koolba 2 hours ago

> We know from one study that people who played tennis a few times per week lived roughly 10 years longer than average. So we'll use that value going forward.

There has to be some incredible correlation between having the time and money to play tennis “a few times per week” and being significantly wealthier than the average person. And being wealthy is clearly the healthiest thing you can do.

  • almost_usual 3 minutes ago

    There are plenty of wealthy people who are not healthy.

    Wake up at 4:30am and go for a run. You’re already accomplishing more at that point in the day than most wealthy people who are comfortably laying in bed.

  • javier2 an hour ago

    Also, if you have health issues, you will not be playing tennis twice a week. Plus tennis is on the expensive to stay active in when you need a club membership and courts to play.

    • GoRudy 4 minutes ago

      Depends on the health issues. In the US, northeast and Florida at least there are many free courts almost everywhere. And plenty of older folks with small or medium health issues still find the time and motivation to play.

    • bluGill an hour ago

      Every town I've lived in has free courts in a park that anyone can use.

      • rs186 28 minutes ago

        These days they are often repurposed for pickleball in the US.

        • firesteelrain 8 minutes ago

          Pickleball nets are often portable and good co use with Tennis courts. That’s what we do

          Plus pickleball is popular so you will find more people to play with

  • giantg2 2 hours ago

    Very much this. While tennis has become more accessible and lower cost over time, it has always been an expensive sport.

    • ceejayoz 2 hours ago

      Honest question: Why?

      There's a free court near me, and both balls and racquets can be gotten for peanuts.

      • cpursley 2 hours ago

        They're talking from a North American perspective (probably). In most of Europe, there are plenty of outdoor and other free exercise opportunity. Another downside of the incorrect build environment (poor city planning) is that Americans simply don't have built-in ways to move their bodies. When I spent time in Eastern Europe, there was literally a free tennis/basketball court across the street. And a variety of other courts, including outdoor gym. And when house sitting around, there was nearly always an outdoor park with greenspace for strolling, exercise. All free.

        • ndriscoll an hour ago

          At least in all of the US suburbs I've lived, there's been free tennis courts and a variety of other courts all over the city. The high school down the street from me has 4 tennis courts. I hear them being used all the time when I'm on a walk (incidentally, along a greenway with a shared use walking/bike trail that wraps around the school grounds and connects via a tunnel under a highway to the rest of the city bike trail system).

        • huhkerrf an hour ago

          Well, while we're talking about anecdotes, my neighborhood in a poor Texas town also had a free tennis court. There were a couple more down the road. My in-laws suburb has walking trails end basketball courts.

          • cpursley an hour ago

            I think the catch is, Americans have to spend so much time driving for ADLs (activities of daily living) that there is no time to walk over to the local court (if there is one, usually there is not). This is due to the sprawl Ponzi scheme (which spreads everything out). It's also the primary cause behind America's mental health crises (lack of 3rd places, everyone is isolated). And yeah, I'm not talking SF or NYC, but 90% of the rest of the country.

            • bluGill an hour ago

              That is false for every american I know. Driving means less time than transit users in every study I've seen - that time is of course more stressful but we spend less time commuting and thus have more time. Working hours can be longer but for many it isn't much longer.

              There are a lot of couch potatoes that don't use their time, but they have it.

              • ndriscoll 44 minutes ago

                It always blows my mind when I see how many subscribers Netflix has. Americans are so busy driving and working that they don't have time to do anything (cook, grocery shop, exercise, etc.). How are 90M households finding the time to watch movies or binge on TV shows?

                • firesteelrain 6 minutes ago

                  No idea. I have Netflix but barely watch it.

              • cpursley 10 minutes ago

                Are you talking American transit? Because yeah, it sucks. Also, where do you live - SF, NYC?

            • maxerickson an hour ago

              I commute like 12 minutes and the stores I shop at regularly are in the middle of the drive. My office is more out of town than most jobs here.

              • cpursley 34 minutes ago

                You are an outlier, majority of Americans live in suburbia with a significant commute. And that sounds like a sweet setup. Mind if I ask where you live? Medium or small sized town?

                • maxerickson 24 minutes ago

                  Smaller town.

                  The average US commute is less than 30 minutes, people aren't spending all that much time. And with a 30 minute commute, they are likely doing the same thing I am, passing by stores that are reasonable for many of their needs.

          • matthewdgreen an hour ago

            If you live in a place with inexpensive land, tennis infrastructure is relatively cheap. If you live in a dense city where space is at a premium, that’s when it gets relatively expensive.

            • ajuc an hour ago

              Wouldn't space be more expansive in Europe with 100 people per km2 than in US with like 40 people per km2?

              How come it's the opposite in practice?

              • anthony_d 33 minutes ago

                > How come it's the opposite in practice?

                It’s not. “In practice” ≈ “your assumption”

      • impossiblefork an hour ago

        Tennis is very difficult though. One of the highest barrier to entry sports skill-wise.

        Non-athletic adult people can't step onto a tennis court and consistently get the ball back to you, even if you hit it to them.

        I thought Padel was easy, but when I organized a Padel after-work I saw that that was not reality, and Padel is much easier than tennis.

        • firesteelrain 5 minutes ago

          That’s why people are gravitating towards Pickleball. It has a lower barrier to entry

    • flatb 42 minutes ago

      The Williams sisters started playing tennis in Compton. Tennis is cheap, but not so culturally accessible.

    • esperent 2 hours ago

      > has always been an expensive sport

      Since I've been a child, living in multiple countries across Europe and Asia, there's always been either free or cheap tennis courts near me. I don't even play tennis much and I know this, I'm sure if I was searching I'd find way more low cost options.

      It's more likely that the demographic who play tennis tends to be wealthy, rather than the sport itself being expensive.

mehulashah 2 hours ago

100%. There’s no point in nitpicking on this post. There’s an outsized return on exercise and it’s measurable. People don’t get — especially young people — that exercise is like eating, sleeping, and pooping. Your body needs it in regular intervals otherwise its carefully balanced system goes out of whack.

  • heresie-dabord an hour ago

    Further, people don't know enough about the deadly effects of obesity, high blood pressure, and the big killer:

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atherosclerosis

    Exercise is vital!

    "Atherosclerosis generally starts when a person is young and worsens with age. Almost all people are affected to some degree by the age of 65. It is the number one cause of death and disability in developed countries. Though it was first described in 1575, there is evidence suggesting that this disease state is genetically inherent in the broader human population, with its origins tracing back to CMAH genetic mutations that may have occurred more than two million years ago during the evolution of hominin ancestors of modern human beings."

ruslan_sure an hour ago

Physical activity increases lifespan primarily by lowering the likelihood of falling and breaking your hip. If you break your hip, your life expectancy is dramatically reduced. If that's your goal, just train your legs!

That said, I think the most important part of exercising is the mental boost it provides. It's like a healthy drug. There are no negative side effects, and it's highly praised by society.

  • firesteelrain 3 minutes ago

    You aren’t wrong. Train your legs and walk. Don’t sit in the recliner when you retire. 7000-10000 steps a day helps

  • dachris 30 minutes ago

    That's certainly not the only (and I'd also not put it as primary) reason for extending the lifespan.

    Still, breaking one's hip in advanced age is often a death sentence as many people never get out of bed again.

    When an old person breaks their hip around here, people say something along the lines of "we'd better hurry up for visiting them one last time".

kobstrtr 2 hours ago

> that's about 8,500 hours of exercise, or about a year of solid physical activity

These comparisons are crap. You can‘t simply take one year, exercise 24/7, and get your 10 years of life. You have to fit it into life, which is much more time than it seems from claiming it‘s 1 year out of 80.

But it‘s still a good investment! :)

  • kelnos 2 hours ago

    That's a perfectly valid comparison. A year's worth of hours is still a year's worth of hours, regardless of what time span I spread it over.

    We use this sort of formulation everywhere. If I say I work 40 hours a week, no one is going to assume that I start work at 9am on Monday, work non-stop until 1am Wednesday, and then take the rest of the week off. If I say that people spend approximately a third of their lives sleeping, no one thinks I mean that they sleep continuously from birth until they're 30 years old, and then spend the next 60 years awake.

    • sersi 23 minutes ago

      The point is that it's 8500 hours of free time used for exercise. It's time when you're not eating sleeping or working.

      So it's not exactly the same. For people who have very little free time due to commute, work, children, etc. It's harder to spend half an hour of free time a day on exerciaing.

      I mean I do agree with the premise that exercising is a good return (especially since the better sleep quality should be factored in) but I think the person you're replying to has a point when he says that saying it's one year of life is not really comparable

donatj 2 hours ago

> Less pain

Is there anything to back this up? The people I know who work out are always complaining about their muscles and joints.

  • kelnos 2 hours ago

    There's a difference between soreness and pain. My muscles get sore all the time from exercise, but it's not painful. That soreness just tells me I'm probably going to be a little bit stronger because of the exercise I just did. (Of course it's a continuum: certain higher levels of soreness mean I probably overdid it.)

    Joint pain is a whole other thing, though. Usually joint pain means that you're doing some sort of exercise incorrectly, or that you're using too much weight or intensity for your current level of physical fitness. Or you have a previous injury that can't fully heal and there are some exercises that you just shouldn't be doing, but you do them anyway.

    But I think the author is talking about less pain in a different way. For example, I threw out my lower back 25 years ago in college, and it's never been the same since. But doing core exercises and strengthening the muscles around that area means much less chance of pain doing regular day-to-day activities.

    • ruslan_sure an hour ago

      Soreness is a sign that something is wrong with your training.

      You are probably doing too much or not doing it regularly enough.

      • fercircularbuf an hour ago

        First time I've ever heard that soreness = something wrong. Isn't soreness basically guaranteed to some degree if you've done enough work to actually build strength?

        • hatefulmoron 13 minutes ago

          > Isn't soreness basically guaranteed to some degree if you've done enough work to actually build strength?

          Not really. If you're eating/sleeping well and training consistently it's completely normal to not feel soreness (that is, excluding the immediate discomfort that rapidly subsides). I can't speak for all forms of exercise, but certainly it's normal when lifting weights, even to failure.

          That said, if you're just starting out you will notice a lot of soreness. Many people look back on the early DOMS and wish they could feel that sort of "positive feedback" again.

        • beingfit 34 minutes ago

          It depends. But as GP also said, it can be because one is not exercising (that part of the body) regularly. Anecdotally, I have seen that soreness is not really observed when exercising regularly. Some aches and a little fatigue? Probably. But not really muscle soreness.

        • ruslan_sure 26 minutes ago

          I suggest reading or listening to Dr. Andy Galpin on this topic.

  • cpursley 2 hours ago

    There's a big difference between recovery pain and chronic pain. Also, if someone has joint pain, they are doing the wrong exercises. For example, running trashes my knees, but biking does not. Also, picking up heavy shit (weights - squats and deadlifts) is the only thing that resolved lower back pain (from sitting all day).

  • cadamsdotcom 2 hours ago

    Some ways to exercise avoid injury & get results, and some.. don’t.

    I’m a triathlete of 4 years now - love to be sore but have never been injured & unable to train.

    There are three things you must do:

    1. good technique: lift with the right muscles, run at the right cadence & target heart rate.

    2. listen to your body when it needs less or more load.

    3. treat recovery as equally important as exercise itself. Exercise’s mirror.

    That said, instead of actual complaints, your friends might be social signaling! Bringing it up to bond over the joy of exercise. Humans do that subconsciously, and there is a ton of joy to bond over!

    • DSingularity 2 hours ago

      [flagged]

      • kelnos 2 hours ago

        Why do people feel the need to waste time commenting about whether or not a comment is LLM-generated?

        If you think the comment doesn't belong here, downvote or flag it. That goes for things you think are LLM-generated or human-generated. Commenting about LLM-generated speculation is just noise, and I regret spending this time replying to you on this topic when I could be doing absolutely anything else.

  • brightball 19 minutes ago

    When you start working out, you will have soreness in your muscles from lactic acid because your body isn’t used to it.

    Once you get in a routine of doing it at least twice a week you won’t get that soreness anymore. People who start working out, then miss a month, then start back experience it all the time. Consistency is key.

  • donalhunt 2 hours ago

    From personal experience strength training has been key to recovering from injuries (caused by doing stupid things, not exercise itself). So maybe the correlation between exercise and pain is incorrect? The exercise is the cure to the pain...

    https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-5753318/v1 (pre-print) seems to provide a strong argument for strength training being beneficial. My search was not thorough so likely more studies out there.

  • m_fayer 2 hours ago

    For me personally: My fitness routines are regular but sloppy.

    I’m often complaining about soreness here, a lightly pulled there, a big joint that needs to be left alone for a few days. It’s annoying but also even kinda satisfying, and I know how to avoid serious injury.

    I’m not complaining about lower back pain because my fitness activity has rid me of it. That pain would have stopped me from being able to move easily, work on my cabin, play with children, and would have eventually made me overweight and chronically ill.

    The tradeoff is really a no-brainer in my case, and I don’t think my case is so unique.

  • user68858788 2 hours ago

    Anecdotally, weight training eliminated my chronic shoulder and hip pains from sitting at a desk. I’ve read several similar stories but I’d be interested to see studies on this.

  • ruslan_sure an hour ago

    Physical activity triggers the production of endorphins, specifically beta-endorphins, which are natural painkillers.

  • nottorp an hour ago

    Most of those are not actually complaining but bragging.

    Sore muscles -> good workout.

  • ajuc 2 hours ago

    You don't know you have problems with X if you aren't using X.

    If you do nothing for 20 years and then go for a 20km walk - you'll be in pain. But it's the 20 years that caused it, not the 20 km.

    • donatj an hour ago

      Sure, but is the sum of that single day of pain more than the sum of 20 years of pain?

  • jajko 2 hours ago

    If folks are regularly sore and their goals are not some lofty races or even higher and further down the progression path, they are doing it wrong.

    You should feel the exercise and specific muscles afterwards, sometimes even a day after (like hamstrings and thighs from squats, those don't get much workout during normal life), but after initial beginner phase the continuous long term goal is to get enough workout that muscles are not sore, just notch below. Properly sore muscle needs few days rest, a well used one can be again fully loaded in 48h easily.

    And overall definitely less pain or more like 0 pain, ie back from weak core is pretty typical. Another one are knees, but to train knees around some already-damaged tissues is more tricky, but definitely worth it.

    After starting weightlifting (on top of some sports like ski touring, climbing, hiking etc) I can handle much more, heavier and longer. Need to move your/friend stuff to another apartment? All day carrying with them feels like mild stretch, compared to them complaining for back pain for another 3 days.

chaostheory 2 hours ago

If you’re struggling with exercise and with getting it into a routine, I can’t recommend standalone, wireless VR enough. It was fun and engaging enough to keep me coming back without feeling that I was doing a boring chore, and nearly every game has you moving, with the exception of the flying and driving sims.

Imagine fighting ninjas and dodging bullets as your workout. You can literally get that and more with VR.

It was my gateway back into fitness.

  • Maximus9000 an hour ago

    Can you recommend any specific games that meet these requirements? I don't have VR, but I remember playing "Super hot VR" and getting a surprisingly good workout from that game.

    • carpool4268 42 minutes ago

      It sounds like they're talking about pistol whip.

      If I can promote one myself, Synth Riders can be a hell of a workout. People like comparing it to beat saber. Unlike beat saber, there's no swords, so there's a lot less wrist movement and a lot more arm/full-body movement. It feels a lot like dancing while you're doing it. I'm no great fan of exercise, but if I'm not careful I can exercise myself deep past exhaustion in this one -- especially on the harder difficulty charts.

      And beyond that there's a mode where you punch the notes instead of trying to catch them. I haven't tried it, but that sounds even more demanding.

      But aside from anything else, it's just fun! Great option for training cardio, it really works out the arms.

  • ajuc an hour ago

    Or you know just get audiobook on your phone and walk.

almost_usual 36 minutes ago

The mental toughness, discipline, and higher energy levels that come with exercise are more important to me than physical appearance or living longer, and at this point almost anything else in life.

Wake up at 4am, run hill repeats for miles and then go into work. I guarantee no incident or colleague will trigger a stress response. You will feel as cool as a cucumber and when an urgent issue does come up you will handle it with absolute mental clarity. That afternoon drowsiness will also not hit you at all, counterintuitive right?

By 9pm you will fall asleep no matter what happened that day.

This kind of work gives you an edge on everyone. You look at things and say, “shit this is easy compared to what I did this morning” and you will feel mentally fresh.

  • weregiraffe 13 minutes ago

    By 9pm? A lot of people will need to go to bed at 8pm to survive this schedule.

isaacremuant 35 minutes ago

"hackernews" the self help site always rings so hollow.