[nradov]

The time spent on exercise is hardly meaningless. It builds mental discipline, and the neurological pathways necessary to use the muscles effectively. Those attributes are as important as the muscle tissue itself.

[Kirby64]

As someone that exercises a lot, that’s just cope. Sure, it has side benefits, but the primary overwhelming benefit is improving health and improving aesthetics. You can build mental discipline in plenty of other ways. You can build grit in ways that don’t involve lifting weights. At a minimum of 3 hours a week (often much more for many people), it’s a pretty big cost to pay.

Regarding building pathways to use muscles, it’s effectively like riding a bike. You spend some initial time learning good technique, but year 2, 3, 4, and onwards isn’t really doing much in that department. It’s just grinding to get stronger/more muscular.

[borroka]

I don't think it's just coping, but it depends on the level of mastery you want to achieve in the specific discipline. For any skill, including weightlifting, the more you practice, the better the quality of the skill. And becoming competent at something is one of the pleasures of life. For the amateur athlete, one has to take into account the opportunity cost of doing something else, and life is full of opportunities. As for grit, I agree it is more about showing a personality trait than developing it, and grit appears to be mostly discipline-specific: many athletes show admirable grit when training and less than admirable grit in other areas of their lives.

[Kirby64]

That’s fine if you want it to be a hobby. Admirable even. But not everyone wants yet another hobby. If you could get the benefits then the vast majority of folks I don’t think would miss anything meaningful. You’ve got to enjoy the tertiary benefits to stay sane, but I’m not kidding myself that I wouldn’t enjoy ~5 hrs/week back to pursue other activities.