This is a very hard problem. I really have no answer other than learning as much as you need to know. Keep asking “what is the evidence for this?”, and learn statistics deeply. I read lots of books and read the FAQs and watched the debates on /fit/ etc.
Most of the fitness advice you will hear is bad. But this is not unique; the same applies to financial advice and to medical advice, including from doctors and specialists. Conflicts of interest play a role but incompetence is rife. [Conflicts of interest: I commented to a General Practitioner here that surgeons often have a conflict of interest—they recommend surgery and also profit from. His comment was that there was no conflict—they are in it for the money!. Perhaps slightly too cynical but not bad as a first approximation. Incompetence: Anyone who has read the medical literature or looked deeply into their own medical issues and then spoken to doctors and specialists will be appalled. This post is too short to go into details but if at all possible and you have a serious medical issue—read up both on statistics and on the particular problem.] Also worth noting that, far more than most other scientific fields, medicine is a ‘status’ model not a ‘knowledge and evidence’ model. Pernicious and wrong ideas can live for decades because the people who hold them are powerful and have high status.
I think part of the problem is government enforced licensing of medical people. if you can do a better job that current endocrinologists for example and start doing that, the government will put you in jail. Add to this the fact that membership of the esteemed order of endocrinologists is at the whim of the current endocrinologists. For example in my country having seen at least a dozen endocrinologists I have yet to find one who has even an elementary grasp of medically relevant statistics, nor have I found one who seems to be able to think of the endocrine system as a complex non-linear feedback system. Usually you don’t get much beyond “your blood level is normal therefore there cannot be a problem”. And how is ‘normal’ defined …
Having gotten into fitness myself thanks to a back problem, I do agree with the proposition that lack of strength is behind many but not all such problems. But hormonal issues are important too—if you have low testosterone (which many young males do, and by low I mean < 450ng/dl USA or < 15nM/L everywhere else). High cortisol can also nuke any fitness program.
I also agree with warm-ups. Not with stretching. Warm up for me = a few minutes of walking and then reps of the target exercise at low weights, gradually building up 10X10kg, 5X30, 3X50, 2*65...
On the other hand I found machines to be of limited value in producing real world strength because the unnatural movements only trained a very specific set of muscles and did not train proprioception and bodily intelligence. I switched to barbells.
On cardio I think that it is good if intense and in small doses i.e. HIIT. Long moderate cardio only put up my stress hormone levels and left me debilitated. Cool down from intense cardio is important I think to restore normal blood flow and avoid staving the heart of oxygen. Again just walk a few minutes. At this time you can stretch if flexibility is a goal—now, not before exercising.
For burning calories long slow walks are best IMHO. You can use the time for ‘diffuse mode’ thinking which is important. If you are very young you might be able to get away with slow running.
Build/achieve/create things that are impressive and that work, or
Fix broken things that others can’t fix, or
Predict the future better than simple heuristics can (e.g. present trends will continue), or
Explain otherwise baffling things in a parsimonious way, in a way others can’t, then
They are not an expert. Even if they have fancy pieces of parchment on the walls of their office, and even if they have fancy titles.
As Barbara Oakley pointed out in the excellent “A mind for numbers”, claims of expertise not accompanied by proof are worse than acknowledged incompetence. At least the acknowledged incompetent will not act on a false basis of competence.
In my opinion one of the things that makes it so hard to figure out who is right is that most of the fitness people are kind of right about building muscle. The basic fact is that you get stronger if you put load on your system. They mostly argue about what is more “efficient”, which depending on the person arguing can mean faster/easier/less effort/safer. And the differences are mostly much smaller than the person who wants your money would like you to believe. But most of the fitness experts never state it clearly in terms of something like “method x will make you grow 5% more muscle per month than method y”. So be skeptical.
Machine training can be a good way to build a foundation, because the limited movements make it a bit harder for you to injure yourself. And the biggest problem if you are starting is not which method is 5% faster, but it is injuring yourself and then not being able to do anything for months or for the rest of your life. Injuries are more frequent the weaker you are, since you don’t have the muscles to hold your joints in place properly.
This is a very hard problem. I really have no answer other than learning as much as you need to know. Keep asking “what is the evidence for this?”, and learn statistics deeply. I read lots of books and read the FAQs and watched the debates on /fit/ etc.
Most of the fitness advice you will hear is bad. But this is not unique; the same applies to financial advice and to medical advice, including from doctors and specialists. Conflicts of interest play a role but incompetence is rife. [Conflicts of interest: I commented to a General Practitioner here that surgeons often have a conflict of interest—they recommend surgery and also profit from. His comment was that there was no conflict—they are in it for the money!. Perhaps slightly too cynical but not bad as a first approximation. Incompetence: Anyone who has read the medical literature or looked deeply into their own medical issues and then spoken to doctors and specialists will be appalled. This post is too short to go into details but if at all possible and you have a serious medical issue—read up both on statistics and on the particular problem.] Also worth noting that, far more than most other scientific fields, medicine is a ‘status’ model not a ‘knowledge and evidence’ model. Pernicious and wrong ideas can live for decades because the people who hold them are powerful and have high status.
I think part of the problem is government enforced licensing of medical people. if you can do a better job that current endocrinologists for example and start doing that, the government will put you in jail. Add to this the fact that membership of the esteemed order of endocrinologists is at the whim of the current endocrinologists. For example in my country having seen at least a dozen endocrinologists I have yet to find one who has even an elementary grasp of medically relevant statistics, nor have I found one who seems to be able to think of the endocrine system as a complex non-linear feedback system. Usually you don’t get much beyond “your blood level is normal therefore there cannot be a problem”. And how is ‘normal’ defined …
Having gotten into fitness myself thanks to a back problem, I do agree with the proposition that lack of strength is behind many but not all such problems. But hormonal issues are important too—if you have low testosterone (which many young males do, and by low I mean < 450ng/dl USA or < 15nM/L everywhere else). High cortisol can also nuke any fitness program.
I also agree with warm-ups. Not with stretching. Warm up for me = a few minutes of walking and then reps of the target exercise at low weights, gradually building up 10X10kg, 5X30, 3X50, 2*65...
On the other hand I found machines to be of limited value in producing real world strength because the unnatural movements only trained a very specific set of muscles and did not train proprioception and bodily intelligence. I switched to barbells.
On cardio I think that it is good if intense and in small doses i.e. HIIT. Long moderate cardio only put up my stress hormone levels and left me debilitated. Cool down from intense cardio is important I think to restore normal blood flow and avoid staving the heart of oxygen. Again just walk a few minutes. At this time you can stretch if flexibility is a goal—now, not before exercising.
For burning calories long slow walks are best IMHO. You can use the time for ‘diffuse mode’ thinking which is important. If you are very young you might be able to get away with slow running.
Also, not all ‘experts’ are actually expert.
If they can’t
Build/achieve/create things that are impressive and that work, or
Fix broken things that others can’t fix, or
Predict the future better than simple heuristics can (e.g. present trends will continue), or
Explain otherwise baffling things in a parsimonious way, in a way others can’t, then
They are not an expert. Even if they have fancy pieces of parchment on the walls of their office, and even if they have fancy titles.
As Barbara Oakley pointed out in the excellent “A mind for numbers”, claims of expertise not accompanied by proof are worse than acknowledged incompetence. At least the acknowledged incompetent will not act on a false basis of competence.
In my opinion one of the things that makes it so hard to figure out who is right is that most of the fitness people are kind of right about building muscle. The basic fact is that you get stronger if you put load on your system. They mostly argue about what is more “efficient”, which depending on the person arguing can mean faster/easier/less effort/safer. And the differences are mostly much smaller than the person who wants your money would like you to believe. But most of the fitness experts never state it clearly in terms of something like “method x will make you grow 5% more muscle per month than method y”. So be skeptical.
Machine training can be a good way to build a foundation, because the limited movements make it a bit harder for you to injure yourself. And the biggest problem if you are starting is not which method is 5% faster, but it is injuring yourself and then not being able to do anything for months or for the rest of your life. Injuries are more frequent the weaker you are, since you don’t have the muscles to hold your joints in place properly.