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Someone below wrote, " Doing these gives me a 100% guaranteed 3 day long headache. " I have something like this and I've spent many years trying to figure it o

Someone below wrote, " Doing these gives me a 100% guaranteed 3 day long headache. " I have something like this and I've spent many years trying to figure it out. One MRI (which showed nada), three or four doctors, several years of physical therapy, and a personal trainer who studied the problem later, and I am concluding the following: - I have loosey goosey joints more than other people. It's not extreme but enough. - I have usage of computers that far exceeds 90% of the population (12+ hours a day). - When the joints are loose, things get inflamed. When tendons and the joint structures get inflamed, the bodies responds protectively by tightening (turning on) stabilizer muscles - Stabilizer muscles can be weak and thus get overworked, causing spasms and other issues - Tight muscles can cause imbalances, further causing a chain reaction of more inflammation and spasms I've been doing weightlifting (not bodybuilding which you should not do if you value your body long-term! Strength Training and a bit of Olympic Weightlifting) for a number of years. I've been analyzing and thinking about posture for years. I'm typing this on a standing desk at home that has a monitor with an articulating arm (similar setup at work). I use left and right mice alternating. I sit and stand, alternating. I do neck stretches every morning and some isometric neck stuff. I suspect part of my problem is shoulder mobility so I also do daily scapular work. Yet. I suffer from neck pain every few days with flare-ups that last days and sometimes go away for a week or two. Medicine: You Suck! We can send robots to Mars and make self-driving cars, but due to the incoherence of modern medicine, I spend hours watching Yoga and PT videos and end up memorizing the names of bones and joints and physiological movements. And I suffer. Fuck you, Medicine! Glad I got that off my chest.

newsclues 6y ago
Got hit by a car and I’ve concluded doctors are largely a decade or more out of date on a lot of things, especially diet and non-obvious injuries.
- mancerayder 6y ago
  I feel like medicine teaches you the facts - the hip bone is connected to the, leg bone - but in terms of 'troubleshooting skills', there is something deeply missing.
  - newsclues 6y ago
    It seems like it favours memorizing things and certain patterns. Humans aren’t great when dealing with complex systems like human bodies. AI assistants for doctors (who learn to troubleshoot) can’t come soon enough.
    - Zancarius 6y ago
      > It seems like it favours memorizing things and certain patterns. I think this is broadly true. Probably not for all of medicine but generally speaking it is. I recently started having a relapse of debilitating cluster headaches for a couple of weeks for the first time in about a half a decade (maybe longer). I tried avoiding all the typical triggers: Caffeine, chocolate, dust, smoke (difficult in winter when the neighbors love their fires), etc. Nothing worked. Then I remembered: Ah hah! Sinus infections. I'd forgotten that the underlying trigger for me almost 90% of the time is a sinus infection I didn't notice that got out of hand. About halfway through a course of antibiotics the headaches have largely subsided. Problem is that my sinus infections never seem to manifest typically, probably due to anatomical abnormalities. This typically means that a week or longer of back-and-forth "we don't see anything wrong" with the doctor worsens the problem until the pressure and pain builds up to a point that touching anywhere near the sinuses is very unpleasant. The best preventative measure I have, and probably the reason I avoided them for so long, is to do regular sinus irrigation. I lapsed about 6 months ago and stopped doing it--whoops. Most practitioners are fine if you fit the majority of cases and the literature. If you deviate outside that, it's much more difficult to diagnose for the reasons you highlighted regarding complex systems. Humans just suck at it. I don't have much advice other than to learn and know your own body. You probably know it better than any doctor. But you also need to become your own advocate if you think something isn't quite right and you need some help!
    - sleepydog 6y ago
      Well, with humans it's a lot harder and ethically challenging to take them apart, insert a few print statements, and put them back together again :)
  - ternaryoperator 6y ago
- Taylor_OD 6y ago
  Changing my diet (cutting bread and booze) helped my terrible back and neck more than several years of PT and doctors did.
- bbatha 6y ago
  It’s sort of built into the profession: medical practice is inherently little-c conservative. Doctors are trained throughly to practice the precautionary principle because it’s easier to cause more harm. Often with good reason imagine you’re a surgeon and a new procedure comes out that’s 92% effective and the one you learned in school and have hundreds of hours of practice in is 89% effective. That boost is worth it in theory but are you going to risk a few patients while you learn it along the way? That benefit needs to be much larger in the aggregate. This is also assuming it’s something reach FDA certification, etc. scientific research is often a decade ahead of the market any way in any field. Then there’s also the reality that doctors at least in the US are incredibly over worked and keeping up with a wide variety of scientific literature is just not practical. This is coupled to an increased specialization in medicine may mean cross-over research from different specialities may not filter into your desk.
  - jmnicolas 6y ago
    > It’s sort of built into the profession: medical practice is inherently little-c conservative. Doctors are trained throughly to practice the precautionary principle because it’s easier to cause more harm. Often with good reason imagine you’re a surgeon and a new procedure comes out that’s 92% effective I wish they remembered that for COVID vaccines, because apparently it's the exception.
    - magnusmundus 6y ago
      A failed surgery is different to an ineffective vaccination. Surgeries also aren't commonly deployed against epidemics.
  - newsclues 6y ago
    It’s a matter of failure to modernize curriculum during education, and the difficulty of staying on top of new research. The lag in education needs to be fixed ASAP.
dfsegoat 6y ago
> “I have usage of computers that far exceeds 90% of the population (12+ hours a day).” Pre-pandemic, I trained Brazilian jiu-jitsu 5-6x per week - where people are trying to crank on my neck constantly. Your neck gets incredibly thick and strong as a result. Even with that, I can say that NOTHING sets off my neck pain like 10+ hours at my computer.
- mancerayder 6y ago
  Would you say a stronger neck reduces problems from the PC all day long?
  - dfsegoat 6y ago
    I think strengthening/mobilizing anything on a regular basis helps prevent issues - I definitely have fewer neck and lower back issues after getting active 5-6x / week. But the 10+ hour days still kill. Need to break those up with mobility.
- dilyevsky 6y ago
  Same with climbing/deadlifting. Six months into pandemic with all the gyms closed i started getting sore neck and accompanied migraines like twice a week... grrreat
- mordymoop 6y ago
  Holding still for long periods is almost the worst thing for muscles. Basically your putting strain on the same set of muscles without actually granting them the sort of natural movement that keeps blood and stuff circulating properly.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
balfirevic 6y ago
> I've been doing weightlifting (not bodybuilding which you should not do if you value your body long-term! Strength Training and a bit of Olympic Weightligting) Much of what bodybuilders do is strength training, especially at the non-professional levels. At amateur levels, effective strength training and effective body building are going to be pretty similar.
- mancerayder 6y ago
  Yes and No. At least there are two big differentiators. Olympic Weightlifting is generally understood to refer to the movements of clean+jerk, snatch, and associated movements like deadlifting and squatting which are components of the complex lifts. Strength Training very broadly just means a rep range that makes you stronger, not bigger. But commonly one thinks of powerlifting movements: bench press, squats, deadlifts. Notice in none of the above did we talk about bicep curls, pulley exercises, leg curls, or any concentration exercises. We didn't even talk about leg press, because in the above two we only use barbells. So the two big differentiators are: 1. rep range is high with bodybuilding because bodybuilding cares about volume 2. This is the big one. The exercise range for bodybuilding includes many (perhaps mostly) single or few joint exercises. So when you say that at the amateur level it doesn't matter, that's only true in that any amateur will get stronger. That's true. But the similarity ends right there. I speak from experience when I say, starting off as an amateur by copying what bodybuilders are doing (bicep curls and other mirror exercises, high rep ranges and doing many single joint movements instead of functional movements) is a recipe for bad habits and movement patterns that you need to spend years to re-learn later. Not to mention machines are garbage and cause injury since they make you do unnatural things (unless you really know what you are doing, which amateurs do not).
  - balfirevic 6y ago
    > Strength Training very broadly just means a rep range that makes you stronger, not bigger. There is no such thing (edit: well, except maybe 1-2 reps, because it's hard to get much volume with those. But beginners shouldn't be doing those anyway). You get stronger in the rep range you practice. People often (in gym circles) mean "1-rep strength" when they say "strength", but such a narrow definition only makes sense if you are competing in powerlifting. As a beginner you want the rep range that maximizes gains/risk and also gains/unpleasantness ratio, which will usually be 5-10. > rep range is high with bodybuilding because bodybuilding cares about volume People who train for strength also care about volume because volume is a great way to get stronger. And also great way to get bigger. Which makes sense, because getting bigger is a great way to get stronger. > starting off as an amateur by copying what bodybuilders are doing I think this is where the most of the confusion comes from. It is bad to start amateurs on stuff that professional body builders do, but it would also be bad to start them on stuff professional powerlifters do (low bar one-rep max squats or speed deadlifts). On the other hand, as an amateur, whether your goal is strength or better physique - the best approach is going to be very similar. > Not to mention machines are garbage and cause injury since they make you do unnatural things (unless you really know what you are doing, which amateurs do not). Some types of machines are absolutely fine (cable machines), other types are also mostly fine - they get a bad reputation from few of the worst offenders such as leg press and leg extension machine.
dahart 6y ago
> Yet. I suffer from neck pain Have you tried cervical traction? > Medicine: You Suck! We can send robots to Mars [...] Seriously! Though maybe to be fair, the design of the spine isn’t that great. I mean it’s amazing. And simultaneously can’t take the abuse we pile on it. Whoever invents the cure to deteriorating joints and deteriorating nerves is going to solve half the world’s pain and also become very rich. > Someone below wrote Just curious - why not reply? Saying ‘below’ can be awkward when comments move around.
- mancerayder 6y ago
  > Have you tried cervical traction? Do you have any recommended products or procedures? > Just curious - why not reply? Saying ‘below’ can be awkward when comments move around. Because I wanted to expand the context of the thread, I guess? Spending time with a long response to a short comment in a nested thread structure felt like it would get buried.
  - dahart 6y ago
    Good question, I guess I’d recommend seeing a physical therapist first, and trying traction under guidance for a few weeks before buying anything.
- 3131s 6y ago
  I'm doing cervical spine traction right now... it makes my head hurt but I've found ways to do it that are less uncomfortable. My story is similar to others here, I'm a lifelong athlete with some injuries that are exacerbated by computer usage. I now stand all day, every day with a monitor at head height, which has been the most impactful lifestyle change. Otherwise I do stretching, some exercises like in this article, deep breathing, and massage. Looking forward to getting back to lifting and sprinting full-time, meanwhile though my cervical spine needs to become more stable. I'm never going back to sitting at a computer, because I literally can't! I suppose that's good ultimately but I do find it hard to concentrate on certain things while standing.
  - dahart 6y ago
cadence- 6y ago
I have exactly the same thing. Plus last year (2020 was truly shitty) I developed a frozen shoulder, which now prevents me from doing many exercises that used to help me. My other shoulder is starting to hurt too now, and I’m mentally preparing myself to having both shoulders frozen this year. I have been to many doctors, and had lots of tests (x-ray, MRI,ultrasound) but they cannot find anything. Doctors are mostly useless for things like this. They are only helpful when you have accidents with obvious broken or damaged bonuses and tissues etc.
- mancerayder 6y ago
  What's frozen shoulder? Have you tried stretching (gently) the levator scapula stretch (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSoXPJRnR6E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSoXPJRnR6E)? I've recently started doing this 1-2 a day. I hold my elbow more to the sky and out than she is doing (sometimes using a doorway to help keep my elbow up), and I hold it for 1m on each side. The levator scapula attaches to the cervical spine at one end, and the top of the scapula on the other. Shoulder and neck problems can occur in a chain and in a sort of domino effect.
- drpgq 6y ago
  I had frozen shoulder last year and it really sucked. I was pretty despondent as it didn't seem to be getting better going to physio endlessly, but eventually it started getting better and is pretty good now. Seems like a condition that isn't very well understood. It can be pretty debilitating.
kasperni 6y ago
> I suspect part of my problem is shoulder mobility so I also do daily scapular work. I've had some great results with: - Kettlebell work. TGU/Halos/Arm bar are all great exercises for shoulder health/strengt/mobility. - Dead hangs [1]. - Some light stick mobility exercises such as [2]. [1] https://www.t-nation.com/training/tip-two-surprising-exercises-for-shoulder-health https://www.t-nation.com/training/tip-two-surprising-exercis... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dn1IBowxflw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dn1IBowxflw
- mancerayder 6y ago
  I was doing deadhangs but I also suffer from elbow pain from a mix of pullups (which I've since not done for a while) and squats. I think deadhangs are great for "decompressing" the spine, though. I was doing TGU for a while, I should get back into it. Part of it is pandemic-lack-of-space, and part of it is, overhead movements cen trigger the headaches.
  - saurik 6y ago
    How did the squats hurt your elbow? :(
    - mancerayder 6y ago
      Doing a zillion pullups hurt my elbows. I think a mix of shoulder mobility limits and that caused the pain I get when I squat. This has gone down though despite my squat weight going up. When I squat I try to make more effort to squeeze my shoulders back and down and watch the angle of my arms. Also, holding a kettlebell upside down for 1 minute on each side above my head with elbow straight has greatly reduced my elbow pain.
- mtalantikite 6y ago
  When I started my yoga asana practice I ended up uncovering some shoulder dyskinesis I hadn’t been aware of from years and years of programming. That turned into a pretty bad shoulder injury that has on the plus side taught me a lot about my body. One thing I learned is that a lot of shoulder stuff comes from tightness of the pec minor, which now in retrospect is pretty obvious. Some things that I do that have really helped with shoulder stuff: 1) Shoulder dislocates with an aikido jo. Any rigid stick works, like a broom handle. 2) Camel pose (ustrasana), but coming into it a bit differently than is usually taught in yoga classes. Keep your knees hips width distance apart, with your toes tucked under (rather than pointed), and sit on your heels. Grab your heels with your fingers on the inside of your feet (if you were to open your hand your thumbs will be pointing directly backwards). Make sure you have good shoulder rotation here. Now lift your pelvis up while holding on to your feet, get your pelvis stacked over your knees, and think about lifting your chest to the sky. Send your breath into your upper chest for 5-7 breaths and then come out the way you came in. This really opened my pec minor. 3) Gomukhasana with arms clasped behind your back. Use a strap if you can’t get the bind (it might take a while for this rotation to open). 4) Pull-ups. Lots of pull ups. Started with dead hangs, then would do 50% of max 6x times per day 3-4 days a week. Would retest max every 3 weeks. Got myself to about 15 per set before I decided I didn’t need to do that many pull ups. 5) cat cow with wrists flipped, fingers pointed backwards. Really focusing on the shoulder rotation and getting straight arm scapular engagement. 6) Infraspinatus strengthening a few times per week with light weight. Exercises were described in this article: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3655748/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3655748/ 7) Lots of side planks (vasisthasana). Be careful with this one, it can do a lot of harm if you go too hard with it before you’re ready. 8) Not for shoulder per-se, but what really strengthened my neck muscles over the years has been practicing headstand the way it’s taught in ashtanga vinyasa yoga. (Sirsasana -> urdhva dandasana -> sirsasana -> childs pose). During quarantine I started supplementing my regular yoga asana practice with Dylan Werner’s True Strength series and I highly recommend it if people are wanting an incremental body weight training series. Lots of mobility work in there too.
gumby 6y ago
> Medicine: You Suck! [its complex and doesn't work] Having worked in drug development (and no longer do) I can tell you that everyone in the field knows it sucks and also that you should be (very favorably) astonished that it works at all. Biological systems are so insanely complex that they are barely understood; most medical treatments are attempts to perturb a single variable (of a system with billions of variables) in the hope that it has a big enough positive effect. Insanely complex mRNA vaccines are "trivial" by comparison. When you make a spacecraft as you describe you may have a million moving parts. Their operating domain is well known, they typically only do one or two things, and they can operate in a system that can be isolated (this is the crew capsule; it operates in a vacuum and gets power from the power module...). By comparison a human body is many many billions of parts (brain itself is 80 giganeurons) including many that are not even human, all interacting in parallel (those 80 GN brain cells each has a dendritic fan out of around 10^5, plus new means of connection are still being found); all flooding with various signalling (electrical, hormonal, etc) which is the result of object code being extensively modified over 400 million years. And that's just for a single organism (which is how we erroneously consider a human being). Humans are themselves parts of complex interacting extracorpal systems of food, actions, and other environmental factors which cannot be controlled because unlike a piece of metal or a silicon die in a ceramic package we interact with the majority of them. There are a lot of very smart people in computer science but my qualitative impression is that while there a smaller proportion of smart people in the life sciences, the average IQ of those latter group is significantly higher. Even though I still follow the literature, I have a "holy shit how did someone figure that out?" moment several times a week.
yrimaxi 6y ago
I’m sorry. It’s terrible that people have to suffer from this kind of thing and get so little help from the supposed state of the art.
bpizzi 6y ago
Damn, I’m exactly on the same boat! I found that wearing a dental splint at night help a lot.
wuwuno 6y ago
I'm sure that if we would 'relax' bioethics standards we could make faster progress.
dsego 6y ago
I also have neck issues, esp. when slouching over the laptop. Usually there is a point on the back of my neck that starts protruding. Then my neck and shoulder muscles get inflamed and I get pain, headaches, teary eyes and drowsiness. Usually things get better with an ibuprofen to calm the inflammation. But sometimes my wife needs to push really hard and massage until the protrusion goes back in. I can even feel it sort of click back into place and you can feel it skip while rubbing. It started years ago but it's sort of moved down closer to shoulder, it's not protruding in the same spot as before. One other thing I would do is take a rolling pin against the door frame to massage the neck or pull on the back of my head upward with a towel. Now I also do these neck exercises* and they really do help if I do them regularly, I also use a laptop stand whenever I can so I don't have to look down and slouch. *https://imgv2-2-f.scribdassets.com/img/document/236321754/original/6652d8075e/1464818760 https://imgv2-2-f.scribdassets.com/img/document/236321754/or... (I couldn't find it in english, sorry) PS A neurologist and an orthopaedist told me that my symptoms don't make sense and they couldn't find anything wrong with my spine.
- mancerayder 6y ago
  Careful! I would get an MRI which can see if you have a disk bulge or a bone spur. A protruding point does not sound good, but it sounds like something that medicine might possible be useful for for once.
  - dsego 6y ago
    Probably a disk bulge in my opinion, but it hasn't happened in a while now. I think the doctor dismissed it and told me that the disk can only bulge on the opposite side (inward), but I may be misremembering.
wvh 6y ago
You have pushed your body to do something it wasn't designed to do, and over time, you broke it. It's very hard to get back. You could have chosen another profession, but perhaps you'd have trouble with your knees then. I had perfect vision for years, but a few years ago, things started to get blurry. Now I have to stop working after some hours because I just can't see the screen anymore, which would have been unthinkable a few years back. It feels pretty absurd having to stop just because you can't physically see anymore what you're doing. I also do strength training and distance running – also to fight bad effects from prolonged computer use – which I guess keeps me pretty fit and healthy, but again, some part of the body might not be so happy and break down due to exercise. As an adult, one's surprisingly left mostly to one's own devices when it comes to long-term holistic health. Most things beyond medical or mental emergencies are a lot harder to figure out, with a lot of fads, quacks and charlatans along the way.
vladTheInhaler 6y ago
In the before times, I was doing olympic weightlifting as well, and I had very similar problems. I've always had weirdly loose shoulder joints (and can partially dislocate them), as well as weird things with the tendons in my knuckles. And when I started lifting, I would always have trouble with the jerk. Any time I did heavy jerks frequently, I would get escalating shoulder pain. As I trained more, I got better at maintaining shoulder stability. Power jerks still give me a lot of trouble, but split jerks are fine. Though with the pandemic, I haven't trained in months, and my shoulders are feeling all wonky again. On a similar note, squatting was the absolute best thing for my knees. I had knee pain since I was about ten, and it didn't let up until I started squatting heavy. And whenever I would stop for a couple weeks, the pain would come back.
- steve_adams_86 6y ago
  Likewise, I sourced old old knee and shoulder problems with squats and deadlifts. When I stop, the pain free days stop as well. Pull ups help me a lot too. I think I do push ups wrong, they seem to cause trouble.

newsclues 6y ago

Got hit by a car and I’ve concluded doctors are largely a decade or more out of date on a lot of things, especially diet and non-obvious injuries.

mancerayder 6y ago
I feel like medicine teaches you the facts - the hip bone is connected to the, leg bone - but in terms of 'troubleshooting skills', there is something deeply missing.
- newsclues 6y ago
  It seems like it favours memorizing things and certain patterns. Humans aren’t great when dealing with complex systems like human bodies. AI assistants for doctors (who learn to troubleshoot) can’t come soon enough.
  - Zancarius 6y ago
    > It seems like it favours memorizing things and certain patterns. I think this is broadly true. Probably not for all of medicine but generally speaking it is. I recently started having a relapse of debilitating cluster headaches for a couple of weeks for the first time in about a half a decade (maybe longer). I tried avoiding all the typical triggers: Caffeine, chocolate, dust, smoke (difficult in winter when the neighbors love their fires), etc. Nothing worked. Then I remembered: Ah hah! Sinus infections. I'd forgotten that the underlying trigger for me almost 90% of the time is a sinus infection I didn't notice that got out of hand. About halfway through a course of antibiotics the headaches have largely subsided. Problem is that my sinus infections never seem to manifest typically, probably due to anatomical abnormalities. This typically means that a week or longer of back-and-forth "we don't see anything wrong" with the doctor worsens the problem until the pressure and pain builds up to a point that touching anywhere near the sinuses is very unpleasant. The best preventative measure I have, and probably the reason I avoided them for so long, is to do regular sinus irrigation. I lapsed about 6 months ago and stopped doing it--whoops. Most practitioners are fine if you fit the majority of cases and the literature. If you deviate outside that, it's much more difficult to diagnose for the reasons you highlighted regarding complex systems. Humans just suck at it. I don't have much advice other than to learn and know your own body. You probably know it better than any doctor. But you also need to become your own advocate if you think something isn't quite right and you need some help!
  - sleepydog 6y ago
    Well, with humans it's a lot harder and ethically challenging to take them apart, insert a few print statements, and put them back together again :)
- ternaryoperator 6y ago
Taylor_OD 6y ago
Changing my diet (cutting bread and booze) helped my terrible back and neck more than several years of PT and doctors did.
bbatha 6y ago
It’s sort of built into the profession: medical practice is inherently little-c conservative. Doctors are trained throughly to practice the precautionary principle because it’s easier to cause more harm. Often with good reason imagine you’re a surgeon and a new procedure comes out that’s 92% effective and the one you learned in school and have hundreds of hours of practice in is 89% effective. That boost is worth it in theory but are you going to risk a few patients while you learn it along the way? That benefit needs to be much larger in the aggregate. This is also assuming it’s something reach FDA certification, etc. scientific research is often a decade ahead of the market any way in any field. Then there’s also the reality that doctors at least in the US are incredibly over worked and keeping up with a wide variety of scientific literature is just not practical. This is coupled to an increased specialization in medicine may mean cross-over research from different specialities may not filter into your desk.
- jmnicolas 6y ago
  > It’s sort of built into the profession: medical practice is inherently little-c conservative. Doctors are trained throughly to practice the precautionary principle because it’s easier to cause more harm. Often with good reason imagine you’re a surgeon and a new procedure comes out that’s 92% effective I wish they remembered that for COVID vaccines, because apparently it's the exception.
  - magnusmundus 6y ago
    A failed surgery is different to an ineffective vaccination. Surgeries also aren't commonly deployed against epidemics.
- newsclues 6y ago
  It’s a matter of failure to modernize curriculum during education, and the difficulty of staying on top of new research. The lag in education needs to be fixed ASAP.

dfsegoat 6y ago

> “I have usage of computers that far exceeds 90% of the population (12+ hours a day).” Pre-pandemic, I trained Brazilian jiu-jitsu 5-6x per week - where people are trying to crank on my neck constantly. Your neck gets incredibly thick and strong as a result. Even with that, I can say that NOTHING sets off my neck pain like 10+ hours at my computer.

mancerayder 6y ago
Would you say a stronger neck reduces problems from the PC all day long?
- dfsegoat 6y ago
  I think strengthening/mobilizing anything on a regular basis helps prevent issues - I definitely have fewer neck and lower back issues after getting active 5-6x / week. But the 10+ hour days still kill. Need to break those up with mobility.
dilyevsky 6y ago
Same with climbing/deadlifting. Six months into pandemic with all the gyms closed i started getting sore neck and accompanied migraines like twice a week... grrreat
mordymoop 6y ago
Holding still for long periods is almost the worst thing for muscles. Basically your putting strain on the same set of muscles without actually granting them the sort of natural movement that keeps blood and stuff circulating properly.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

balfirevic 6y ago

> I've been doing weightlifting (not bodybuilding which you should not do if you value your body long-term! Strength Training and a bit of Olympic Weightligting) Much of what bodybuilders do is strength training, especially at the non-professional levels. At amateur levels, effective strength training and effective body building are going to be pretty similar.

mancerayder 6y ago
Yes and No. At least there are two big differentiators. Olympic Weightlifting is generally understood to refer to the movements of clean+jerk, snatch, and associated movements like deadlifting and squatting which are components of the complex lifts. Strength Training very broadly just means a rep range that makes you stronger, not bigger. But commonly one thinks of powerlifting movements: bench press, squats, deadlifts. Notice in none of the above did we talk about bicep curls, pulley exercises, leg curls, or any concentration exercises. We didn't even talk about leg press, because in the above two we only use barbells. So the two big differentiators are: 1. rep range is high with bodybuilding because bodybuilding cares about volume 2. This is the big one. The exercise range for bodybuilding includes many (perhaps mostly) single or few joint exercises. So when you say that at the amateur level it doesn't matter, that's only true in that any amateur will get stronger. That's true. But the similarity ends right there. I speak from experience when I say, starting off as an amateur by copying what bodybuilders are doing (bicep curls and other mirror exercises, high rep ranges and doing many single joint movements instead of functional movements) is a recipe for bad habits and movement patterns that you need to spend years to re-learn later. Not to mention machines are garbage and cause injury since they make you do unnatural things (unless you really know what you are doing, which amateurs do not).
- balfirevic 6y ago
  > Strength Training very broadly just means a rep range that makes you stronger, not bigger. There is no such thing (edit: well, except maybe 1-2 reps, because it's hard to get much volume with those. But beginners shouldn't be doing those anyway). You get stronger in the rep range you practice. People often (in gym circles) mean "1-rep strength" when they say "strength", but such a narrow definition only makes sense if you are competing in powerlifting. As a beginner you want the rep range that maximizes gains/risk and also gains/unpleasantness ratio, which will usually be 5-10. > rep range is high with bodybuilding because bodybuilding cares about volume People who train for strength also care about volume because volume is a great way to get stronger. And also great way to get bigger. Which makes sense, because getting bigger is a great way to get stronger. > starting off as an amateur by copying what bodybuilders are doing I think this is where the most of the confusion comes from. It is bad to start amateurs on stuff that professional body builders do, but it would also be bad to start them on stuff professional powerlifters do (low bar one-rep max squats or speed deadlifts). On the other hand, as an amateur, whether your goal is strength or better physique - the best approach is going to be very similar. > Not to mention machines are garbage and cause injury since they make you do unnatural things (unless you really know what you are doing, which amateurs do not). Some types of machines are absolutely fine (cable machines), other types are also mostly fine - they get a bad reputation from few of the worst offenders such as leg press and leg extension machine.

dahart 6y ago

> Yet. I suffer from neck pain Have you tried cervical traction? > Medicine: You Suck! We can send robots to Mars [...] Seriously! Though maybe to be fair, the design of the spine isn’t that great. I mean it’s amazing. And simultaneously can’t take the abuse we pile on it. Whoever invents the cure to deteriorating joints and deteriorating nerves is going to solve half the world’s pain and also become very rich. > Someone below wrote Just curious - why not reply? Saying ‘below’ can be awkward when comments move around.

mancerayder 6y ago
> Have you tried cervical traction? Do you have any recommended products or procedures? > Just curious - why not reply? Saying ‘below’ can be awkward when comments move around. Because I wanted to expand the context of the thread, I guess? Spending time with a long response to a short comment in a nested thread structure felt like it would get buried.
- dahart 6y ago
  Good question, I guess I’d recommend seeing a physical therapist first, and trying traction under guidance for a few weeks before buying anything.
3131s 6y ago
I'm doing cervical spine traction right now... it makes my head hurt but I've found ways to do it that are less uncomfortable. My story is similar to others here, I'm a lifelong athlete with some injuries that are exacerbated by computer usage. I now stand all day, every day with a monitor at head height, which has been the most impactful lifestyle change. Otherwise I do stretching, some exercises like in this article, deep breathing, and massage. Looking forward to getting back to lifting and sprinting full-time, meanwhile though my cervical spine needs to become more stable. I'm never going back to sitting at a computer, because I literally can't! I suppose that's good ultimately but I do find it hard to concentrate on certain things while standing.
- dahart 6y ago

cadence- 6y ago

I have exactly the same thing. Plus last year (2020 was truly shitty) I developed a frozen shoulder, which now prevents me from doing many exercises that used to help me. My other shoulder is starting to hurt too now, and I’m mentally preparing myself to having both shoulders frozen this year. I have been to many doctors, and had lots of tests (x-ray, MRI,ultrasound) but they cannot find anything. Doctors are mostly useless for things like this. They are only helpful when you have accidents with obvious broken or damaged bonuses and tissues etc.

mancerayder 6y ago
What's frozen shoulder? Have you tried stretching (gently) the levator scapula stretch (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSoXPJRnR6E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSoXPJRnR6E)? I've recently started doing this 1-2 a day. I hold my elbow more to the sky and out than she is doing (sometimes using a doorway to help keep my elbow up), and I hold it for 1m on each side. The levator scapula attaches to the cervical spine at one end, and the top of the scapula on the other. Shoulder and neck problems can occur in a chain and in a sort of domino effect.
drpgq 6y ago
I had frozen shoulder last year and it really sucked. I was pretty despondent as it didn't seem to be getting better going to physio endlessly, but eventually it started getting better and is pretty good now. Seems like a condition that isn't very well understood. It can be pretty debilitating.

kasperni 6y ago

> I suspect part of my problem is shoulder mobility so I also do daily scapular work. I've had some great results with: - Kettlebell work. TGU/Halos/Arm bar are all great exercises for shoulder health/strengt/mobility. - Dead hangs [1]. - Some light stick mobility exercises such as [2]. [1] https://www.t-nation.com/training/tip-two-surprising-exercises-for-shoulder-health https://www.t-nation.com/training/tip-two-surprising-exercis... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dn1IBowxflw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dn1IBowxflw

mancerayder 6y ago
I was doing deadhangs but I also suffer from elbow pain from a mix of pullups (which I've since not done for a while) and squats. I think deadhangs are great for "decompressing" the spine, though. I was doing TGU for a while, I should get back into it. Part of it is pandemic-lack-of-space, and part of it is, overhead movements cen trigger the headaches.
- saurik 6y ago
  How did the squats hurt your elbow? :(
  - mancerayder 6y ago
    Doing a zillion pullups hurt my elbows. I think a mix of shoulder mobility limits and that caused the pain I get when I squat. This has gone down though despite my squat weight going up. When I squat I try to make more effort to squeeze my shoulders back and down and watch the angle of my arms. Also, holding a kettlebell upside down for 1 minute on each side above my head with elbow straight has greatly reduced my elbow pain.
mtalantikite 6y ago
When I started my yoga asana practice I ended up uncovering some shoulder dyskinesis I hadn’t been aware of from years and years of programming. That turned into a pretty bad shoulder injury that has on the plus side taught me a lot about my body. One thing I learned is that a lot of shoulder stuff comes from tightness of the pec minor, which now in retrospect is pretty obvious. Some things that I do that have really helped with shoulder stuff: 1) Shoulder dislocates with an aikido jo. Any rigid stick works, like a broom handle. 2) Camel pose (ustrasana), but coming into it a bit differently than is usually taught in yoga classes. Keep your knees hips width distance apart, with your toes tucked under (rather than pointed), and sit on your heels. Grab your heels with your fingers on the inside of your feet (if you were to open your hand your thumbs will be pointing directly backwards). Make sure you have good shoulder rotation here. Now lift your pelvis up while holding on to your feet, get your pelvis stacked over your knees, and think about lifting your chest to the sky. Send your breath into your upper chest for 5-7 breaths and then come out the way you came in. This really opened my pec minor. 3) Gomukhasana with arms clasped behind your back. Use a strap if you can’t get the bind (it might take a while for this rotation to open). 4) Pull-ups. Lots of pull ups. Started with dead hangs, then would do 50% of max 6x times per day 3-4 days a week. Would retest max every 3 weeks. Got myself to about 15 per set before I decided I didn’t need to do that many pull ups. 5) cat cow with wrists flipped, fingers pointed backwards. Really focusing on the shoulder rotation and getting straight arm scapular engagement. 6) Infraspinatus strengthening a few times per week with light weight. Exercises were described in this article: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3655748/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3655748/ 7) Lots of side planks (vasisthasana). Be careful with this one, it can do a lot of harm if you go too hard with it before you’re ready. 8) Not for shoulder per-se, but what really strengthened my neck muscles over the years has been practicing headstand the way it’s taught in ashtanga vinyasa yoga. (Sirsasana -> urdhva dandasana -> sirsasana -> childs pose). During quarantine I started supplementing my regular yoga asana practice with Dylan Werner’s True Strength series and I highly recommend it if people are wanting an incremental body weight training series. Lots of mobility work in there too.

gumby 6y ago

> Medicine: You Suck! [its complex and doesn't work] Having worked in drug development (and no longer do) I can tell you that everyone in the field knows it sucks and also that you should be (very favorably) astonished that it works at all. Biological systems are so insanely complex that they are barely understood; most medical treatments are attempts to perturb a single variable (of a system with billions of variables) in the hope that it has a big enough positive effect. Insanely complex mRNA vaccines are "trivial" by comparison. When you make a spacecraft as you describe you may have a million moving parts. Their operating domain is well known, they typically only do one or two things, and they can operate in a system that can be isolated (this is the crew capsule; it operates in a vacuum and gets power from the power module...). By comparison a human body is many many billions of parts (brain itself is 80 giganeurons) including many that are not even human, all interacting in parallel (those 80 GN brain cells each has a dendritic fan out of around 10^5, plus new means of connection are still being found); all flooding with various signalling (electrical, hormonal, etc) which is the result of object code being extensively modified over 400 million years. And that's just for a single organism (which is how we erroneously consider a human being). Humans are themselves parts of complex interacting extracorpal systems of food, actions, and other environmental factors which cannot be controlled because unlike a piece of metal or a silicon die in a ceramic package we interact with the majority of them. There are a lot of very smart people in computer science but my qualitative impression is that while there a smaller proportion of smart people in the life sciences, the average IQ of those latter group is significantly higher. Even though I still follow the literature, I have a "holy shit how did someone figure that out?" moment several times a week.

yrimaxi 6y ago

I’m sorry. It’s terrible that people have to suffer from this kind of thing and get so little help from the supposed state of the art.

bpizzi 6y ago

Damn, I’m exactly on the same boat! I found that wearing a dental splint at night help a lot.

wuwuno 6y ago

I'm sure that if we would 'relax' bioethics standards we could make faster progress.

dsego 6y ago

I also have neck issues, esp. when slouching over the laptop. Usually there is a point on the back of my neck that starts protruding. Then my neck and shoulder muscles get inflamed and I get pain, headaches, teary eyes and drowsiness. Usually things get better with an ibuprofen to calm the inflammation. But sometimes my wife needs to push really hard and massage until the protrusion goes back in. I can even feel it sort of click back into place and you can feel it skip while rubbing. It started years ago but it's sort of moved down closer to shoulder, it's not protruding in the same spot as before. One other thing I would do is take a rolling pin against the door frame to massage the neck or pull on the back of my head upward with a towel. Now I also do these neck exercises* and they really do help if I do them regularly, I also use a laptop stand whenever I can so I don't have to look down and slouch. *https://imgv2-2-f.scribdassets.com/img/document/236321754/original/6652d8075e/1464818760 https://imgv2-2-f.scribdassets.com/img/document/236321754/or... (I couldn't find it in english, sorry) PS A neurologist and an orthopaedist told me that my symptoms don't make sense and they couldn't find anything wrong with my spine.

mancerayder 6y ago
Careful! I would get an MRI which can see if you have a disk bulge or a bone spur. A protruding point does not sound good, but it sounds like something that medicine might possible be useful for for once.
- dsego 6y ago
  Probably a disk bulge in my opinion, but it hasn't happened in a while now. I think the doctor dismissed it and told me that the disk can only bulge on the opposite side (inward), but I may be misremembering.

wvh 6y ago

You have pushed your body to do something it wasn't designed to do, and over time, you broke it. It's very hard to get back. You could have chosen another profession, but perhaps you'd have trouble with your knees then. I had perfect vision for years, but a few years ago, things started to get blurry. Now I have to stop working after some hours because I just can't see the screen anymore, which would have been unthinkable a few years back. It feels pretty absurd having to stop just because you can't physically see anymore what you're doing. I also do strength training and distance running – also to fight bad effects from prolonged computer use – which I guess keeps me pretty fit and healthy, but again, some part of the body might not be so happy and break down due to exercise. As an adult, one's surprisingly left mostly to one's own devices when it comes to long-term holistic health. Most things beyond medical or mental emergencies are a lot harder to figure out, with a lot of fads, quacks and charlatans along the way.

vladTheInhaler 6y ago

In the before times, I was doing olympic weightlifting as well, and I had very similar problems. I've always had weirdly loose shoulder joints (and can partially dislocate them), as well as weird things with the tendons in my knuckles. And when I started lifting, I would always have trouble with the jerk. Any time I did heavy jerks frequently, I would get escalating shoulder pain. As I trained more, I got better at maintaining shoulder stability. Power jerks still give me a lot of trouble, but split jerks are fine. Though with the pandemic, I haven't trained in months, and my shoulders are feeling all wonky again. On a similar note, squatting was the absolute best thing for my knees. I had knee pain since I was about ten, and it didn't let up until I started squatting heavy. And whenever I would stop for a couple weeks, the pain would come back.

steve_adams_86 6y ago
Likewise, I sourced old old knee and shoulder problems with squats and deadlifts. When I stop, the pain free days stop as well. Pull ups help me a lot too. I think I do push ups wrong, they seem to cause trouble.