Mental and physical effects of gaming

danutz_plusplus said:

Gyms are a waste of time & money. I'd spend 30 minutes going to it, and another 30 getting back. In that time I can actually workout in my "home-gym" and not waste time.

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All I can say is that you must have been going to the wrong gym.

You can do everything you could at a gym at home with a few kettlebells and either a treadmill or a good stretch of land to run on.

JDR13 said:

All I can say is that you must have been going to the wrong gym.

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Well, there aren't a lot of gyms in my area. And even if I could find one close to me I'd still prefer to workout at home. Plenty of reasons. The most important of which is wasting time. I workout to do exactly that. Not chit-chat with people I meet about misc. stuff. I want to do as good a workout as I can in the time I've assigned myself. I can talk and stuff during other down-times.

Plus I feel a lot more focused when I'm alone and don't care for people looking at me while I workout. It's distracting.

And ditto to what Rithrandil said. You can pretty much get yourself most of what you need to work out at a small price. You don't need complicated machines to offer resistance considering we're not professional sports people/gymnasts/whatever. After you get to a very good physical condition then yeah, you might need more.

I just don't feel the price is worth the gain. Time and money. And considering time is money, I guess it's just 2 x money.

danutz_plusplus said:

I just don't feel the price is worth the gain.

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That pretty much sums it up. Of course there's nothing wrong with that either. Some workouts aren't casual enough to do at home, unless you've spent enough on equipment to the point where joining a gym is actually cheaper.

Prime Junta said:

Hey, that sounds like great advice! Can you spot me $4k?

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If I would do that I would disturb your quest to improve your life, which consists of two challenges;
1. Getting money
2. Decide which computer hardware that is faster/better/groovier than the stuff you already have

I heard you can sell blood. I want to get into that. I have a lot of it.

danutz_plusplus said:

Well, there aren't a lot of gyms in my area. And even if I could find one close to me I'd still prefer to workout at home. Plenty of reasons. The most important of which is wasting time. I workout to do exactly that. Not chit-chat with people I meet about misc. stuff. I want to do as good a workout as I can in the time I've assigned myself. I can talk and stuff during other down-times.

Plus I feel a lot more focused when I'm alone and don't care for people looking at me while I workout. It's distracting.

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At least at all the gyms I've been to, there's a pretty strong etiquette of pretending not to look at what others are doing. I mean sure, everybody looks anyway, but they pretend like they're not, which makes it pretty easy to pretend that nobody's looking at you. I certainly don't find it distracting.

That said, there are some hardcore bodybuilders who go to the same gym I use, and I have picked up some pretty good techniques by watching what they do. (They enjoy being looked at, so it's OK.)

And ditto to what Rithrandil said. You can pretty much get yourself most of what you need to work out at a small price. You don't need complicated machines to offer resistance considering we're not professional sports people/gymnasts/whatever. After you get to a very good physical condition then yeah, you might need more.

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You need two things: something to do cardio/aerobic training, and something to do strength training. And you need them set up so that you can fairly easily switch from one to the other. If you live in a nice climate so you can go for a run or a bike ride and then get back and jump straight to the weights, you don't need any equipment for the cardio; else you're looking at something like a treadmill, exercise bike/rollers, or cross-trainer.

As for the strength training, you need a bench and weights. All of that really doesn't cost all that much, it's true.

However, it does take space -- a room, say, 3 x 5 meters, like the one I'm in now. At 3500 euros a square meter (roughly what living space costs in my neighborhood), that's worth over 50,000 euros. That buys about 100 years of gym membership.

I just don't feel the price is worth the gain. Time and money. And considering time is money, I guess it's just 2 x money.

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Makes total sense. If I had chosen to live in a house in the 'burbs or the countryside rather than an apartment downtown, I would probably have done the same. I certainly wouldn't bother with a gym membership if I had to commute a half an hour to get there; I'd never bother going.

Prime Junta said:

Makes total sense. If I had chosen to live in a house in the 'burbs or the countryside rather than an apartment downtown, I would probably have done the same. I certainly wouldn't bother with a gym membership if I had to commute a half an hour to get there; I'd never bother going.

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Yeah, that's just it. I live in a house, not an apartment. So I've got space. So yeah, I can imagine if you're living in a flat you're not going to have room. Plus you'd make loads of noise just jumping around.

danutz_plusplus said:

Well, there aren't a lot of gyms in my area. And even if I could find one close to me I'd still prefer to workout at home. Plenty of reasons. The most important of which is wasting time. I workout to do exactly that. Not chit-chat with people I meet about misc. stuff. I want to do as good a workout as I can in the time I've assigned myself. I can talk and stuff during other down-times.

Plus I feel a lot more focused when I'm alone and don't care for people looking at me while I workout. It's distracting.

And ditto to what Rithrandil said. You can pretty much get yourself most of what you need to work out at a small price. You don't need complicated machines to offer resistance considering we're not professional sports people/gymnasts/whatever. After you get to a very good physical condition then yeah, you might need more.

I just don't feel the price is worth the gain. Time and money. And considering time is money, I guess it's just 2 x money.

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True but I wouldn't know where to put weights and a bar in my house without cluttering it even more, and it does cost quite a bit ... And a bench...

Re: training at home:

My favorite exercise are pull-ups/chin-ups. They work a whole lot of muscles (forearm, triceps, and pretty much everything on your back) and it's generally a kickass feeling, too. Of course, when I started out I couldn't do one total, but now I can with certainty say installing that bar in the hallway of my apartment was the best thing I've done for myself. Even if you go to the gym, there's no reason not to have a bar at home too (I suggest placing it on the way to the bathroom, and making it a goal to do however many pull-ups as you can whenever you go to the bathroom; tis a pretty damn effective routine). Of course, I'm probably way younger than you, meaning I can progress that much quicker, but my father is also doing 'em and he loves it (plus he went to "barely one" to "easy three" in the span of a few months only).

If you combine that with dips, you could have almost a full body routine. Sadly, I can't, so I make do with pushups (working on one-armed pushups now!) and the plank, which is a static exercise for your arms. It's static nature makes for a great progression ("ok, I held it 15 seconds last time, lets do 20 now"), but there are ways to make it plain harder too (ie. one arm in the air). Finally, pistols (the one-legged squat) work for your legs if you'd like to work out that part of your body too.

I must note, though, that I'm a big proponent of bodyweight exercises, as I believe (rightly or wrongly) that they will build up your body in a well-proportioned way, as opposed to lifting which in general requires more effort to avoid over-building a single muscle or muscle group. Yes, it's generally easier to work with weights/free weights, but there's a bodyweight exercise for pretty much every muscle out there, so there's always an alternative. I've heard good things about the book "Never Gymless", which focuses on bodyweight exercises, though I've only read "The Naked Warrior" (which focuses on just pistols and one-armed pushups, and is generally considered the weaker book, though definitely not bad by any means). Of course, if it's just muscle gain you'd want (which I doubt?), pretty much everyone will recommend the program outlined in "Starting Strength".

Anyway, that's my take on it, sorry if I rambled a bit. I'll be happy to discuss bodyweight exercises in general with anyone, I consider myself somewhat knowledge-able in that area. P) [didn't provide any links, should be easy enough to good the names of the exercises]


In short: whatever you do, get a pull-up bar. Install it in the doorway if you have to. And then just do pull-ups whenever you go by it. Guaranteed to work (the so-called "grease the groove" method).

I just started going to gym properly (as in 3 times a week) for about a month and a half now. I don't see much of a difference physically, but I can feel that I can lift much more than when I started, I can now squat properly as well. I used not to be able to stay squatted for long. I can squat with 60Kg on my back. I started with 10kg.

I started curls with 4Kgs and am at 12 now. I'm doing a program called Stronglifts 5x5, it's online... Except that I'm not eating the way they say I'm supposed to. I'm doing most of the exercises most of the time. I sometimes do other stuff.

It's quite well explained. I recommend it for beginners or people wanting to try something different.
I stopped increasing the weights with squats this week as I think it's not too good to go too high too fast. In a week or two I'll start increasing it again.

I'm not a big fan of working out though.

Whenever I feel like having a workout, I lie down till the feeling wears off!!

danutz_plusplus said:

What about doing both of them? Working out, reading books and gaming. You can do them all. Be fit and healthy and game. Of course not in the same quantities as before. I've recently started doing that and I find that I have more energy to do everything I need. So 1h - 1h & 30 mins of working out daily can do wonders. You'll be able to do more than without it. And no gyms imo. Gyms are a waste of time & money. I'd spend 30 minutes going to it, and another 30 getting back. In that time I can actually workout in my "home-gym" and not waste time.

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Working out, reading, and gaming? You need to tell me your secret. By the time I go to work, get home and do chores (and occasionally run an errand), I'm lucky if I have 1 - 1.5 hours before I need to get to bed for 8 hours of sleep (I need that much sleep for various health reasons). 1.5 hours for some gaming only happens on a night where things go very smoothly. If I included exercise in my daily routine, most of my life would be spent doing things I don't really like to do. Until I retire, exercise is out.

What about Wii Fit? My biggest problem with exercise is that it's boring, but Wii seems to have come up with a good solution.

I'm saving up to get one in English from Hong Kong. If I get it here, I'll only be able to get games in Chinese or Japanese.

I have one of those, but I get worn out watching others in the house use it!!

Necrosis said:

Working out, reading, and gaming? You need to tell me your secret. By the time I go to work, get home and do chores (and occasionally run an errand), I'm lucky if I have 1 - 1.5 hours before I need to get to bed for 8 hours of sleep (I need that much sleep for various health reasons). 1.5 hours for some gaming only happens on a night where things go very smoothly. If I included exercise in my daily routine, most of my life would be spent doing things I don't really like to do. Until I retire, exercise is out.

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Nine hours of work a day (including commute), eight hours of sleep, two hours of cooking and eating, leaves five hours for other stuff. How much time do you spend working anyway?

(BTW, if you're completely inactive physically, it's likely that you'll be dead by the time you would retire, so that strikes me as a pretty stupid trade-off. What's more, starting to exercise at 65 after a life of inactivity is going to be no fun at all.)

Prime Junta said:

Nine hours of work a day (including commute), eight hours of sleep, two hours of cooking and eating, leaves five hours for other stuff. How much time do you spend working anyway?

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2 hours for cooking and eating?! Are you preparing gourmet meals every day?

JDR13 said:

2 hours for cooking and eating?! Are you preparing gourmet meals every day?

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That depends on your definition of "gourmet," I suppose, but yeah, we do spend a lot of time on food. Both of us enjoy cooking and eating, so we take our time with it. Two hours is probably lowball, actually, if you include shopping for the ingredients.

JDR13 said:

2 hours for cooking and eating?! Are you preparing gourmet meals every day?

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How healthy is your diet if you're spending less? You'd need to be eating a lot of packaged/pre-prepared/fast food to get much under that.

V7 said:

How healthy is your diet if you're spending less? You'd need to be eating a lot of packaged/pre-prepared/fast food to get much under that.

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My diet is very healthy. I don't feel the need to go into detail, but it's safe to say you don't have to spend 2 hours a day preparing food. Of course there's nothing wrong if, like Prima Junta, you enjoy spending that much time on it.