I love weight training, but the number of zealots and narcissists in the community is definitely a big downside that surely discourages a lot of people.
Resistance training has innumerable benefits, but it's not a panacea nor is it a substitute for aerobic exercise; if done properly and sensibly, aerobic and resistance training complement one another. Here's a great summary comparing the two: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Adaptations-and-Health-B...
By all means emphasize one over the other as you prefer, but for health benefits both should be included. And, no, powerlifting exercises with a straight barbell are not irreplaceable. Resistance training is a far bigger world than that.
If you're just using a formula your heart rate zones could be quite far out.
For example, 220-age suggests my maximum HR is 178 and my threshold HR (85% of this) is 151, but in fact my max HR (determined empirically) is 188 and my threshold HR (based on an actual threshold test) is 162.
Thanks! I'll have to consider doing a test like you describe downthread sometime. Most of my biking is just getting home from work. And, well, that is only 20 minutes on the bike. Large hill, but still just 20 minutes.
The canonical running test is to run an all out 5K. You can then derive pretty simple training paces based on tables. See: Daniels Running Formula. Or any number of training calculators on the Internet. A 5K is a very good measure if your overall running fitness and a pretty good predictor of race performance from 10k to Marathon. It helps you set up good training paces. Then it just comes down to volume. When you find your HR creeping out of zone don't be ashamed to walk to chill it out.
You can definitely go out too hard in a 5K, it isn't a 400, 800, or 1600M effort, but if you aren't hurting and questioning your life choices the last mile you weren't going hard enough :)
For cycling, I do a long warmup then ride as hard as I can (uninterrupted) for 30 minutes and take the average HR for the last 20 of the 30 minutes. There are online calculators you can plug this value into to give you the 5 zones.*
I do a test every 3 months, as the zones can shift as you get fitter.
Running might use a different protocol, but the same principle applies.
* These days I base my training on a 3-zone system: low intensity, below aerobic threshold; medium intensity, between aerobic and anaerobic (lactate) threshold, and high intensity, above lactate threshold. This is the system preferred by researchers, as it's based on real physiological markers.
Translating the 3 zone system into the 5 zone: low intensity equates to zones 1-2, medium is zone 3 and zone 4 up to your (lactate) threshold value, and high intensity is everything above this, i.e. the top part of zone 4 and all of zone 5.
So 'vigorous' per the Mayo Clinic would be medium intensity on the 3 zone system.
If you have somewhere you're comfortable cycling with them, stick them in a bike trailer and pull them around behind you.
My son just zones out for an hour or more when I do this with him. We're together of course, but I also have most of the feeling of freedom and solitude that cycling gives me, and he generally has a great time.
I gave up on Twitter, as even after massive ongoing curation the signal/noise is far too low. There's no way to filter tweets from sources I'm following, and it's a constant source of anxiety leading to compulsive reloading of the feed. Other social networks are worse. Life's too short for this.
I've also cut down on the web sources I follow, as information overload is a real thing, and we rapidly run into diminishing returns.
For news, I now just peruse the FT, Guardian and Atlantic (+HN via http://hckrnews.com/ using the 'top 50%' setting) a couple of times a day, and Politico Magazine once per week. This covers a decent section of the political spectrum and if there's anything important going on I'll find it amongst those sources. I probably read half a dozen full articles each day.
For non-immediate information, I browse A&L Daily, and I have print subscriptions to the following:
The Atlantic, Harper's, Sky & Telescope, American Scientist, Foreign Affairs, Philosophy Now, and The Philosophers' Magazine.
Additionally, I listen to a selection of podcasts when I'm in the car. These cover international relations and news analysis, history, philosophy and comedy.
That just about covers it; since I hit 40 and had a son my priorities changed, as did my outlook on life. Other than my family, I'm spending much more of my time on real hobbies and interests (in my case a bit of astronomy and photography, occasional writing, some cooking, and a lot of cycling and serious reading (books)), and less on time-wasting activities (social networks, web forums, television and video games).
It's amazing how much extra time you can find if you cut useless things out of your life.
If you have a lot of people you follow on Twitter, Nuzzel [1] can be useful. Basically, if people you follow are sharing the same article, it will get highlighted by the app.
> even after massive ongoing curation the signal/noise is far too low
Agreed. Even with programs like TweetDeck that can apply some basic filtering, you're still left with a bunch of junk content. (And the UX of TweetDeck is terrible in my opinion, but that's best left for another post.)
hckrnews is awesome. Before i found hckrnews i had no idea at what point to stop scrolling for more news if i missed looking hacker news a day later. The problem was since the feed is not linear with time and the newer articles can go beyond the articles you have already visited, there was no right way at what point to stop. hckrnews has addressed this issue very cleverly with the 20% , 50 % vote. Amazing.
CFR (the publishers of Foreign Affairs) have The World Next Week and The President's Inbox (and other more specialized ones)
Carnegie Endowment does The Carnegie Podcast
FT has World Weekly
BBC (e.g. Global News, Newshour, The Inquiry), NPR and PRI (e.g. America Abroad) all have a few to try out, and CSIS also have a good one. Universities like Oxford and Harvard have their own podcasts as well.
Try them all and pick your favourites. I just listen to CFR and Carnegie these days.
Modern Android phones have a fingerprint scanner that also acts as a home button.
I just got a $130 Moto E4, and its fingerprint scanner can actually be set to mimic the back/home/recents on-screen softkeys, if you swipe left/tap/swipe right. A long press (until you feel a vibration) switches the phone on and off, and a double-long press (two vibrations) launches Google Assistant.
It works well and is very intuitive, allowing me to remove the traditional Android softkeys, making the 5" Moto E screen seem closer to a 5.5". I assume Moto's more expensive models also do this, and possibly other phones as well.
It made me wonder how I lived for so long with the old setup, so I'd be surprised if Apple goes the other way.
I am aware, but I really like having gps directions right in front of me on my screen in the gauge cluster. I'll probably figure out a dash mount solution at some point, but it would be so much nicer if everything just played nice together.
Resistance training has innumerable benefits, but it's not a panacea nor is it a substitute for aerobic exercise; if done properly and sensibly, aerobic and resistance training complement one another. Here's a great summary comparing the two: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Adaptations-and-Health-B...
By all means emphasize one over the other as you prefer, but for health benefits both should be included. And, no, powerlifting exercises with a straight barbell are not irreplaceable. Resistance training is a far bigger world than that.