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Barbell Medicine
Company blog · barbellmedicine.com/bloghealthscience
Barbell Medicine is the company blog at barbellmedicine.com, writing about health and science. Since 2015, 20 different Hacker News readers have linked it 47 times, most often “Where should my priorities be to improve my health?”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-08, and you can follow it by feed.
47mentions?
20HN people?
2015–2026first – last linked?
Too few sampled comments (26) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
Barbell Medicine is a site run by doctors and lifters covering strength training, training pain, beginner programs, nutrition and longevity. HN readers link it to cut through fitness myths.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 26 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Bringing modern medicine to strength and conditioning through coaching, training, apparel, and supplementation.
Most-linked posts?
- /blog/pain-in-training-what-do/4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2020-01-16
- /4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2019-05-22
- Where should my priorities be to improve my health?3 people · 16 mentions · first linked 2022-11-30
- Sex, Gender, and Fairness in Sports and the Olympics2 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2019-08-24
- /podcast/episodes/episode-381-how-a-supplement-sent-a-soldier-to-the-hospital-a-medical-mystery/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2026-01-29
What Hacker News says?
This might help you https://www.barbellmedicine.com/blog/pain-in-training-what-d...
Comment linking /blog/pain-in-training-what-do/
on “Attention Is My Most Valuable Asset for Productivity as a Software Developer”Submitted Sex, Gender, and Fairness in Sports and the Olympics as a story · 2 points
HN discussionTo everyone interested in the lifting and health aspects, I recommend: https://www.barbellmedicine.com/ the are doctors and lifters and they clean a lot of BS of lifting. And they also have a lot of information for example on pain and lifting...
Comment linking /
on “Attention Is My Most Valuable Asset for Productivity as a Software Developer”Submitted Where should my priorities be to improve my health? as a story · 1 points
HN discussionIf you made a Venn diagram for the non-genetic risk factors for heart disease and Alzheimer's, they'd basically be a circle. Being worried about dementia but ignoring things like heart disease, diabetes, poor sleep, getting enough exercise, eating a health-promoting diet, etc. is like worrying about paying for retirement but refusing to save and invest. There are a handful of high-impact habits that meaningfully low…
Comment linking /blog/where-should-my-priorities-be-to-improve-my-health/
on “Ticker: Don't die of heart disease”Submitted Shades of Gray: Sex, Gender, and Fairness in Sport as a story · 1 points
HN discussionThere are specific recommended minimums in the physical activity guidelines about strength training and endurance training where meeting them is likely to significantly reduce your disease risk and improve your health: https://www.barbellmedicine.com/blog/where-should-my-priorit...
Comment linking /blog/where-should-my-priorities-be-to-improve-my-health/
on “Ticker: Don't die of heart disease”Health guidelines take into account when screening/testing is a net harm or benefit for patients in general, and when they move from being a net harm to a net benefit conditional on specific factors like existing diseases, obesity, etc. Any decent doctor should be at least following those, and you can pretty easily find them from the major disease-focused organizations. Importantly, there are also recommendations fo…
Comment linking /blog/where-should-my-priorities-be-to-improve-my-health/
on “Ticker: Don't die of heart disease”Lots of the damage done can't be undone when it comes to heart diseaese. Notably risk goes up with the time spent with bad numbers, so the most leverage you have on affecting your lifetime risk is caring as early as possible. It's an area under the curve situation. Waiting until you start experiencing symptoms is putting a band-aid on an open wound compared to avoiding injury at all by focusing on high impact habits…
Comment linking /blog/where-should-my-priorities-be-to-improve-my-health/
on “Ticker: Don't die of heart disease”For what it's worth, this article by the doctors at Barbell Medicine has been my go to recommendation for what to prioritize for health and longevity: https://www.barbellmedicine.com/blog/where-should-my-priorit...
Comment linking /blog/where-should-my-priorities-be-to-improve-my-health/
on “Ticker: Don't die of heart disease”You can see the physical activity guidelines mentioned here: https://www.barbellmedicine.com/blog/where-should-my-priorit... Note that these are minimums and that there's really no ceiling on getting benefits in the literature so long as you increase volume and intensity in a sustainable way and are eating and sleeping enough to sufficiently recover.
Comment linking /blog/where-should-my-priorities-be-to-improve-my-health/
on “Cardio fitness is a strong, consistent predictor of morbidity and mortality”YMMV, but I found the following articles quite useful to 1) help self-manage symptoms brought on during strength training, and 2) to stop obsessing about my using "bad" form during training: https://www.barbellmedicine.com/blog/pain-in-training-what-d... https://www.barbellmedicine.com/blog/movement-variability-sh...
Comment linking /blog/movement-variability-should-we-eliminate-it-or-embrace-it/
on “One in five Covid-19 patients develop mental illness within 90 days – study”https://www.barbellmedicine.com/blog/placebo-sleep/ tldr: just say to yourself that you sleep was amazing and do not need any tracking
Comment linking /blog/placebo-sleep/
on “Some users say they're getting rid of Fitbit because they don't trust Google”As someone who has Spondylolisthesis [1], what has worked best is weight lifting. In particular, full body movements using the barbell: deadlifts (also SLDL), squats, and overhead presses (just be extra careful here). My pain has varied. The worst being when I needed steroid injections in the nerves that run from my spine down my legs. Now, I consider my pain negligible. I'm no longer a fan of static stretching. I h…
Comment linking /blog/pain-in-training-what-do/
on “Back pain is a problem which is badly treated”But strength training is required anyone who wants to be healthy [0]. The RDA is just for avoiding clinical deficiency. [0] https://www.barbellmedicine.com/blog/where-should-my-priorit...
Comment linking /blog/where-should-my-priorities-be-to-improve-my-health/
on “Natural occurring molecule rivals Ozempic in weight loss, sidesteps side effects”It wasn't my goal to argue nomenclature, but a disease is: "a disorder of structure or function in a human, animal, or plant, especially one that produces specific signs or symptoms or that affects a specific location and is not simply a direct result of physical injury." or "a particular quality, habit, or disposition regarded as adversely affecting a person or group of people." (Oxford Languages) By this definitio…
Comment linking /blog/how-to-measure-your-waist-correctly/
on “Pfizer board member suggests end to mask, vaccine mandates”A good resource, thanks for putting it out there! I'd suggest that having an idea for a reasonable program might be more useful for a beginner, i.e. a series of routines to be carried out over the next n weeks. I feel that it's more useful to point a beginner to a well-thought-out program than a grab bag of movements to follow for a single session. My go-to program for anyone setting out to improve their fitness is…
Comment linking /blog/the-beginner-prescription/
on “Show HN: I made a community sourced fitness routine database”If you are interested in training, and especially if you experience pain while doing it, I cannot recommend Barbell Medicine enough. Specifically: "4 Steps For Managing Pain in the Gym" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdwj5ORPmX0 Austin is a professional doctor/coach/lifter and an expert on the topic. The lesson I linked corresponds to this article: https://www.barbellmedicine.com/blog/pain-in-training-what-d... Asi…
Comment linking /blog/pain-in-training-what-do/
on “Novel mind-body program outperforms other treatments for chronic back pain”Yeah people just need to focus on doing the basics right [0]. [0] https://www.barbellmedicine.com/blog/where-should-my-priorit...
Comment linking /blog/where-should-my-priorities-be-to-improve-my-health/
on “Five minutes of exercise a day could lower blood pressure”Who is this author? His blog appears to be a crusade against trans people. > What’s important to note is that the presence of a Y chromosome, or two, or three, etc., all result in the development of testes and therefore these individuals are biologically male. Likewise, individuals with additional or fewer X chromosomes, in the absence of a Y, all develop ovaries and are therefore biologically female. Looking at thi…
Comment linking /blog/shades-of-gray-sex-gender-and-fairness-in-sport/
on “Rival weightlifter speaks out on transgender Hubbard's Olympic place”I encourage anyone interested in this subject to read this[0] article, it is a comprehensive analysis of the subject. If not the whole thing, at least the final sections "Recommendations and Conclusions" and "Executive Summary". It really underlines how complex this is. [0]: https://www.barbellmedicine.com/blog/shades-of-gray-sex-gend...
Comment linking /blog/shades-of-gray-sex-gender-and-fairness-in-sport/
on “Rival weightlifter speaks out on transgender Hubbard's Olympic place”Taking hormone therapy dramatically changes your body, making using just your sex also problematic. It's a complex subject. Here's the best article I've found on it: https://www.barbellmedicine.com/blog/shades-of-gray-sex-gend...
Comment linking /blog/shades-of-gray-sex-gender-and-fairness-in-sport/
on “Rival weightlifter speaks out on transgender Hubbard's Olympic place”Protein quality only matters if you’re not getting enough protein. Here’s some good discussion you should read https://www.barbellmedicine.com/blog/barbell-medicine-protei...
Comment linking /blog/barbell-medicine-protein-recommendations/
on “Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger”In response to some of the endorsements of Starting Strength/Stronglifts on this post, I'd like to advocate for an alternative source of strength training information, Barbell Medicine, https://www.barbellmedicine.com/ . SSLP/SL are both solid options for a complete beginner, but Mark Rippetoe's overall approach is somewhat outdated and less evidence based than BBM. They're quite similar (they were actually formerly…
Comment linking /
on “Common Muscular Weaknesses”Probably something like 95% or more of people aren't even doing the basics for health: https://www.barbellmedicine.com/blog/where-should-my-priorit...
Comment linking /blog/where-should-my-priorities-be-to-improve-my-health/
on “The data on extreme human ageing is rotten from the inside out”To add to all the other suggestions, I'd suggest this program as an ideal starting point for learning how to resistance train using barbells: https://www.barbellmedicine.com/blog/the-beginner-prescripti... It's straighforward, manageable, and (importantly) it introduces the idea of autoregulation early on. Autoregulation is an important tool for helping to prevent injury due to innappropriate fatigue management. It…
Comment linking /blog/the-beginner-prescription/
on “The Zen of Weight Lifting”I like lifting weights. It reminds me of coding. Both are mostly solitary activities. At this point, I just enjoy the activity even if the physical benefits don't improve much. If you want to nerd out lifting theory, I suggest https://www.barbellmedicine.com/ .
Comment linking /
on “The Zen of Weight Lifting”In the (power)lifting scene, I have really enjoyed the articles by Austin Baraki et al. from Barbell Medicine on pains and aches in the context of physical activities. See for example https://startingstrength.com/article/aches-and-pains or https://www.barbellmedicine.com/blog/the-barbell-medicine-gu... In a nutshell, the idea that there's a straightforward causal link between something being physically broken in you…
Comment linking /blog/the-barbell-medicine-guide-to-tendinopathy/
on “The brain can recall and reawaken past immune responses”A gentle beginning is a great thing to shoot for. I would second the recommendation of a Starting Strength program, or something similar, where you can work a clear, well-established path with coaches who are familiar with the principles of the training methods, can guide your form, etc. I started off in a 2x/week one-on-one coaching relationship, and after a few weeks (basically once I had some basic understanding…
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Courses/resources to improve my self-esteem and believe in myself more?”There's really overwhelming evidence that exercise itself has a causal role, and it only gets more impactful the more effective it is at raising your fitness (i.e., given the logistical constraints of your life, the more that the exercise you can do raises your strength and endurance, the greater the benefits without a clear obvious ceiling (though the benefits do get increasingly marginal)). Even if we lived in a w…
Comment linking /blog/where-should-my-priorities-be-to-improve-my-health/
on “The ROI of Exercise”
