Quote:
Originally Posted by
lawyerdad 
If people aren't "doing much else", a program that gives them a goal and thereby inspires them to start paying attention to and working at fitness seems a damn good thing. There's a pretty big range between being basically sedentary and being narcissistically lifting-obsessed. Believe it or not, not everyone -- not even everyone older than six -- ties their sense of self-worth to "growing big".
Horseshit. "Growing big" has nothing to do with it. This is the same rationale over/underweight, out of shape people use. "I don't want to get big, I could look like X if I had all that time to spend at the gym!" They can't get big, they won't get big, they won't even get into basic shape, because all of it takes dedication and trying to marginalize the efforts of people who have done something in anything is the siren call of the failure. Lifting weights does not turn you into Arnold. Believe it or not, it might be a good thing if people tied their senses of self-worth to not being so out of shape that they shorten their lifespan by a decade or more.
Quote:
Originally Posted by j
It's a reasonable goal (for many) to reach, it increases overall fitness level (someone who can do more pushups in the same time period than someone else, all else being equal, is in better shape), it requires no equipment, it could motivate someone to continue bettering himself... But yeah, again, pointless so you may as well work up to eating 100 Oreos instead.
It's not an accomplishment. It's the same as cutting back on Oreos, and I'm fine with that analogy, even if it sounds extreme. It gives people a sense of false entitlement, they did this and therefore they should expect x,y,z results. There's only so much time in the day, and there's only so much effort most people are willing to expend on exercise.
Push-ups:resistance exercise::Slowly jogging in
place:cardiovascular exercise. Standing on a box or to prop yourself up and doing pull-ups, even if you have to put 90% of your body weight on your legs, would be 100x more beneficial physically than doing push-ups. Getting someone to do something basic doesn't awaken them. It doesn't result in them becoming more concerned about their diet, they don't automatically turn into healthy people. I've seen it before, I see it now. If someone is going to do something at the very least their criteria should be for it to have an impact, they should look for what is more efficient. The fitness industry is filled with more bullshit than probably any other, and there's nothing wrong with pointing out that almost anything else is better than what is being recommended. Yes, you have to start somewhere. Never mind the fact that most people that "start" in fitness stop within weeks, there are
better places to start, and on this of all forums for a moderator to pretend that criticizing something that is sub-par is somehow not the right thing to do is laughable.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
eg1 I'm just guessing here, but wouldn't doing 100 push-ups be a lot harder for a big, old lard-ass like me than somebody who is relatively lean? The point being that maybe push-ups aren't a waste of time for everybody.
Push-ups are harder for people that have a significant amount of mass, whether they're very muscular (plenty of skinny people can do more push-ups than linebackers) or overweight. This still doesn't make it worth expending a large amount of effort on, and pretending it's somehow a great thing that's more than enough. Getting fit is not easy, and push-ups are at the bottom of the ladder as far as body weight exercises themselves go.
