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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   2380 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for November 8, 2023

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

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Anyone here do minimalist strength training?

I tend to fall into a pattern of lifting consistently for 3 months or so, then getting busy or injured and letting it lapse. So I never make any significant gains. I'm also a weekend warrior type athlete who plays an intense sport at a semi-competitive level. This really gets in the way of strength training. I'm doing way too much cardio and often suffer nagging overuse injuries.

I've tried Strong Lifts and Starting Strength. These programs seem okay, but better suited to a young person or one who doesn't do cardio or explosive sports.

Fortunately, there is research that the Pareto Principle applies to weightlifting. By doing just 1 heavy set a week one can get something like 50-80% of the strength gains one would by doing 15 sets.

Lately, I have reduced the volume of my workouts. It's feeling good so far. I'm still progressing and my knees feel better. I'm hoping that this will keep my consistent for a period of years and that the total gains I see will be much higher. I know I will reach a ceiling at some point which will require more volume to go past. I'll worry about that if it occurs.

There were a couple posts on Lesswrong about "optimal exercise" that you might like. This update, and the original one it links to.

WRT resistance training, I don't pursue any of the powerlifts (squat, bench, deadlift) anymore, instead focusing on other exercises that don't load the spine/knees as much but allow you to load the requisite musculature easily. Weighted step ups instead of squats can be loaded quite heavy. Hyperextensions, one-legged hypers, and reverse hyperextensions can work the posterior chain with 1/2-1/3 the load on the spine as deadlifts. Bench doesn't exactly load the spine but it is the most dangerous lift going by statistics (dropping the weight on yourself is the most common severe gym accident) and can be replaced with incline bench, dumbbell shoulder presses, and/or dips. These exercises are substantially easier to cue people on in a single session.

You might want to pick up 5/3/1 Forever. If you can get around Wendler's fairly poor explanation of how it works, there are a lot of fairly simple 2-day and 3-day templates that in theory could be done pretty quickly.

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