Does anyone have a tip on how to start? I despise gyms, and would really love a tutorial to get an operation going in my garage. Maybe also an app recommendation?
Start with bodyweight stuff, pullups, pushups, squats, you can look up bodyweight routines online.
Once you get bored, if you think you like the strength aspect of it, buy a power rack with a pullup attachment, a bench, a barbell and some weight plates. No shortage of those on second hand marketplaces.
With those items there is nothing you cannot train strength wise. Look up powerlifting programs and start your journey.
If you think you prefer the bodybuilding/aesthetic side of things, do the same as above but also get some dumbells for isolation stuff, and again look up programs online.
I will say that long term a gym is pretty good for bodybuilding, you just have more variety of machines that target specific muscles.
But for strength you can honestly do your whole strength program at home with a barbell, rack and bench.
If you find it all boring but still want to be fit, then sport will have longevity. Bikes, team sports, climbing, there are so many options. Callisthenics is surprisingly popular lately and builds great muscle while still being fun.
- do a linear progression barbell training program, like starting strength https://startingstrength.com/get-started/programs this is definitely easier in the gym because you need a rack, barbell, bench and weights. But if you want to buy it yourself, just make sure you get the "real" barbells, which weigh 20 kg and have rotating "sleeves" at the end which have 50 mm diameter. This is the standard size, the thinner ones are crap.
TBH the Ring Fit Adventure[0] for the Switch is pretty good if you're starting from nothing. It's some minor cardio to warm up and then basic body weight movements like squats and sit-ups etc.
Honestly, entry level power rack with safeties + pullup bar, bar + 300-400lbs of plates (bumeprs if you can afford it), bench, some stall mats to protect floor. Follow a basic 3x5, 5x5 for a few months and go from there. Make sure form is good, don't overthink progression. Do the beginner program until you stall which should take a few months. If you stick with it and develop a bug for getting stronger you'll be motivated to figure out next steps.
My brother who was intellectually handicapped chose a similar escape from society. He died in his twenties of a pulmonary embolism. It was likely caused by a lack of exercise due to his excessive gaming habit.
Heavy multiplayer gaming is just coming into the mainstream. I never even got into it for its unsavory vibe, much like I never got into one-armed bandits and weed. I knew early alarmist reports were wrong, but speedy mainstreamization (along the lines of what's going on with weed too) is bound to erase previous criticism.
Despite not being a gamer this story touched me -- enough that it made me suspend the slower more rational critical "loop" temporarily. But people do get disable kids all the time, a cousin just got an autism diagnosis for her nonverbal 3-year old; and it's not good to enter gaming into the annals of it-can't-harm-at-least alternative medicine.
I know criticism is rarely nuanced online, and it can unhelpfully trigger people's fight response. So I hope this doesn't come across as vicious, but:
> people do get disable kids all the time
struck me (a profoundly disabled person) as very dehumanizing.
I regularly trade quality for quantity of life. Socialising in ways that allow ways of relating I otherwise cannot access is not 'alternative medicine', it is living.
I respectfully suggest a bit more humility. Listen to disabled gamers before you firm up your opinion.
But as you see from responses and down votes even raising questions is frowned upon now.
(Racists and other bad-faith actors may have ruined the "can't even raise the question" routine. It's unfortunate -- we're quickly losing the ability to think critically; and you know what the great men have said about the unexamined life.)
There is lots of room for cognitive dissonance here.
The article hardly claims that gaming is a universally GoodThing(tm). Rather that it isn't universally a bad one. In my reading, nuance seems to be the very point.
