How Do Geeks Exercise? 1806
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?"
Three Exercises, No Equipment (Score:3, Interesting)
Wii Sports (Score:4, Interesting)
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?
Treadmill + Laptop (Score:3, Interesting)
Rock climbing has dual benefits (Score:2, Interesting)
Rock climbing/bouldering has dual benefits:
1. It's a slow endurance/strength excercise
2. It excercises your hands/wrists, which counteracts RSI
Get a climbing partner/group and hit the closest climbing gym. Go easy at first, and remember that the legs should be doing most of the lifting. Go easy on the hands too, you don't want to sprain anything :) Any RSI from typing/office labour should go away, and you will become comfortable enough to start doing more exertive excercises such as weight lifting or cardio.
Re:Bike to work (Score:5, Interesting)
Bike to work. (Make living close enough to bike a priority.)
I want to start doing, but I work in an office where they'd care if I came to work sweaty and stinky. What's the solution to this?
Re:Treadmill (Score:3, Interesting)
As Geekily as Possible -- with the right equipment (Score:3, Interesting)
What turned me on to regular, healthful exercise was to have the right gadget. I worked for an outfit that makes consumer-grade heart rate monitors, so I got to keep one for myself while I wrote out the documentation.
I was very impressed with this gadget. It did wonders for getting me off my duff and tracking my exercise.
Seriously. It's the toys, guys. Having a little bleeping widget on my wrist made a huge difference.
So, even though I don't work for them any more, I'll totally shill for the Polar F11 HRM [polarusa.com]. It figured out an appropriate exercise schedule for me, it monitors the intensity of my workouts to keep me on target, and it tracks my progress over months. It's geared toward cardio, so it really excels at aerobic stuff like cross-country simulators and standing bikes. The pounds just melt away, though, and I'm toning up nicely.
If you're interested in getting one, I recommend going to your local gym to see if they have a partnership with Polar, because the personal trainers there will help you learn how to use the thing to maximum effectiveness. The thing is pretty simple to use anyway, though.
Okay. Done.
Re:Bike to work (Score:5, Interesting)
Other than that, I stretch, do crunches, and do pushups every morning when I wake up. This is not only stay-in-shape exercise, it's also wake-me-up exercise - double benefits! On the weekents, I ride my bike to In N Out - the benefits may cancel out with the calories, but at least I'm getting exercise.
To speak to your specific questions, you may want to consider pilates in the home. That gives you a pretty full body workout. You can get private pilates lessons (about $40/hour around here) to help you build a routine, and then go from there exercising at home. I tried that, but frankly I didn't like putting in half an hour to an hour per day.
Re:Bike to work (Score:1, Interesting)
If you're working at home like I do, buy a treadmill. I have an additional 24-inch display attached to my laptop and they're setting on a table I place on the treadmill. Walking at 2-2.5 mph you can get a lot of miles in during the day and it doesn't inhibit my production. I think it qualifies me as super-geek, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do when faced with sitting on yer *ss all day
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Technical explanation; didn't rtfa. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Aerobics Necessary (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll add my experience into this. I'm currently getting caught up on 24. I missed a few episodes way back in Season 1, and so I stopped watching it. I use it to get roughly the same amount of time in on the treadmill each session (42:30, give or take a minute or so), and since I've just reached 4pm in Season 1, I still have a long way to go, even daily, to finish it out.
Pick a series that you've missed, one that you can get a little lost in. Press play on the DVD remote and press the start button on the treadmill at the same time. Anything that goes for a total of 30 minutes or more (any hour-timeslot TV show from The Sopranos to The Wire to West Wing works perfectly) will keep you diverted from the effort itself enough that you'll be able to pass the time without much notice.
I've only been doing this for a couple of months (started 24 a little into it), and I've managed to have to stay off of it due to foot injuries for a week at a time twice (get good new running shoes from a sporting good store!), but I'm averaging about 450 calories burned according to the built-in meter without too much stress, and I've dropped 14 pounds from my peak. I have a goal of dropping another eight pounds by October, which should be easily done well before, and may push on for another five after that, but that puts me at 140, and my family complains when I'm that low.
If you're a complete geek, graph everything available. I track time, distance, average speed, calories burned, and fat calories burned, as well as pounds burned (based on 3600 calories per pound), average per session, number of sessions, weight each day, and the approximate target date the goal will be reached. All of these are graphed, so I can see my weight dropping and my efforts returning improved numbers.
Another key point is to watch your calorie intake. I've tried doing the diet tracking and getting proper nutrition or leaving out fats or whatever, and I find that I stop this after a couple of weeks. It's much easier to track calories instead, and you don't stress over what you eat for dinner. I've read that it the average metabolism burn about 12 calories per pound per day, so if you weigh 160 pounds and can keep your intake below 1920 calories per day, you're going to do well. It's not at all difficult to maintain 1600 calories per day without much discipline, and it doesn't send your body into a crash that causes it to horde fat. It also gives you room for the occasional pizza day.
One of the things that I do to help stave off the occasional hunger is to drink more fluids. I've found that the low-calorie Crystal Light mixes give me a good variety with little hassle and little cost. If it works for you, try Diet Coke Plus. It's not everyone's favorite flavor, but it's different from regular Diet Coke, and I use it to douse my occasional soda cravings.
Re:Bike to work (Score:5, Interesting)
Shower before work and put on clean clothes before you leave. The clothes are (for your purposes anyways) sterile, as is your body. Just like you can't make a green oasis of a field from parched desert from an hour's rain, you can't stink from an hour's exercise right out of the shower. I'd recommend a shower after biking home from work however!
Re:Bike to work (Score:3, Interesting)
I have a heart rate monitor, which is a somewhat good tool to evaluate burnt calories. 16 miles per hour on a bike (flat road and no or little wind) will be around 500 calories an hour. 20 miles per hour will jump to about 750 calories (I have a cheap and heavy mountain bike). Running 9 miles per hour will be about 900 calories. As for weight lifting, it's difficult to say because there is a lot of pauses between series (which depend a lot on the number of people in the gym), but I'd guess 400 to 500 calories for a regular session (about an hour) would be about right.
I'm not saying your site is wrong, but it is certainly wrong for me (at least according to my heart rate monitor).
I'm curious... Could other people post their own data to compare?
Rock Climbing (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Bike to work (Score:5, Interesting)
I got frustrated and decided to get scientific about it. When I did the maths I was surprised that my daily base intake should be 8000 kj - about twice of what I was getting. I realised that my body was probably in starvation mode and my metabolism was very slow.
Currently, I'm working on an energy intake of about 6000-8000 kj and letting the exercise I do increase my metabolism and burn it off slowly. Consider upping your intake to 1500 calories a day and see how your metabolism reacts.
Re:Bike to work (Score:5, Interesting)
"The minimum caloric needs of your 380 lb corpulence are ~2700 calories/day. Any less than that and your body starts raiding your fat rolls like your raid bakery rolls."
perhaps, the fault doesn't lie in the AC, but rather in the information he's using to obtain his calories? I for one have noticed that food packaging, while usually having truthful nutrition facts labels, have downright false of misleading front of package portion numbers, the worst offender was 'great value' brand products, their microwave bacon claims the same number of ounces as their competitor, hormel, yet if you go by the nutrition facts label, and do the math you wind up with double the number of grams of meat as on the front of the package. if you go by calories per gram, and multiply by the front of the package, you'd only come up with 50% of the actual calories.
now myself, the only diet i use is pretty simple. 1. restrict sugar. sugar is evil, and i avoid sugary foods wherever possible. 2. snack healthy this means, for me, popcorn, pork rinds, whole grain baked snack chips, 1% fat cottage cheese, or small quantities of peanut butter + wheat bread (like a fold over sandwich)
anything high in protein is a priority over other snacking options carb based snacks are highly limited, once in a while for a treat i'll get a 99 cent sized potato/dorrito chip bag, or a candy bar, mostly the only other treat i allow is stride gum, which uses more carbs in chewing that chewing gum gives calories.
Since i can't tolerate asperatame (headaches) that means i'm stuck with sucralose or stevia for low carb flavored drinks. luckily a very nice sucralose based powdered drink mix is on the market under 2 brand names propel, and fulfill. for $2.50/10 pack and $2/10 pack respectively. This is my primary daily drink although i'm likely getting over vitaminized by this but they're water soluble vitamins...
since my food is also on a budget, i've been relying on some fairly cheap, but not as good for me products, and i shop almost exclusively at the local wal-mart. i was having weight gain problems when i was eating breakfast cereal daily, and i have trouble following my diet on vacations, since my relatives have no sane diet restrictions... but since i cut the breakfast cereal, my weight has stabilized. i only eat breakfast (microwave ones, though) on my grocery shopping day, so i'm not shopping on an empty stomach. i allow allow myself about 16 ounces of sugar sweetened soda(actually 1/4 a 2-liter), per day maximum, skipping days whenever possible through will power, etc.
and i sit all day in front of a computer, and don't exercise.
it's totally unhealthy, to not exercise, but i always justify my life style with the 'you can't live forever' argument.
Re:Bike to work (Score:3, Interesting)
In Silicon Valley I can't imagine the thought of biking to work. It's way too dangerous, the bike lanes are often missing, and there's no easy way to change lanes. I don't even feel safe in my car sometimes. Probably a non-issue for people who grew up in the city, but coming from a small town I just don't want to try it. (and what's with the idiot bike riders who don't even follow traffic rules?)
As an alternative, walking is easy to do. Just wander around the block every day at work. You don't have to really work hard at it, even a little bit is helpful. Walk to lunch; use the stairs instead of elevators; etc. Walk a trail on the weekend. And you can do this alone without having to talk to anyone. You could join Team In Training, but that's too social :-)
You could also try jogging. A bit more involved, having to do the whole gym thing all over again with workout clothes and showers, etc. But again you don't have to talk to anyone (it's impossible if you're out of breath anyway).
If your job has a gym, use a stationary bike or treadmill. Put some headphones on and no one will try to talk to you.
Re:Pushups. (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh hell. Ignore above link.
http://hundredpushups.com/ [hundredpushups.com]
Re:Tai Chi (Score:1, Interesting)
So long as you don't cheat and rise up and then go back down with each step. That ends up watering all the hard work down to nothing. (I've seen a few people claim that taichi was too easy thanks to their cheating.)
At least stay level on bended knee for most of the routine (20-40 mins depending on how fast you go) and you should feel the actual 'training' happening.
In addition to what was quoted above, taichi is a non-impact exercise like swimming, but without the need for a pool of water.
Shovelglove (Score:2, Interesting)
Shovelglove is clever, extremely effective, and extraordinarily elegant in its simplicity.
I've been "shugging" for 3 years, off and on. When I'm on, I feel great, I have more energy, more muscle tone, etc. When I don't do it regularly, all of the above gradually go away over a matter of days or weeks.
Once I pick it up again, I'm feeling great within a couple of days.
Go slow at first. You will use muscles you didn't know you had. I recommend starting with an 8# sledge, maybe a 10# if you are already strong. I also got a 16# hammer after about a year of steady shugging. I also use a 4# framing hammer for one-handed moves.
Re:Get out. Have some fun. (Score:2, Interesting)
One thing I might add - if you're an avid gamer, or a competitive person (if nothing gets you going like a game of Halo, or Starcraft), you might try translating that into a workout. Find a friend, and go play some 1v1 basketball at a court. Race bikes. Something, anything that is competitive. Even if you're bad at the chosen task, if you find it fun, that's all that matters - you'll get better overtime, and you'll get in better shape.
If you're afraid it'll be embarrassing, make sure you try this with close friends - no matter how bad you are, they'll just be happy to see you and be happy to be playing with you. After all, the best part of the this work out is at the end of the day, it's just a game.
Re:Bike to work (Score:3, Interesting)
I did this for awhile, 2 methods: car pool with pickup drivers, not my week I throw in the bike, this way I could get in the extra hours needed for my job.
Truck with bicycle to work. Bicycle home. Motorcycle to work. Motorcycle in truck home. repeat.
Need safe storage at your work. This was more informal, IE always tried to leave 2 wheel backup at work, and car pool (motorcycles actually not that fuel efficient, since no guy would ride with me on a moto. 45 MPG cycle is 45 mpg per passenger mile. 25 MPG pickup + 5 adults = 125 MPG/ passenger. My share was only 3, still 75 MPG/ passenger mile > moto.)
Ashtanga yoga (Score:3, Interesting)
It's the only time my mind actually shuts off. And it covers all the bases: cardio, strength training, and flexibility. 1.5 hours 3 times a week. And the classes are 75% women.
Re:Bike to work (Score:5, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:2, Interesting)
Zen and the Art of Self-Resistence (Score:5, Interesting)
Self-resistence [angelfire.com] 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 ;)
Re:Bike to work (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Bike to work (Score:2, Interesting)
As far as being an introvert, cycling is actually a perfect activity. You don't need to wait for anyone to go for a ride.
Try not to get bitten by the bug though. My plan was to use cycling to save on transport costs. Instead I've got my eye on a second carbon fibre bike (AU$3000 or so!) for dry weather, and after two and half years, I've yet to recoup my expenditure on the original bike, plus the myriad of accessories...but I just love riding to work now!!!!
Re:Technical explanation; didn't rtfa. (Score:3, Interesting)
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:
Try a Treadmill Desk (Score:1, Interesting)
If sitting is the problem, walking is the answer.
Try a treadmill desk: http://www.treadmill-desk.com/ [treadmill-desk.com]
It combines your desk with a treadmill. The idea is to walk at a slow steady pace, I use 1.2mph for an average of 4 hours a day and I've been losing a pound a week since I started using one with no change in eating habits.
Get a Dog (Score:2, Interesting)
Have you tried DDR? (Score:1, Interesting)
Dance Dance Revolution won't work all your muscle groups, but it will provide a great aerobic exercise and do a good number on your leg muscles.
Personal success story: Using only DDR, I went from 230 to 180 lbs and a set of solid legs I could strangle a horse with. Once I reached 180, I decided to try jogging and was able to start off doing 3 miles (3x farther than I've ever jogged in my life).
Best part is you can do it from the comfort of your home with the PS1 and PS2 versions. I recommend the basement or a sturdy floor, quite a bit of jumping is involved. I also suggest better dancing pads than the Konami ones, RedOctane.com has a great padded one that is easier on the joints and moves around less.
Toning muscles won't make you lose fat. (Score:3, Interesting)
It'll just give you toned muscles. If you want to burn fat, you have to spend more calories than you consume. You need cardio: get the heart rate up, and keep it up. Sit-ups are also bad for you: do crunches instead.
Re:Bike to work (Score:2, Interesting)
From the age of 20 to 25 I gained 10 pounds per year eating mainly carbs because I couldn't afford to buy meat. Then I started to eat less carbs and started just eating the food I liked.(fruits vegetables, High fiber grains, and meats) I lost 30 pounds in 4 months and have kept it off for 8 years.(not to mention breaking the cycle of gaining 10 pounds per year)