Exercise for Geeks?

An anonymous reader asks: "A bunch of friends and I have been wondering for a while how to stay fit (and additionally, how to bulk up). While common suggestions include team sports, few of us are able to get together and play something outdoors since the weather here is abysmal. We would like to know how you geeks stay fit individually in your homes, and are there any ways to do so (while building up muscle) that don't involve expensive equipment? Thanks."

Dumbbells, chairs & broomsticks

[earthy]

As with all activities: use your mind. What you want to be doing is exercise your muscles. While this can be done without any extra weights, most fit people will only really benefit with extra weights. A good set of dumbbells shouldn't set you back more than some EUR 60 (or $ 60).

Now, given that, you want to try to target particular muscles. Learn the moves that exercise the biceps, triceps, deltoids etc. Step on and off chairs to train your legs. Do pushups. Do situps. Stretch.

The problem with all this is discipline: it really doesn't help if you don't at least do this for about 20 minutes every day or 40 minutes every other day.

Ofcourse, you could also go for ballroom dance, historic dancing, indoor climbing, acrobatics, juggling...

Re:Indoor rock climbing

[DNS-and-BIND]

REI is not a place for fitness. REI is a place for cashectomies for the overpaid.

By playing video games.

[valkenar]

DDR (dance dance revolution) is good for an aerobic workout. If you supplement extensive DDR playing with some of those wearable weights on your ankles and wrists, you can probably build some muscle as well. Particularly if you make a point of pumping your arms like an idiot as I do.

If you get a soft pad for DDR, then you'll need to put something heavy on the corners to keep it in place. If you buy a small weightlifting set, you can get a little upper body workout by putting the weights on the corners of the pad, and during the game as you constantly readjust them.

There's other games you can play too. I forget what it's called, but there's an arcade boxing game played by actually punching with pair of gloves. The gloves are fairly heavy, and your arms will get a workout if you play the game very much.

Work!

[qurob]

Broken elevator, and you've got to move 4 PC's up to the third floor?

Load the van up with ladders, boxes of cat 5, tool boxes?

Brute force of moving big servers, 48U racks, 21 inch monitors!

Big printers are heavy as all hell!

A couple of things

[Gudlyf]

Here are a few points to consider:

• I think one poster already mentioned this, but when you have a choice between an elevator and stairs, always take the stairs, even if you're carrying something. If you can open the door to the stairwell and don't have a bumm leg/foot/kneee, there's no excuse.
• Small but helpfull, get a stress ball [asisupplier.com]. They're not only good for stress relief, but they do build up wrist/forearm muscles if you use them long enough.
• Go find an arcade that has the Dance Dance Revolution [ddrfreak.com] game and throw a few dollars into that. Better yet, get the home version [ddrfreak.com].
• Like to play console games do you? Why not make it impossible to play the games without exercising? Take the power source of the Playstation or whatever console you're on and make it so that it is only on if the treadmill belt is rotating at a certain RPM.
• I've heard of some other video games that incorporate exercise, like bicycles and treadmills. Look/ask around.

Hope that helps!

How to Lose weight 101

[phoenix_orb]

As a geek who also has a social life and (what the women call) a hard body, let me let you in on the two secrets to staying in shape.

Excercise and Food intake.

The first thing that I would do if I were you would be eliminate soda's. I still drink coffee in the morning as I probably only get 3-4 hours of sleep a night (thank you WebObjects), but because I eliminate soda, I have kept off tons of weight when I see the geeks around me slowly adding a gut. That is just a start, and you may want to change other eating habits as well. I have found that because I no longer drink pop (at 170 calories a can x 5-6 cans a day) I save almost 1000 calories. That leaves me enough room to pig out occasionally. Also if you excercise your metabolism will speed up, allowing you to burn off more calories, even when you are just sitting there.

I personally work out maybe 30 minutes a day, with 10 minutes of warm up streching and 5 minutes of cool down streching. That is 45 minutes a day. Yes, it sucks, yes it takes time out of my day, but YES I LOVE the eventual benifit. As an aside, I have more energy, and feel better about myself. As an aside, streching is VERY important. You will be stiff and sore the next day, and get burned out on working out IF YOU DON'T STRECH OUT. If you do the soreness is kept to a minimum.

The workout program is simple, but I know that you may want to taylor this to your own. I run two miles, which I can do in 10 minutes, then I work out my upper body and abs, and I alternate between the two of them. I have free weights at home and a curl bar (the bar was $30 at play it again sports, the weights are about 40 at wal-mart) As a person who has obnoxiously strong legs (I used to race bicycles long ago) I run with leg weights on, but that is something that you may not wish to start out on.

There are a couple of books which I use as a guideline to help me out, and I recommend them highly.

They are the "Stronger Abs and Back: 165 Exercises to Build Your Center of Power"

I am finally getting close to a rock hard 6 pack thanks to this book alone. WOW.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/088011558 0/ 104-1080760-7878365

The Body Sculpting Bible for Men

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/157826085 X/ 104-1080760-7878365
Great book, hints on eating correctly, and hints on using what you have to achieve what you want.

Strength Training Anatomy

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/073604185 0/ 104-1080760-7878365

This book is very good if you wish to get into a gym and you really want to know which excersices work what. It has diagrams and walk throughs of dozens of machines and free weights, and shows you drawings of what muscles it works.

I have been working out for 4 months now. I have lost 15 pounds, went from 14 to 7% body fat, and really started toning up. I have found that it has really done a lot more than just make me look better. I hope that you find what you need and start working out yourself. :)

Re:Swimming, hiking, biking, weight-lifting

[HeyLaughingBoy]

Well, you can lift weights for strength training (because all that sitting in front of a computer really affects your upper body posture); swim for flexibility training; on weekends you can go hiking and/or biking with your buddies -- that helps improve general endurance, and is a lot of fun, especially if there are beautiful mountains near where you are.

None of these are particularly expensive, but they do require you to get out of your home

You can do quite a bit at home:
1) I have a few 100 lbs of weights, a good bench and a power rack in the basement. Purchased over a few years, they cost about as much as 2 years of a gym membership and I've been using them for over 10 years and will own them for decades more.
2) My live-in gf has a 70 lb punching bag, gloves, and wrist wraps, so she doesn't need to go to the gym or her dojo to practice taekwondo.
3) Exercise bikes: boring, but effective. personally, I'd just rather get outside on my own bike though.
4) Calisthenics & jumping rope. I do sometimes.
5) Martial arts: while you periodically need to get out to go to the dojo, practicing forms/attacks at home can be quite a workout. My only problem is that I study kendo, and swinging a sword overhead doesn't work when you have 8-ft ceilings :-(

When I began working out years ago I found that I had to discover what worked for me. e.g., I don't like lifting with other people, but I like cycling with a partner. I hate cardio, but love weights. You'll probably go through the same self discovery period until you settle on the things you like and it becomes a daily routine you hardly even think of. Exercise has to become natural, or you will stop doing it. Get in the habit of walking (carrying groceries in a backpack works well) instead of driving everywhere; avoid elevators for less than 4 floors of altitude gain; eat properly. After a while it just comes easily.

Go for it: you can have many jobs and multiple interests, but only one body. Take care of it!

Some excellent k5 articles

[bruckie]

There have been some excellent articles and discussion on this subject over the past few months over at kuro5hin [kuro5hin.org]:

• How to lose weight [kuro5hin.org]
• How to Start Lifting Weights, part 1 [kuro5hin.org] and part 2 [kuro5hin.org]

I've found the articles very informative and well-written. They include references to more information (books, web sites).

As a side note, I find the topic of this Ask Slashdot a little funny. Geeks aren't some separate species; they're humans, and can eat and exercise the same way as all of the other humans. :)

--Bruce

Re:Dumbbells, chairs & broomsticks

[Mike Wilson]

I bought a pair of cheap dumbbells from Walmart and have been very pleased with the results. ExRx [exrx.net] is a good source for exercise ideas. They index exercises by muscle group, describe how they are performed, and show how with a short video clip. I exercise wrist, upper arm and deltoids on day one; back and shoulders on day two; with day three as a rest day. I saw pleasing results soon with only light weight (5-10 lbs). I also try to walk for 30 to 60 minutes a few times a week.

For weight control, I'm trying the Hacker's Diet [fourmilab.ch].