grinding rule

That's my point, relevant muscle mass increases can be obtained by just generally staying active, with physical labour pushing those numbers into redundancy, even. Daily walk, morning stretches, maybe fling a heavy backpack around for 5 minutes or so, and a balanced diet, and you're golden.

I'll cross that bridge when I'll get to it, tbh, as my organism hasn't shown signs of wear and tear yet (haven't even had a broken bone, and not for a lack of trying!).

Thing is, I've always been really active (I can't stress this enough) habitually. I'm always flexing and stretching while doing whatever else, I never shy away from heavy lifting (especially when carrying groceries and such, I try to push myself to carry more and more every time), I always carry a 15kg backpack with me when going on walks through the city (I fill it up with my laptop, several battery banks, peripherals, writing gear, tools, etc.) and I always power-walk wherever I'm going, it's sort of a stimming mechanism. My flexibility's exactly where it was a decade ago, when I was in my 20s. My core strength is constantly increasing, and I've been maintaining my body shape for almost two decades.

Edit: frustratingly, the only element which is showing signs of fatigue is my digestive system - it had to chew through a lot of spicy foods in the thirty-odd years it's been functioning, and has now decided it wants none of it.

Basically, any significant and/or scheduled time spent doing physical exercises, without it being for the purposes of physical therapy and such. Going to the gym, in short, or home work-out routines.

I fully accept this as a quirk of my psychology, but I'd rather do anything - anything! - other than running on a treadmill, or pumping iron, or what have you.

However, I do compensate for this in my general behaviour, I'm fidgety and active. I always skip, or hop, or stretch, or flex when doing stuff like checking Lemmy on my phone, or texting someone, I always put in more effort when doing chores, or try to do them faster and faster (I like things which pose a challenge to my dexterity), I dance or contort around the house randomly, etc. And stretching in general is closer to a reflex than anything else, which is why I, personally, don't consider it a work-out.