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Comment by spking | Hacker News Reader

It looks like no cardio to speak of in your routine. So many people kill themselves doing an hour a day of running or riding a stationary bike and then wonder why they don't get better results. It's really 80% or more about diet and lifting weights. The more muscle you have the more calories you will burn throughout the day. You just don't need that much cardio if you train intensely enough when lifting weights.

Nice work Ryan.

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Yeah, it is refreshing to see people posting results from these predominantly weight lifting programs. Helps keep me motivated on what I'm doing.

If anyone is interested in starting, but lacks the money for a personal trainer, I've found Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe (http://www.amazon.com/By-Mark-Rippetoe-Lon-Kilgore/dp/B005PI...) to be a huge help in learning all the lifts. The first chapter is almost 60 pages just on squats going over everything from foot position to hand position, along with an explanation of why.

Looks interesting. I know a lot of beginners have had solid results with 5x5 as well:

http://stronglifts.com/stronglifts-5x5-beginner-strength-tra...

There's a free iOS app for tracking progress too: http://stronglifts.com/stronglifts-5x5-app/

Yeah, I'm actually doing the stronglifts 5x5 program. The Starting Strength book is still really useful for learning the lifts and getting all of the detail. With stronglifts you're going to get high in weight quick - so knowing form well is kind of important.

Starting Strength is such a great book. Simple no nonsense. The diagrams are extremely helpful. I never knew you could fill that many pages on performing a proper squat.

Starting Strength is the perfect go to beginner - intermediate guide to weight training.

Good for you, you're on the right track.

Definitely agree on Starting Strength. Its done wonders for me, and there's no bs in the workouts, just basic barbell movements.

If you want to be a bodybuilder and look big, go ahead and skip cardio. On the other hand, if you do any sports that last more than about 30 seconds, you might want to spend a little time working your heart (which is also a muscle).

This is what happens if you skip the cardio: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HghbpgHNxC0

(Sorry for the crappy music video, it's the only one I could find.)

Skipping cardio certainly won't turn you into a body builder nor make you look "big"... It takes significantly more than just lifting weights, 90% is your diet, caloric intake and macronutrient composition, which together play the biggest role here.

Compare two genetically similar individuals, both lift weights 3x / week, one regularly consumes a 1000 caloric surplus, and the other consumes their daily caloric requirement. The outcome will be quite different.

If you play sports that last more than about 30 seconds, they can provide you with the adequate amounts of cardio you seek. If you play competitively, adding cardio may be a good idea.

Cardio is for health and endurance, if you want to run marathons or cycle, then yes, you should include more cardio. Otherwise, weightlifting adequately stresses your heart. Go deadlift 300lbs and tell me your heart isn't going nuts.

If you want to get in shape, regular exercise with an emphasis on weight lifting and proper nutrition will get you where you'd like to go.

At rest, muscle burns significantly more calories than fat, you don't need to cake on lean muscle to benefit from this, either. You only exercise for an hour or so, I'd rather work to build something in that hour that burns calories for the other 23.

Now with all that said, I personally try to do both, my cardio comes in the form of Squash on days I do not lift weights. I despise the treadmill zombie.

Go deadlift 300lbs and tell me your heart isn't going nuts.

Your heart will certainly go nuts. But deadlifting won't enable your heart to keep going at 80% for 5 minutes straight unless you do some 1x100@100lb crossfit style deadlifting.

I strongly recomment weight lifting for most people. I'm only suggesting that out of 5 days, do 3 weight and 2 cardio days. And yes, the cardio days should probably be squash, heavy bag or football rather than the treadmill.

>And yes, the cardio days should probably be squash, heavy bag or football rather than the treadmill.

I'd rephrase this and say cardio days should be something you enjoy doing. Some people enjoy running on a treadmill. I don't understand how that's possible, but if you like running on the treadmill, more power to you.

On the other hand, if you hate running on the treadmill, don't force yourself to do it! Exercise is a lifelong commitment and doing something you dislike isn't sustainable. Find something fun and do it regularly.

I've found that sports are the best way to get cardio as well; a high-intensity game of squash burns 816 calories/hour and is a lot more fun than an hour on the treadmill.

One of the reasons some sports work so well is that the stop and go/variable intensity nature is much better for you then spending the same amount of time logging low intensity cardio. See studies on "interval training" etc. I bike commute and try to mimic this by sprinting between intersections etc.

Squash is such an amazing workout. All that, and after a crappy day at the office, you can take out all your stress on that ball.

Burst workouts, whether 30 minutes of lifting weights, or 30 minutes of sprinting, interval swim training, etc. strengthen your heart more than long cardio marathons.

Cardio workouts can burn a lot of calories. Today I rode my bike for an hour and a half and burnt about 1200 Calories. That said, I'm a bit fitter than the average unfit person, and can therefore sustain a considerably higher power output and use more energy. Oh, and there's a big difference between pushing yourself on hilly roads and sitting on a bike in the gym reading a magazine.

Weights are good too, and they're much better at making one look fit (upper body especially).

Oh, and good on you Ryan. I've seen some around here talk about how it's worth sacrificing one's health for a startup. It's good to see not everybody shares that belief.

Exactly. Very little cardio. My heart definitely gets a workout though. After doing weights properly, your heart really pounds.

To stay fit I would look into a team or group sport. Unless you want to do body building or competitive weight lifting, you're going from rapidly improving to maintaining your fitness. Sports are so much more multifaceted, that you'll see improvement and reaching goals over a long time.

Please stop spreading the muscles burn more calories lie. Look up how many calories are burned by muscle cells and fat cells, then do the math and calculate how many extra baby carrots you can eat as a result of turning 20 pounds of fat into muscle.

http://www.lanimuelrath.com/blog/calories-burned-by-muscle-v...

From the link you posted: "muscle IS more metabolically active than fat"

Barely. A weight loss program consisting of "my muscle will burn off extra calories" will not go far.

So, not a myth, but an exaggeration?

It goes on to say that having more muscle helps burn calories when active even more so. I agree with your assertion that extra muscle burns off extra calories 'at rest' may be imply more than its actual results, but I don't see that it makes it a flat out myth.

More muscular people who exercise burn more calories than less muscular people who exercise the same amount, and burn more calories at rest than less muscular people at rest. That statement evaluates to True. That it isn't to the degree you like doesn't make it False.

May as well say you burn more calories drinking cold water because your body has to heat it up. This is a little meta, but I think if you say something that, while technically true, causes people to behave/believe in a certain manner unwarranted by the facts, you're functionally equivalent to lying. Anyway, point taken, "lie" was not the most tactful choice.

I get where you're coming from. I just always notice that when I'm in shape, it's much easier to keep in shape. Whenever I allow myself to fall out of shape, it's much harder to get back in. Perhaps it has nothing to do with the argument at hand, but that probably contributes to my bias.

Of course you're right to debunk the argument on its face, but I do wonder how much more caloric burn you get from the muscles you have during exercise, and whether that doesn't make up for it.

I imagine that running and riding (on a real bicycle) is more beneficial when you are overweight because there's more to carry around.

One other factor to keep in mind is that the less fit you are, the less mechanical work you are able to do. For example, an untrained cyclist might be able to ride at 150W for an hour, whereas a more serious cyclist might be able to sustain 300W for an hour. The first cyclist would burn about 550 Calories, while the second would burn 1100 Calories if they both did a hard one hour ride. (More energy is burnt in recovery, but that's a lot harder to measure.)

Maybe, but you you are far more likely to give yourself an overuse injury which then becomes a reason to stop your regimen.

Unless your bike fit is horrid it's very difficult to injure yourself just riding around, especially for a casual rider.

I didn't know that this was the case! Thank you for explaining it :)

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