Fitness relativism is not acceptable. It leads people to live unhealthy, and, in some cases, shorter lives.
To take two examples (these two because I am intimately familiar with them): Why should someone stop climbing or doing martial arts and start lifting barbells (by stop I mean assume said person doesn't have enough time to do both and must choose one or the other)? Both of the former seem (to me at least) really good for developing strength and, AFAICT do so in a much more realistic and natural way than lifting barbells.
If you read Starting Strength (Riptoe, mentioned many times on this thread) you'll learn about the recovery and response cycles to stress on the body. You should be regularly increasing the amount you're lifting regardless of your bodyweight (which is what you are always lifting in climbing,) in order to actually increase your strength over time.
Barbells also allow you to start with smaller weights at the beginning of the workout, and then move on to heavier sets when you're warm. AFAIK there's no way to do this with climbing.
Re: barbells not "natural" - firstly, more natural than most of the other equipment in the gym, and secondly it depends what you're doing with them. lifting them over and over, slowly is one way to use them (and builds strength), but speeding up your reps and/or performing power cleans will improve your power (literally rate-of-work) which is what is important in sports like martial arts and ball games. You can train for almost any sport with a barbell, with the right lift, rate, set lengths and intra-workout rest period.
Ok so that makes a lot more sense. Thanks for the explanation.
> Barbells also allow you to start with smaller weights at the beginning of the workout, and then move on to heavier sets when you're warm. AFAIK there's no way to do this with climbing.
So with climbing in general climbing harder problems (smaller holds, further apart, more overhang, etc etc) works muscles more, and the harder you climb, the fitter and stronger you will be.
It seems (to me at least) that some exercise is better than no exercise, and that more exercise (at least to an extent) is better than less exercise. It seems to me therefore, that people should find an exercise that they really enjoy (whether running, cycling, strength training, climbing, martial arts, etc) and do it. That way, they'll be doing something they enjoy and they'll do more of it.
It seems slightly disingenuous for "experts" to recommend that everyone drop everything else and just do one type of exercise as if everyone they're speaking to is exactly the same, has exactly the same goals and enjoys exactly the same stuff.
Are they targeting geeks/the HN crowd because geeks tend to favour the idea that there is one "right way" of doing something and are more likely to latch on to it?