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How Do Geeks Exercise?
An anonymous reader writes "I have always been thin but all the sitting in front of the PC is taking its toll now that I'm getting older. I have begun to get a little heavier around the waist. I don't eat a lot but the weight seems to stay on these days. Most of the time I don't have the luxury of just getting out of the house/office. And being an introvert, I'm not enamored of the idea of exercising in full view of *shudder* people. I regularly do press-ups (60 per night) and sit-ups (30 per night) and some fetching and carrying, but that is all and these days it isn't enough. I need a solid and effective routine that will tone all my muscle groups efficiently. Do any Slashdotters have a regular workout routine that can be performed in the privacy of the home to stave off those pounds?"
Bike to work. (Make living close enough to bike a priority.)
Pretty much what the title says. Leave the car at home if you can. If you take public transportation, walking to the bus stop (rushing so you don't miss it =P), running down the stairs of the subway station (not using those fancy high tech automated ones! /cough), and so on, the pounds go away quite fast.
That is if you live somewhere where its possible. I've melted a lot doing that.
Seriously. It's actually pretty nice out there, or at least it was the few times I've had to go out.
My grandmother used anecdotal evidence all the time, and she lived to be 120 years old.
Wii Fit. If you're a geek looking for a half-way decent workout at home, that'll fit the bill quite nicely.
Hindu push-ups, Hindu squats, back bridge. For more information: http://cbass.com/Furey.htm.
Lemmings are silly; dinosaurs are extinct.
It's even more fun when you have an exercise partner.
You have to get out of the house, but to suit the introvert, you can go where most people can't. You also get to wear PFD as well as and a baggy dry suit to cover up the unsightlyness if you need it in your area.
If you voted for Nader, THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!!
You very much need aerobic exercise to supplement your muscular-oriented exercise. Aerobic exercise works the heart, lungs, and circulatory system--very critical subsystems.
I'd recommend a treadmill or a bike with a trainer hooked up to it. Have a TV in front of you. After reading a couple books about it, use a heart rate monitor to keep from pushing too hard or too easy.
Try to build up to one hour per day. Don't discontinue your calisthenics. Read about exercise.
They're cool enough to do in front of other people, no matter how bad you are, and you have something to show off to your friends. It's a win-win scenario.
Did you know that "FTW" ("for the win") is a direct translation of "Sieg Heil"?
I went and picked up a cheap yet sturdy bike ($500.00 Specialized Hard Core Comp), and I take the train to work. from train stations in either direction it's about a 10 minute ride (20 total one way), however I can bike down to farther train stations to get a real benefit from it.
So the next train station from my work is about a 45 minute bike ride away, while the first one is ten.
The one after that is about an hour and a half away, and so on an so forth.
You can do this with bus stops too.
It's uncomfortable at first getting used to the bike, so pick up Mtn Bike shorts (They aren't the spandex ones, they look like regular shorts), and get used to it, then have at it. I love it now, and I royally hate working out in front of people.
Good luck!
If you play it right, it's a workout. You won't get as good scores at the weenies who sit on the couch and twitch the controllers, but who cares?
#1 - Yourself Fitness. PC, PS2, Xbox all options for it (and the ps2 and xbox titles are both compatible with their "upgraded" counterparts).
#2 - Wii Fit. Surprisingly effective if you discipline yourself to doing it. Downside: not as organized.
And now we get to some of the better stuff.
#3 - Find a local swimming pool, strap on a pair of rollerblades, get a bicycle.
#4 - Join a sports league. Your local parks & recreation department is a good start here and can steer you to local team sports if nothing else. This will also help with your "introverted" problem.
#5 - Once you take care of the "introverted" problem... get a girlfriend and do a lot of the world's #1 calorie-burning exercise.
If you live in a city with a rowing club, you could take up one-person sculling. It's non-impact, relaxing, and you get out in the fresh air. Unfortunately, you can't do it in the winter, and it's really difficult to carry the boat to the water on your own, so you have to have some social interaction. The solitude out on the water is nice though.
Here, I can attest that this routine was what worked while I was with the Marines; there's no reason you couldn't do most of it indoors. Find a doorway in your home where you can hang a pull-up bar. Do the pushups and crunches at the recommended intervals and train up. You might even work in reverse crunches while laying facedown halfway off the bed with your feet secured by a friend.
The only thing you might have to do in public is running. For me, there's no better exercise than running.
http://oneweb.utc.edu/~semperfi/physical.htm
This way my left leg/foot gets more exercise when driving an automatic, otherwise a heavy clutch does the trick.
Unless you've got the luxury of a huge amount of space, the only way you're going to come close to exercising all groups is via free weights.
Multi exercise machines don't even come close (more on that later). Treadmills/stationary bikes are great for burning calories which'll do most of your weight loss goals but you're asking about all muscle groups. BOSU balls, steps, jump ropes are all more limited in application. The other great full body exercise, swimming, isn't really an option in the privacy of your own home unless you're rich enough to have a good sized pool.
The problem with free weights, and this comes from being married to a physical therapist who's also an ACE certified personal trainer, is: You're doing it wrong.
Don't feel bad. Just about everyone does. From the Navy guys I've watched prepping for their PRTs by holding a dumbell in one position and flapping their elbows like chickens to those who swing weights and let the momentum carry them through the weak spots to those who only really focus on a few core groups.
This is what a good personal trainer will do for you (and, yes, I hate the idea of paying the meathead ones too). A good one will slow you down and perfect your form: meaning you're actually building the weak points not just swinging past them. A good one will start you on machines (really good for isolating the exact form you need but lousy at exercising all of the supporting groups) and then slowly move you over to free weights (really good at exercising a lot of supporting groups, lousy at teaching you good form). A good one will also teach you a whole range of exercises so you're not just bulking your biceps with no work on your triceps, strengthening abs without matching your lats, working on your upper body with no attention to your chicken legs (yes, you, 95% of guys in gyms).
Look at it this way...
How good of a coder would you be if you never learned from other people's code and never had anyone review yours? Sure, you might be a prodigy and do some cool trick most people have never thought of. More likely, you'll write messy, inefficient code that seems like it works while leaving memory leaks everywhere.
In the same way, you might manage to learn everything about lifting from message boards and videos. More likely, you'll get a fair amount right but still be doing a few gastly things that it never occurs to you they're wrong.
This is why we suck it up, venture in to a gym, find a good trainer (being willing to fire the bad ones until we get that one we vibe with), and learn the technique first... so we can then get it right in our splendid isolation.
Tai Chi is essentially a form of Kung Fu slowed down to maximize the exercise potential and lessen the strain on your body.
Once you have learned the essential 108 movements (its all one long cycle that puts you back where you are started, but is learned as 108 or so individual moves), you have a routine that will exercise pretty much every muscle in your body, looks cool, and requires no equipment to perform in, any stretch of ground/grass/parkinglot with a roughly 15x15 ft area free would probably do.
Its been very popular in China for centuries and obviously works quite well, given the number of old people you see doing it in droves there.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
So you're an introvert. Big deal! Exercise in front of people anyway.
Look, no one's going to make fun of you for going to the gym; in fact, they are more likely to make fun of someone who needs exercise and doesn't go to the gym.
The gym isn't Counter-Strike. No one cares if you're an exercise n00b. In fact, in my experience if you screw up at the gym, someone who knows what they're doing will show you the proper way to exercise so you don't injure yourself.
If you can afford it, and if you really care about your fitness and attractiveness, there is no reason not to go to the gym.
Just want to put another nod out there for crossfit, I'm going to a crossfit gym but if you're the introvert type and can handle being extra careful to observe good proper form on your own, doing the WOD (workout of the day - scaled to your fitness level) will give you a good all around workout over time.
I watched most of the theory vids before deciding to try it out:
http://www.crossfit.com/cf-info/excercise.html#Clips
I'd recommend starting with the video "intro to intensity"
l4h
How come nobody has mentioned this one yet? I mean, come on! It has fitness tips as well as diet since you really need both to get the pounds off.
Hacker Diet
Tonights forecast: Dark. Continued dark throughout most of the evening, with some widely-scattered light towards morning
Do any Slashdotters have a regular workout routine that can be performed in the privacy of the home to stave off those pounds?
I literally just got back from a cycling workout - for me this means thrashing around town for an hour during the evening/night. OK, so it isn't in the privacy of the home, but regular cyclists know too well that nobody pays much attention to them :)
Cycling is familiar territory for geeks since it involves a machine that's easy to tweak and upgrade components for performance and a lot of technology surrounds it. Cycling also suits introverts since it doesn't require much human interaction or a gym.
Until the start of 2008 I was about 90 lbs overweight and morbidly obese. Throughout the year I have lost 70 lbs, and I am on my way to having a healthy BMI.
Here are my thoughts:
You don't have to go to a gym, but it really helps to have access to nice array of equipment. Get over your fear of going to the gym. No one gives a crap about you --except for when you may be using equipment they want to use. If you want to avoid socializing, wear headphones or go during off hours. If you are afraid of the locker room (that's normal it takes sometime to get used to), then don't use it.
Now on to to the technical stuff: You need to do a moderate to strenuous aerobic activity at least ~30 minutes a day 3 days a week (5 is better) for the rest of your life. I like to run, row, hike up mountains and occasionally use the elliptical machine. This is necessary for good cardiovascular health, and will help you in your later years. It will also as a side effect help you loose weight.
You need to do some basic weight training. You seem to favor body weight exercises, keep doing push ups, try increasing the reps, or difficulty by doing them on an incline. Learn to do pullups/dips also. Finally buy a few dumbbells, going up to 35-40 lbs in weight. Learn to do basic curls, and some presses. Later on read some fitness books, or go to a couple of fitness blogs to learn how to do lifts and presses that work your big muscle groups --think squats, and dead lifts. Doing this won't make you a huge muscle guy (believe me the gains are not that great) but you'll be happy with your increased strength. It will also help to keep you from looking flabby.
One more thing. The key to loosing weight is your diet. Good weight loss is slow, and steady. Cut 500-1000 calories from your diet, and you'll loose 2 lbs a week. However, you need to combine it with exercise or you'll have to keep "dieting" for the rest of your life to maintain your weight. That won't happen, so creating a nice caloric deficit through working out 3-5 times a day will help you maintain a healthy weight once you've reached it.
Personally, I go to a gym. But then, I live in a small town so I don't see very many *people*. Incidentally, I've always gone to a gym, even when I lived in a slightly larger town of Philadelphia.
The key to the middle parts is: it's the last fat to go.
You don't say how old you are, but the fact is you're getting older and your metabolism continues to slow each year. You can combat that by moving (aka exercise) and eating. Yes, eating. If you don't take in enough calories - the right calories - your body will react by storing what it can, usually in your middle. Unfortunately, your middle is the last place you lose from.
Muscles burn calories. You can increase your resting metabolic rate by building muscle. Just having more muscle mass == more calories burned sitting on your butt. It's a vicious cycle though, if you don't maintain the muscle (aka exercise) you'll lose it through catabolism (body breaks it down for energy).
There's a godzillion things you can do at home, but the easiest way to start is with push-ups and sit-ups. Buy an exercise ball, one of those big funny-looking rubber balls. There are dozens of different exercises you can do with those. They're cheap and they're extremely versatile. You don't necessarily need weights if you're a beginner, or even intermediate. You just need to use your body as the weight and do _something_ to trick your body into building some muscle mass. (You won't build a ton just doing pushups, but you'd be suprised how quickly it works) Consistency is key - 3 times per week on the "weights". You need a day in-between to allow your body to recover and actually build the muscle.
This one goes without saying: Eat healthy!
If you have the means, i.e. space and money, get a treadmill. Use it 30 minutes a day, 5-6 days a week.
The bottom line is, you have to burn calories and build some muscle. The only way to do either one is to _move_ a lot.
If you do what you always did, you get what you always got.
Get a good book on Yoga and practice at your own. Or, gather up some courage to go to a Yoga session and learn.
The primary reasons martial arts are my preferred form of exercise:
1. You have to actually think about what you're doing quite often. You're not just doing mindless aerobics.
2. The group situation pushes you farther than you'd normally push yourself, and encourages you to reach new plateaus.
3. Classes are generally directed at all times. It's kind of like having personal trainers with you at all times, in that there's always a series of directed activities and you're not casting about for what to do next.
With that said, there are MANY bad martial arts schools out there. I generally avoid any place that doesn't seem to have any women or older men participating, that sees fit to display huge numbers of trophies on entry, or that has a master whose personality I don't think I could get along with. There are a lot of arrogant pricks in the martial arts world, and there's no need to pay for and encourage them. Similarly, there are plenty of schools out there that seem to exist so that young 20s males can beat the crap out of each other. Let them... and go somewhere else.
Somewhere in fourmilab.ch, there's a free book about weight loss from a geek perspective which includes an exercise program which is
o quick, under 15 minutes to complete
o private
o works with no special equipment
o is not suitable if you have back problems, get professional advice if you do.
If you live in a hilly area then walking can get your heart rate into the aerobic training range. Aerobic exercise has cognitive benefits too.
Lots of people have reported good results from Dance Dance Revolution.
Sounds like you've solved the #1 problem, motivation. It's a miracle that any geeks retain any interest in fitness after the physical "education" classes in school. But you're already familiar with the fact that your brain feels better in a body that goes when you step on the gas. The other way to look at it is that your body is like a Swiss Army knife, it's the tool you always have with you, so it might as well be functional.
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According to my high school biology teacher, this is true. Muscle cells are rich in mitochondria, which constantly consume "food" to create energy -- hence, burning calories. Weight training leads to more muscle cells. More muscle cells leads to more mitochondria. See where I'm going? (Disclaimer: I'm no scientist. Well, a computer scientist. But that doesn't apply here.)
cosin() is more fun than sin()...
I have a health condition that makes it extremely difficult and stressful for me to leave the house to exercise... I do enjoy a good cardio workout, and was feeling quite unhappy about being unable to engage in a regular routinized exercise session that I enjoyed (because aerobics, yoga, pilates, etc. tapes just aren't that much fun to me), so I decided to see what the hype was about last Christmas and I picked up a DDR game.
Now I'm an avid DDRer, and I must say that it can be a fantastic workout, especially if you play doubles (i.e. two mats) as you move your centre of gravity much more often, and if you work yourself up to the harder levels, which get you moving faster. I can burn an estimated 1000 calories per session, and those sessions just fly by because I'm really enjoying myself. You don't only see your improvement in the game, but the improvement in your appearance, too. My stomach is trim now, and I have that nice abdominal V that some fit people get.
If you haven't tried DDR, I highly recommend it. Get a PS2 game, get a couple cheap mats, and give it a go. If DDR isn't your cup of tea, find an exercise routine that you can do at home that you enjoy so that you actually feel inclined to do it more than a few times. You'll never keep up a regime that bores, intimidates, or embarrasses you.
Those exercises are not for beginners, though. If you aren't already in pretty good shape, two of them are outright dangerous: the bridge will wreck your neck, and squats with the heels coming up will wreck your knees. And even if you're in good shape, I've never met either a qualified doctor, physio or professional sports coach who advocates bridging, because of the risk of neck injury.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Oh hell. Ignore above link.
http://hundredpushups.com/
---- Liquid was a patriot ----
(Disclaimer: I'm no scientist. Well, a computer scientist. But that doesn't apply here.)
Don't you mean "Damn it, I'm a computer scientist, not a doctor"?
Having greater muscle volume does lead to greater calories burned without doing anything. This however is a pretty small gain. With aerobic exercise you can burn a ton of calories and most importantly you directly burn fat. When you burn the short term energy stores (sugar) of the body it effects you hunger. When you directly burn fat you feel less hungry after working out. This is why aerobic exercise is best for losing weight. Resistance training will work but it takes more will power.
unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
This basically guarantees that your muscles will be toned but will not bulk up
dude, I challenge you to try and build more muscle than you "want" without using steroids. If you're like me and 99% of the people I have trained with, no matter how much weight you can lift/press/squat etc, it is almost impossible to end up looking even close to a modern bodybuilder without using copious quantities of human growth hormone.
Debian FTW
Self-resistence isometric and isotonic training. Costs nothing, builds muscle efficiently, surprises your friends and balances your life. Also, you can do it while posting to /. from your basement ;)
I went from ~35% body fat to ~15% last year using primarily strength training (4-5 hours a week) supplemented by 2-4 hours of cardio. That translated to about 35lbs of lost fat. I didn't diet. My weight stayed relatively constant. That meant I added about 35 lbs. of muscle. I got to eat a lot of food. I had the doughnuts I love (only right after lifting). The better physique started drawing a lot of attention from women and I got picked up several times. People think I'm five to ten years younger than I really am.
To those who say that aerobic exercise will lead to muscle mass increases, you only need to look at marathon runners' legs to see that isn't really true. more than an hour of cardio a day leads to muscle loss.
Bottom line:
Put identity in the browser.
To specifically address the question posed (what do we, the Slashdot readers, do to stay in shape):
I eat vegetarian; low dairy, lots of beans, tempeh, and seasonal fruits/veggies. I bring my lunch to work every day which is cheaper and more nutritious than buying it.
I lift weights three times a week for an hour emphasizing multi-join and body-weight-resistance exercises like pull-ups, push-ups, dips, incline and hanging crunches, etc.
I bike to work whenever the weather permits.
I run 5 km at least once a week (though bad knees sometimes demand that I go for a long walk instead).
All of this combined yields a weekly time commitment of about 3.5 hours of exercise plus 90 minutes of biking to and from work (2 mi each way). I'm 185 lbs, 6'1", and I fill out my nerdy T-shirts in the shoulders, not the belly. I don't have six-pack, but I certainly don't have a gut. All around I feel very health even though the vast, vast, majority of my time is spent sitting on my ass in front of a computer at work.
I don't care whose biology teacher told them what about which calories are burned by how many muscles, but my whopping 3.5 hours a week of exercise entitles me to all the beer I can drink and stuffing my face with burritos to my heart's content without gaining a fraction of an inch around my waste line (which hasn't changed in 15 years). And no, I'm not one of those skinny nerds than can eat Taco Bell every day and still look like a bent coat hanger.
I think that the big trick to staying healthy is sticking with your routine, whatever it is. Don't just go on a diet and start running in response to feeling fat and out of shape. Biking to work is a great way to start and, depending on where you live, has the added benefit of being faster than driving.
Actually, I wrote my thesis on life experience.