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Comment by WalterBright | Hacker News Reader

Doing pushups should be balanced with pullups.

Or rows or any other kind of pulling. It's not unusual to prescribe a 2:1 work ratio of pulling to pushing. But push-pull imbalance tends to be more of a problem with weighted exercises like bench pressing than with plain old push-ups. There are lots of people who do push-ups without corresponding amounts of pull-ups with no ill effects.

If one was to do just one exercise for a brief amount of time, jumping jacks should do the trick.

Especially if you're sitting at a computer all day. Gotta strengthen that back to keep your shoulders from curling in too much. Then everything starts to go wrong =/

Would you please elaborate on this? Why are curled-in shoulders especially bad?

It leads to terrible neck problems, like the pinched nerve I have. It causes significant discomfort, then intense pain and, eventually, numbness in one or both arms. Recovery is on the order of several years (and counting).

You might find this Google talk useful:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfg_e6YG37U

If the pushup is done properly the shoulders should be in the correct alignment. I do agree that I would add pull ups and then some band exercises to make sure the shoulders are kept in proper form.

The other thing I would add is core work, and not just strengthening, but also correcting posture (pelvic tilt).

All of the above just scratches the surface on how to correct the bad things that happen to your posture when sitting at a desk for hours each day.

Well, it's beyond just shoulder alignment during the exercise. Your shoulder and upper back posture is pretty much dependent on the interplay between your pects (chest), upper and lower trap, and lat muscles. If you start getting a severe strength imbalance between these muscle groups, you can start getting posture problems. That's in the long term. There's also short term stuff with your sore muscles avoiding stretching, resulting in some curling in.

All of this only gets worse if your typing at a keyboard because of the 'natural' position you assume.

It should really be balanced with a lot of things... I think if these guys really want to benefit their employees, they should get them together with a real trainer or fitness expert.

Pushups should be balanced with rows. You balance a motion with a similar counter-motion. Pushups are a horizontal push, pull-ups are a vertical pull.

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