[presentation]

Depends what your goals are - if those include planning to be healthy into old age, then definitely not.

For me weightlifting is somewhat fun to figure out how to get control over my will to get my body to do things it doesn’t want to do. But it’s also rewarding in that I see changes in my body over time that make me feel good, and can only be achieved by putting in the effort; and it feels responsible long term since health outcomes in general are much better in people with muscle mass.

To be honest I don’t think there is any sport or physical activity that you can fully replace strength training with. All the fit-looking athletes you can imagine, also strength train to become that way.

[oska]

> if those include planning to be healthy into old age, then definitely not [any other form of exercise]

> All the fit-looking athletes you can imagine, also strength train to become that way.

These are two flagrantly false assertions; to think they are actually true you have to be living inside a weight-lifting bubble.

[presentation]

My opinion on strength training being essential for health into old age largely stems from Peter Attia’s recent book Outlive [1] where he goes into great detail about the topic, and every piece of medical research I’ve ran into only seems to underline that having sufficient muscle mass is the single biggest intervention you can do to impact your long term health. Do all healthy old people do it? No, but if the question is what can you do to improve your odds, it seems silly to throw away the biggest lever you have (though it’s anyone’s personal choice to risk it and hope for the best).

(If you think he’s a quack and his message is wrong then I’d love to see some research pointing to the contrary, that having muscle mass is detrimental or at least does nothing significant for your long-term prospects)

The point about athletes is really more about pros, I should have been clear. I can guarantee you that almost every accomplished pro athlete in most sports, from running to swimming to cycling to basketball to gymnastics to soccer and the list goes on, incorporates a significant amount of strength training into their lives; there are probably some genetic freaks or sufficiently ‘roided mutants who don’t need to, but I assure you that Michael Phelps and LeBron James didn’t get their physiques purely by swimming and playing basketball.

And in case you think I’m talking about weight lifting for the purpose of competing at a bodybuilding show or strongman competition, that is not what I am referring to; I am referring to doing strength training to the extent that you have a reasonable amount of muscle mass. I don’t care if it’s traditional weight training or if it’s calisthenics or something else, so long as you don’t end up with no muscle tone and probably experiencing or prone to significant metabolic disease like most unfit people these days.

[1] https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/705161/outlive-by-p...

[oska]

Thank you for the reply and the book link.

I agree that muscle tone is vitally important for human health and maintaining 'fitness' into middle and old age. However muscle tone and strength can come from many things, a lot of which don't need to deliberately include any form of 'strength training'.

I also agree that many modern professional athletes include specific strength training in their training regimes but this is a fairly recent phenomenon (e.g. tennis and swimming really only from approx. the 80s/90s on) and I don't see this as critical to them being 'fit-looking athletes'; it's only become necessary in a kind of arms race type of way, and in my opinion, with an unfortunate impact of modern competitive sport favouring 'power' over grace and technique. (I personally prefer the physiques of previous generations of athletes to those of most of the top athletes today, particularly the female ones.)

Why I responded fairly forcefully to your original comment is because it was a reply to someone who hadn't found strength training appealing and I perceived your reply as shutting down their thinking that some other option could be found that would build some strength and give other positive benefits of exercise to the questioner, including enjoyment and fulfillment.