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Comment by agumonkey | Hacker News Reader

yeah sure, physical exercise is vital, and even a few minutes everyday is a great boost for a lot of things in you

but I used to run / bike, and this didn't address the same movement as deep squat / dead lift affect

Running plus cycling is quite a feat already, if you do it serious. I'm a cyclist and 15 months into running I still dislike it but also know it's a good thing for me.

I was a runner first, but years made my knee joints brittle, and biking is amazing to avoid pain there. And talking about knee joints, single leg squats are magic to restore them a bit. I was quite surprised.

Why not swim.

I think about it regularly (cause swimming is one of the best kind of exercise I know of too) but it's less convenient logistically and also psychologically, you can't swim alone unless you have access to the sea or a clean calm river.

Yeah good point about solitary swimming.

I was in a permanent state of back pain when my only exercise was cycling/running. Adding a bit of resistance training is what finally cured it.

Carefull though. I busted my knees combining intense ice skating (multiple hours per day) and explosive running/jumping (basketball). Two very distict movements for that area.

I think that further reinforces the point - There's an enormous boost from doing anything at all. In most things, there's a pretty significant falloff in terms of the reward of what you're doing but with exercise, you get that for pretty much every step along the way. For you it's deadlifts, for me most recently it was bench presses relieving tension in my chest and upper shoulders and neck which was giving me headaches. I'm sure I'd get a similar return if I focused on deep squats or deadlifts for a little bit.

Have you tried the 'animal flow' trend thing ? dynamic poses on ground, using all 4, and partially walking that way ? it seems to hit all biomechanical spots softly.

Deep squats and deadlifts might just be the most useful strength exercises in your day to day life.

Your legs and your back are the two muscle groups you use the most. You always want to have good posture (deadlifts) and you always want to be able to move around easily (squats). Being the guy that opens any jar of pickles is cool and all, but those two alone definitely increase your QoL.

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