms, you're likely to improve more with the slow grind of an hour or so an evening side-project, rather than competing in a hackathon every 3 months.

One observation I had was that people coming to the gym to spend majority of their time on the treadmill are mostly women. I'm not sure if it is to lose weight, or simply because with infrastructure hostile to walking, the likelihood of problematic encounters increases greatly. Though I wouldn't feel entirely safe walking around at 23:00 without my dog either.

[12345hn6789]

This is essentially the same as telling folks to stop driving because eventually you'll be in an accident running your life.

Lifting should always be taken seriously and "your muscles misfiring" is not a legitimate excuse for a lapse in judgment and lifting more then you should.