logoalt Hacker News

ijidak11/08/20243 repliesview on HN

Shannon Sharpe works out at my gym.

Huge guy. Former NFL tight-end. Still very fit.

I notice he only does 1 hour at the gym and then he leaves.

Granted, this is very low quality anecdata.

But seeing how brief his workout is opened my eyes to the benefit of consistency over volume.


Replies

safety1st11/08/2024

I wish someone had told me this: once you put muscle on your frame it tends to stick around.

If you bulk up and turn into Hercules over the course of a few years you can scale back your training volume dramatically and as long as you keep your diet right, you will continue to be a jacked and cut dude for many many years.

I'm sure this gets less true as you age but it seems to apply to me in my 40s.

Maintenance is just way easier than the initial buildup.

I discovered this pretty much on accident when I scaled back the volume and intensity of my own training and noticed... Huh would you look at that... Very little changed.

Like on some level, it would be harder to return to the state of roly poly schlub that I was once in, than to continue being the fairly fit person I am now. I just autopilot twice a week to the gym after work, zone out and listen to podcasts for an hour while doing some pretty moderate intensity lifts, and the body stays in pretty decent shape. I barely break a sweat now compared to the first year or two.

show 1 reply
yourusername11/08/2024

Dorian Yates (former mister Olympia) claimed he trained 4 times a week for 45 minutes while preparing for the contest. But very intense training.

show 2 replies
subsaharancoder11/08/2024

He is also 56 years old and has the muscle definition of a man in his 20s, when biology shows building and retaining that kind of quality muscle at that age is very difficult even with a history of physical fitness. I'll just say it, he's probably on TRT or some other gear..