6 ms·

I do wonder if the answer to my back pain is a lifestyle where I am simply moving my body more. As an engineer I mostly “get stuff done” at a desk. Both my work

I do wonder if the answer to my back pain is a lifestyle where I am simply moving my body more. As an engineer I mostly “get stuff done” at a desk. Both my work desk and now my home desk are motorized adjustable height desks, but still being so sedentary seems to the root cause of my slowly declining physical shape. My lower back hurts regularly and now my neck has been hurting again. I used to go to a chiropractor and I’m considering starting up again. But the root of it is that I’m not active. I used to ride my bike, run, and lift weights and I weighed 40 pounds less than I do now. But I’ve found some personal projects to work on that I’m so passionate about I’ve wanted to stay inside on evenings and weekends to make progress. Really, I just struggle with a day job that perpetuates our capitalist system, and try to make up for it by doing good open source work when I’m at home. But I wish it was more common to work fewer hours in tech. I’m happy to be paid proportionally but I want a job where it’s okay to work 20 hours a week at a high tech pay rate. I think if I did that, I might get out more. Or maybe I need to find a lower paying job that lets me work on my passions during the day. Then in the evenings I could go play basketball or do night hikes or something. Has anyone pulled either of these off? More specifically has anyone pulled this off in the SF Bay Area?

rshaban 8y ago
Yes. Check out sfmovementpractice.
newnewpdro 8y ago
Consider the possibility that you've engaged in mental gymnastics subconsciously pursuing physical laziness, I catch myself doing this all the time with my computing. The reality is, you require negligible amounts of time to maintain a reasonable level of phsyical fitness. How many pushups can you do in a set? Probably so few that it requires less than one minute of time. So why aren't you doing as many pushups as you possibly can every morning before you shower? Well, simply because you don't want to, and are being lazy. Incorporating a simple stretching and pushup routine to your daily life, once before showering, will have a significant positive impact on your wellness without costing much time. You can add a pull-up bar to a doorway and adopt a policy of always having to do as many pull-ups as you can whenever you walk past it. I'm assuming you can't do more than one right now, so it takes almost zero time.
- usaphp 8y ago
  > You can add a pull-up bar to a doorway and adopt a policy of always having to do as many pull-ups as you can whenever you walk past it Yep, it’s much easier to forse yourself to do a pull up then going down on the floor for a push up in my experience too.
  - simonbarker87 8y ago
    In the fitness world this has a name - Greasing the Groove. Basically getting your central nervous system super used to doing this movement so progression, doing more, comes naturally and easily. Super effective method.
  - graeme 8y ago
    What's the end point of that pullup system? I can do about 12 in a row I think. If I did this policy, by a frequently used door, would I end up overtrained, or would I become so strong in my arms that I could do 30-40 or so when rested? And if so, would my arms become enormous? I'm asking because I'm somewhat interested in this policy, but....since I already do strength training and can do pullups, I'm not sure where it would lead. (I guess I could modify it to only do pullups on workout days, 3x per week, but do them everytime I passed on those days)
    - albertgoeswoof 8y ago
      You need to add more weight to grow more muscle (and eat more). If you don’t you’ll just continue to increase your stamina.
    - matwood 8y ago
      > If I did this policy, by a frequently used door, would I end up overtrained, or would I become so strong in my arms that I could do 30-40 or so when rested? And if so, would my arms become enormous? First, overtraining is so hard for someone just doing normal workouts. Second, progression just doesn't work that way. I've been working for a few months towards doing 500 pull-ups in a single workout. I'm at 160 now, and I still can't do 30-40 dead hang pull-ups in one set. Finally, to become enormous you need to eat.
ummonk 8y ago
I just mostly give up on pursuing my intellectual passions. I figure I'd rather just live a balanced lifestyle now, save up and early retire, then have all the time I want during the day to pursue my passions. Assuming I'm not too busy raising kids (but even that doesn't last forever)
- abledon 8y ago
  learn to be passionate about life. Just simply existing, feeling the sinews and subtle sensations of the body can be a great and healthy passion to experience!
  - Tempest1981 8y ago
    Any tips on how to learn this? Seems easier said than done. Sort of like, “just change your personality”.
    - abledon 8y ago
      no its very difficult and takes many years and lots of luck finding a good qigong or authentic yoga teacher! I've heard good things about the inner engineering courses though, less rigorous on the physical body.
az123zaz 8y ago
How about looking for a day job that has a quality gym in the building where you can workout and shower during the day? I'm sure you can find this in SF tech. During your interview process, just make it clear that you value being able to exercise during the day. It doesn't have to be crazy stuff, even just walking on a treadmill, running, or stretching. It's more important to build the habit of doing anything than doing something crazy. There is strong evidence that exercise improves learning and memory (personally I feel it improves focus as well) so in my opinion, you don't "lose" this time as you are more effective the rest of the day [0] [0] http://www.kurzweilai.net/how-exercise-improves-memory http://www.kurzweilai.net/how-exercise-improves-memory
- ThrustVectoring 8y ago
  Doesn't even have to be in the building, there's gyms you can go to and work out and shower at over lunch or something.
- 0xcde4c3db 8y ago
  > [0] http://www.kurzweilai.net/how-exercise-improves-memory http://www.kurzweilai.net/how-exercise-improves-memory Caveat: the proposed mechanism might not work if exercising in an area with significantly polluted air (indoor environments can get really bad if the HVAC isn't designed and maintained properly) [1]. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21708224 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21708224
aasasd 8y ago
I'd just like to confirm that if you're noticing the sedentary lifestyle worsening your health, you'll want to get out of it asap. Muscles do wither away from disuse, and hence they stop supporting your posture (for which they are surprisingly important). On top of that, you lose the muscular memory for proper posture and movement, and become constantly hunched instead. Then chronic cramps (tenseness) set in, blocking blood flow and causing nerve stress, which feeds back into the poor posture. Basically it's a cluster failure of factors feeding into each other. And it's not only posture—if you just browse through topics on general health on Wikipedia (i.e. not acute diseases), you'll notice they're pretty much all linked to exercise. E.g. anti-inflammatory function is linked to muscle work. And of course, you see articles every week saying brain health is dependent on exercise. Instead of a chiropractor, you might want to consult a physical therapist who can recommend daily exercise and regime for the back. E.g. Nordic walking with sticks, which puts load on upper back and shoulder muscles. I don't know how others live with just walks to and from work, but for myself I highly doubt that even a couple hours of exercise could offset being propped at the desk for the rest of the day. For the work hours, you could look into contract work (freelancing), where you could choose your hours and set the rate instead of being locked into the terms of your job. But of course, other considerations also apply.
- chrisweekly 8y ago
  My morning routine has me alternating daily between a quick 1-2 mile run, and a structured stretching / pushups regime based on a simple "100 pushups" app. During the workday I use a pomodoro-style timer to stand up and walk through a couple rooms at least once an hour. Back pain gone.
  - Tarq0n 8y ago
    Be careful not to overdo it on pushing exercises. Overdeveloping your front deltoid, as well as tight pectoral muscles, can lead to hunched shoulders. Ideally you'd want to offset any pushing based exercise with an equal amount of pulling work.
    - naasking 8y ago
heurist 8y ago
One of my dream projects is finding a way to make software development non-sedentary. In my mind software can be designed around a space. Software can be an interactive system that you design and construct within a known space, maybe even unique to a space. Build your system in a forest, a warehouse, under a bridge... Still vague in my mind, but one day...
- chrisweekly 8y ago
  Spooky coincidence? Check out this other thread active on HN right now: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18310733 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18310733 It's about precisely that! A physical room as the interface to a dynamic networked system for executing intuitive, easily-composed programs...
- Tossrock 8y ago
  Sounds like you should check out VR. There's not much in terms of development tools yet, due to the low angular resolution of current gen hardware, but once it gets there it could enable what you're talking about.
  - heurist 8y ago
    Definitely will be looking there when I get the opportunity
matwood 8y ago
You can be busy and still get workouts in. Buy a kettle bell, and a pull-up bar. Heck, you don't even need that. You can do bodyweight workouts easily as soon as you get out of bed in the morning. The big secret (if there is one), is you have to make taking care of your body as much of a priority as your mind or anything else you do. Taking care of your body is also a long term endeavor, which so many people have a hard time seeing. Taking care of your body will likely allow you to contribute to OSS longer into your life than not.

rshaban 8y ago

Yes. Check out sfmovementpractice.

newnewpdro 8y ago

Consider the possibility that you've engaged in mental gymnastics subconsciously pursuing physical laziness, I catch myself doing this all the time with my computing. The reality is, you require negligible amounts of time to maintain a reasonable level of phsyical fitness. How many pushups can you do in a set? Probably so few that it requires less than one minute of time. So why aren't you doing as many pushups as you possibly can every morning before you shower? Well, simply because you don't want to, and are being lazy. Incorporating a simple stretching and pushup routine to your daily life, once before showering, will have a significant positive impact on your wellness without costing much time. You can add a pull-up bar to a doorway and adopt a policy of always having to do as many pull-ups as you can whenever you walk past it. I'm assuming you can't do more than one right now, so it takes almost zero time.

usaphp 8y ago
> You can add a pull-up bar to a doorway and adopt a policy of always having to do as many pull-ups as you can whenever you walk past it Yep, it’s much easier to forse yourself to do a pull up then going down on the floor for a push up in my experience too.
- simonbarker87 8y ago
  In the fitness world this has a name - Greasing the Groove. Basically getting your central nervous system super used to doing this movement so progression, doing more, comes naturally and easily. Super effective method.
- graeme 8y ago
  What's the end point of that pullup system? I can do about 12 in a row I think. If I did this policy, by a frequently used door, would I end up overtrained, or would I become so strong in my arms that I could do 30-40 or so when rested? And if so, would my arms become enormous? I'm asking because I'm somewhat interested in this policy, but....since I already do strength training and can do pullups, I'm not sure where it would lead. (I guess I could modify it to only do pullups on workout days, 3x per week, but do them everytime I passed on those days)
  - albertgoeswoof 8y ago
    You need to add more weight to grow more muscle (and eat more). If you don’t you’ll just continue to increase your stamina.
  - matwood 8y ago
    > If I did this policy, by a frequently used door, would I end up overtrained, or would I become so strong in my arms that I could do 30-40 or so when rested? And if so, would my arms become enormous? First, overtraining is so hard for someone just doing normal workouts. Second, progression just doesn't work that way. I've been working for a few months towards doing 500 pull-ups in a single workout. I'm at 160 now, and I still can't do 30-40 dead hang pull-ups in one set. Finally, to become enormous you need to eat.

ummonk 8y ago

I just mostly give up on pursuing my intellectual passions. I figure I'd rather just live a balanced lifestyle now, save up and early retire, then have all the time I want during the day to pursue my passions. Assuming I'm not too busy raising kids (but even that doesn't last forever)

abledon 8y ago
learn to be passionate about life. Just simply existing, feeling the sinews and subtle sensations of the body can be a great and healthy passion to experience!
- Tempest1981 8y ago
  Any tips on how to learn this? Seems easier said than done. Sort of like, “just change your personality”.
  - abledon 8y ago
    no its very difficult and takes many years and lots of luck finding a good qigong or authentic yoga teacher! I've heard good things about the inner engineering courses though, less rigorous on the physical body.

az123zaz 8y ago

How about looking for a day job that has a quality gym in the building where you can workout and shower during the day? I'm sure you can find this in SF tech. During your interview process, just make it clear that you value being able to exercise during the day. It doesn't have to be crazy stuff, even just walking on a treadmill, running, or stretching. It's more important to build the habit of doing anything than doing something crazy. There is strong evidence that exercise improves learning and memory (personally I feel it improves focus as well) so in my opinion, you don't "lose" this time as you are more effective the rest of the day [0] [0] http://www.kurzweilai.net/how-exercise-improves-memory http://www.kurzweilai.net/how-exercise-improves-memory

ThrustVectoring 8y ago
Doesn't even have to be in the building, there's gyms you can go to and work out and shower at over lunch or something.
0xcde4c3db 8y ago
> [0] http://www.kurzweilai.net/how-exercise-improves-memory http://www.kurzweilai.net/how-exercise-improves-memory Caveat: the proposed mechanism might not work if exercising in an area with significantly polluted air (indoor environments can get really bad if the HVAC isn't designed and maintained properly) [1]. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21708224 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21708224

aasasd 8y ago

I'd just like to confirm that if you're noticing the sedentary lifestyle worsening your health, you'll want to get out of it asap. Muscles do wither away from disuse, and hence they stop supporting your posture (for which they are surprisingly important). On top of that, you lose the muscular memory for proper posture and movement, and become constantly hunched instead. Then chronic cramps (tenseness) set in, blocking blood flow and causing nerve stress, which feeds back into the poor posture. Basically it's a cluster failure of factors feeding into each other. And it's not only posture—if you just browse through topics on general health on Wikipedia (i.e. not acute diseases), you'll notice they're pretty much all linked to exercise. E.g. anti-inflammatory function is linked to muscle work. And of course, you see articles every week saying brain health is dependent on exercise. Instead of a chiropractor, you might want to consult a physical therapist who can recommend daily exercise and regime for the back. E.g. Nordic walking with sticks, which puts load on upper back and shoulder muscles. I don't know how others live with just walks to and from work, but for myself I highly doubt that even a couple hours of exercise could offset being propped at the desk for the rest of the day. For the work hours, you could look into contract work (freelancing), where you could choose your hours and set the rate instead of being locked into the terms of your job. But of course, other considerations also apply.

chrisweekly 8y ago
My morning routine has me alternating daily between a quick 1-2 mile run, and a structured stretching / pushups regime based on a simple "100 pushups" app. During the workday I use a pomodoro-style timer to stand up and walk through a couple rooms at least once an hour. Back pain gone.
- Tarq0n 8y ago
  Be careful not to overdo it on pushing exercises. Overdeveloping your front deltoid, as well as tight pectoral muscles, can lead to hunched shoulders. Ideally you'd want to offset any pushing based exercise with an equal amount of pulling work.
  - naasking 8y ago

heurist 8y ago

One of my dream projects is finding a way to make software development non-sedentary. In my mind software can be designed around a space. Software can be an interactive system that you design and construct within a known space, maybe even unique to a space. Build your system in a forest, a warehouse, under a bridge... Still vague in my mind, but one day...

chrisweekly 8y ago
Spooky coincidence? Check out this other thread active on HN right now: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18310733 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18310733 It's about precisely that! A physical room as the interface to a dynamic networked system for executing intuitive, easily-composed programs...
Tossrock 8y ago
Sounds like you should check out VR. There's not much in terms of development tools yet, due to the low angular resolution of current gen hardware, but once it gets there it could enable what you're talking about.
- heurist 8y ago
  Definitely will be looking there when I get the opportunity

matwood 8y ago

You can be busy and still get workouts in. Buy a kettle bell, and a pull-up bar. Heck, you don't even need that. You can do bodyweight workouts easily as soon as you get out of bed in the morning. The big secret (if there is one), is you have to make taking care of your body as much of a priority as your mind or anything else you do. Taking care of your body is also a long term endeavor, which so many people have a hard time seeing. Taking care of your body will likely allow you to contribute to OSS longer into your life than not.