You know, I went through Darebee's "foundation" program, recommended for people with no idea what they're doing, on the theory that being in better shape would be nice.

https://darebee.com/programs/foundation-program.html

It has plenty of good points. But it's a miserable failure at letting you get into shape for the simple reason that it's a 30-day program with approximately 30 unique sets of daily exercises.

And Darebee seems to think of this as a strength! Variety, in their minds, will keep you interested in continuing with the program.

This incredibly misguided approach means that it's almost impossible to keep up the habit. Participating at all means that every day, you have to go find the program, find your current place, and look up whatever new exercises they've decided to introduce that day. Maybe those exercises will happen again two weeks later. Maybe not.

What I want is a set of exercises that I can memorize so that, if it becomes convenient to do some daily exercises during the day, I can do that without having to look up a schedule and then study what exactly I'm supposed to be doing. Working through the entire program left me completely unable to even repeat the same program.

I just can't understand where they got the idea that you need to be enticed into doing something most people consider unpleasant by imposing a lot of mandatory busywork every time you do decide to get on with it.

Boy do I hear that. I was mostly eating what was very healthy, but I'd throw in an apple here, some crackers there... it adds up so fast and grinds everything to a halt.

Yes, getting abs is 90% of diet, 10% exercise.

In my experience at weight watchers, 99% of people trying to lose weight simply have no idea they’re eating way more calories than they need, and they have absolution idea how insanely calorie sense some things are, like cashews.

For Burt everyone they don’t need to count calories, they just need to knockout a few calorie dense things and the weight comes off.

For progressing to a chin-up or pullup, have you tried negatives? Or rubber band assist? Or, if you are willing to get rings, you can lower them so some of your weight is supported by your feet on the ground (body straight like a plank), changing the height of the rings will increase or decrease effort.

The modern way to progress to chin ups normally involves bands and eccentrics, but you can also just do partial reps (starting with the top of the movement) and gradually work on adding depth.

(This also avoids the stress on your elbows that can happen from the bottom of the rep if not controlled well.)

If you're quite far off starting with bodyweight inverted rows and working up in reps will train your arms and elbows in a very similar way from an easier position.

Anything "partial" gets a bad rep from people ego lifting with weights but it can be a legitimate way to work up to calisthenics exercises and saves fiddling around with bands

If you haven't tried single leg movements, that's the way to increase load on your legs when you don't have more weight available.

Moving fast is also a good way to increase intensity without increasing weight (you can clean less than you can deadlift, for example). The training effect is slightly different, but probably more useful for the average person tbh.

Chin up progression is eccentrics and band assists. They'll get you to your first chin up faster than lat pulldowns since you're actually doing the movement.

The advantage of the gym is that machines usually (but not always) force or at least guide the correct form. Free weights and free exercise leave so much room for a wrong form and building up to injuries.

The article is about muscle hypertrophy, not health outcomes.

>if you’ve only got an hour a day or whatever for a workout you’re better off spending it all on resistance training.

The health benefits of resistance training plateau around 90-120 minutes per week. And don't forget about cardio, which is arguably more important for reducing disease risk. I would guess that maintaining flexibility helps reduce risk of injury and mortality from falling, which becomes increasingly likely as you get older. But there's not much evidence that increasing flexibility beyond a normal functioning range has any ancillary benefits.

Public pool, city owned. August daily was less than 1€/day. Now I'm taking classes (my style... has room for improvement) not sure about the price for the winter months, but it's subsidized so not very high.

TBH, gyms have lower prices now over here. You can find a decent subscription for 30€/month, half of what used to be. But they're overcrowded. For me the main factor is time. I end up wasting a lot of time waiting for a free spot or shower, changing clothes, etc. Training at home is much simpler. Combined with a couple of days out swimming or running, a better solution, for me anyway.

Edit: between my previous comment and this one, I've completed my daily home routine :-)