Programmer? Back Pain? Try archery | Hacker News Reader

Programmer? Back Pain? Try archery

irrlicht3d.org

40 pointsirrlichthn52 comments

If you get out of shape don't be surprised when your body starts feeling like shit. Workouts can be hard for some people because its hard to quantify goals for what should be an essential part of your lifestyle. If you take a sport like archery to make exercise fun then it becomes a lot easier. But as others have said it is important to talk to a professional if you are having severe issues as a result of your current lifestyle.

My recommendations:

- Pick up heavy things, then put them back down. Repeat with good form.

- Get a good chair and a good bed. If you're going to spend your life in one or another might as well make it worthwhile

- Pay attention to your body. If something is uncomfortable it needs to get fixed. If you bend your neck to hold a phone for long conversations don't be surprised when your upper back hurts. If you have a large wallet you put in your back pocket while sitting don't be surprised when your lower back hurts.

Picking up heavy things should be done with caution. Even good form isn't enough if you haven't done it in a while or suffer from (hidden) conditions that could make it problematic. Start by picking up things that are not heavy and make sure your back can take it before moving on to heavier things.

Completely agree. The details and disclaimers you could go through with safe lifting could fill an entire page but to keep it simple I didn't go into detail. I think we all understand the risks of taking on any change of lifestyle

Id like to suppliment the idea of picking up heavy things with instead, picking up yourself. By this I simply mean body-weight exercises. Push ups, pull ups (buy a pullup bar for a door arch), running, biking, trampolining.

One; it's best for those whom are already unfit, and two, it's very accessible. Weights are usually for intermediate/advanced bodybuilding and beyond. Though, if you're comfortable with weights, regardless, then you're comfortable with them.

If your back is your issue, as per this article, then ill concede that doing rows and deadlifts kind of requires weights. Though, I suppose you could at least do planks.

I used Olympic-style lifting (Snatch, C+J and related exercises) for years to improve my other sports. I will take the contrarian argument on lifting to fix back pain. I think they're excellent when performed properly as everyone is saying here, but that's a heavy qualification. Especially if you start with back pain.

If you have access to a proper coach or club, great, go for it. But if that's the case, you already know it's a good exercise and where to find the proper coaching that is absolutely essential to getting results and avoiding injury.

Whereas, if the idea of lifting is relatively new to you and you're figuring it out from reading Hacker News, you need to be very careful before taking it up. Most gyms have personal trainers that don't know 'squat' about proper lifting form and less about dealing with pain.

If you think the software industry is bad for snake-oil, it's only because you haven't been exposed to the world of gyms, personal trainers, and supplements. I wouldn't recommend anything except a University program or gym devoted to actual competition in the Olympic disciplines (not powerlifting or body building of any kind).

Okay, enough ranting. My positive recommendation is rock climbing, specifically bouldering. Find a gym in your city. It's a fun, positive environment, it has plenty of attractive and engaging people of every gender and orientation (there's a fabulous gay climbing club in Toronto). Your core is going to get strong in a hurry.

And if you fall in love with the sport, it will take you around the world. See you in Thailand some time.

:-)

Here here for rock climbing. I just started up again and am fortunate to linve only about 15mi away from some really good rock.

Just to add-- if you find climbing gyms uninspiring (I used to find them pretty cool, but nowadays not so much), there is a lot to be said for finding local areas where there is at least some scrambling to be had... simply being out of doors, moving through trails/up slopes has done me a world of good, even if I end up rope-soloing 5.7 or scrambling up some 4th class ramp instead of powering up a V2 like I might have done when I was younger.

And indeed it does take people around the world. See you at Enchanted Rock in TX sometime :D

My PT seconds your recommendation of rock climbing, particularly for upper back muscular pain.

Climbing twice per week kept my back pain-free for years.

Or, you know, you could get physical therapy. I had chronic back pain as a result of my job as a programmer and the only way I was able to fix it was to go to a good physical therapist and actually follow through on the physical therapy. My pain was a result of a number of muscle imbalances and posture issues and it took a few months of every-day work to fix the problem.

I suspect that the OP has a specific muscle imbalance that archery just happened to target well. But it's unlikely that this broad recommendation is going to work for everyone with back pain as the causes are myriad.

I think the main thing about archery that may have helped OP is that it requires you to have decent posture to steady your shot and have proper form, which would lead to less muscle aches, one would think.

I agree that some folks might need physical therapy for their backs and don't want to diminish that point you're making.

When I see someone who lives a sedentary lifestyle complain about joint pain or muscular pain I really hope that they try to incorporate some sort of fitness plan into their life and not just look into a medical expenditures.

Just to re-iterate, if you're feeling some sort of debilitating pain, by all means go see a doctor. Just don't dismiss the importance of fitness in your life.

"Just don't dismiss the importance of fitness in your life."

That's exactly what you'll be told at physical therapy. not only that they'll tell you exactly what kind of exercise you need to do, and for back pain it doesn't necessarily involve treadmills or weights.

I'm not an expert, but my physical therapist told me that what he's doing is pretty much just training my back muscles. This could very well work for a lot of people. And if not, archery is fun.

I have a set of weights in my home office. Whenever I lose concentration or need a break (or feel a bit twitchy), I do a few weightlifting exercises (usually no more than 20 reps at a time, but several times a day). This has helped me a great deal in becoming fitter and instead of being a tedious chore at the end of the day, exercising is now a welcome break that clears my head.

However, long before I started doing that, I discovered the best way to stop myself from suffering back pains and RSI: Drinking tea. This works exceptionally well because it means getting up and walking around every 30-60 minutes to get a fresh cup, which is all it took to interrupt whatever cramped position my back and arms were in (the tea itself doesn't matter, although I recently switched to a decaffeinated type).

As additional benefit, during either type of break I often have new ideas about the work I'm doing.

If you're drinking a dozen cups of tea per day, then you're probably getting the benefit of walking around even more often than every 30-60 minutes.

In my case, I bundle the "brew tea" step with a trip to the latrine: 1) get boiling water and steep tea 2) hit the restroom 3) tea is steeped (only require 2min for me), 4) Add cold milk/cold water to make drinkable in short order.

All takes about 10m every hour-ish.

Or, you can do air squats and planks while taking Pomodoro breaks, which directly addresses the physical issues and requires no expenditure of money, only time and attention.

Air squats: http://youtu.be/IewlDXTfbjU Planks: http://youtu.be/pSHjTRCQxIw Pomodoro Technique: http://www.pomodorotechnique.com/

As much as archery appeals to the Renaissance Festival attending, fantasy game playing, Lord of the Rings fan boy nerd within me it probably isn't the most effective thing to do to get rid of back pain, not to mention that archery isn't a very accessible hobby for most people due to needing somewhere to shoot.

Yoga, going for a jog or swim, doing pull ups on an exercise bar, or doing pretty much any exercise which involves getting up from the computer periodically and doing something with your upper body will help with back pain, and probably be much easier and more accessible.

Archery definitely does have that fun appeal though.

Archery is an accessible hobby, It's just an urban legend that isn't accessible, you need only five meter to practise effective archery. Then you can contact an archery association near to you, we are everywhere.

Interesting. The times I've experimented with serious bows at Renaissance Festivals gave me a healthy respect for their power. I would be too afraid to shoot one in my backyard for fear that if I missed the target I could shoot through my fence or over it and do some damage to the neighbor's house or maybe injure someone. But maybe the solution is to just use a less powerful bow for fun.

Here's a recipe from my grandfather that fixed my rounded shoulders:

1. Stand erect.

2. Place your hands behind your head, overlapping. Your hands should be resting on the back of the head between the ears.

3. Move both hands apart so that the tips of your left and right middle fingers are just touching the bottom of your respective left and right earlobes. Your chest will expand and your shoulders move back.

4. Hold the position for a minute or two, though it may be uncomfortable.

5. Repeat throughout the day.

6. Incorporate the exercise into day-to-day activities. When walking, periodically check your position by touching your fingertips to your earlobes, per the instructions above. After practice you will be able to snap back into proper posture just by thinking of the exercise rather than physically touching your ears.

7. Follow the exercise with a long stint of standing book reading, being careful to maintain the posture. When your posture fails, set the book aside and re-do the exercise. At first you will think of the posture rather than the book. Eventually you will think of the book and not the posture.

This exercise corrected my posture and I have scoliosis. The standing book reading is what finally internalized the lesson. I stand and read for hours now without pain or slouching, when I started I would return to a hunch approximately every five minutes.

It's free, relatively easy, and may steer some away from television and toward books. I'd give it a shot.

Being stronger is a good thing.

Weightlifting (with free weights) 3x a week did wonders for my posture.

Archery sounds a bit more fun

Or be like me and do both.

Deadlifts, both regular and Romanian, will do wonders for your lower back.

Archery gets you out and moving.

Not just your lower back, but just about every muscle group along the back side of the body. I used to have no strength or definition in either my latissimus dorsi or posterior deltoids. After a few months of regular deadlifts, I now do.

This whole thing boils down to: exercise is good for you.

How long/intensive was your workout to get the "wonders"? I bought myself some free weights, but seemingly lack the motivation to get any results with those...

A few minutes with a kettlebell every morning before my shower has done wonders for me. It is cheap, quick, effective (far more coverage than is practical with dumbbells for instance) and pretty fun.

Do you just need one kettlebell? What is your routine like?

I have a single 35lb (16kg) kettlebell. Usually I spend 10-15 minutes doing kettlebell snatches and swings (switching between them as I tire, trying my best to keep moving continuously). I throw in a few other assorted exercises too, but those two exercises are the core of what I do and seem to have helped significantly with my lower back in particular.

There are a lot more exercises you can do if you have two kettlebells. I'm probably going to get a second sometime in the next few months; right now I'm still going pretty strong with just one though. Also, the 35lb kettlebell I had was probably too heavy for me for the first week or two I had it. It is the advised starting weight for men but it was a rather difficult ramp-up for me. I don't really have trouble with it anymore though.

Awesome - thanks so much for sharing that!

If you live in a city, like I do, then it will be considerably harder to find a place to do archery. There are clubs, but the nearest for me is a good drive away.

Note that if you are in the city of York and a Scotsman then you can be legally killed if you carry a bow and arrows:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2007/nov/07/uk.queensspee...

:-)

For what its worth, for those in SF there's an archery range in Golden Gate Park. Its at the Ocean Beach end, so not the most convenient for most, but biking to an archery range could be a good way to get a fun workout.

There's a bunch of clubs close to SF, there's a great one called Bowhunters Unlimited in Santa Clara. There's a good one in Los Angeles as well - Pasadena Roving Archers.

I've found Pilates to be awesome, especially when you are currently in pain, since it was created as a way to rehab ballet dancers back from injury.

It is easy for a good trainer to direct your focus on strengthening the exact muscles that get tightened up or weakened by too much sitting. I was skeptical that it wasn't going to be anything more than stretching but it has made a massive difference for me, just doing one workout a week.

Lumbar pain is endemic among desk-ridden males who do not get sufficient exercise. Proper posture is incredibly important for protecting the lumbar spine, and men with weak, lengthened muscles (erector spinae and various others) tend to have trouble even extending the lumbar spine properly at all, and pain results from the lumbar spine being in constant flexion. I say "men" because women generally do not experience this problem.

Any exercise that builds strength in the glutes, hamstrings, and lumbar muscles that stabilize the spine, can be highly beneficial for relieving lumbar pain.

My favorite exercise for this is deep barbell squats with a straight spine and weight on the heels, as described in Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe. Start with just the bar or no weight at all and increase the load very gradually, focusing on proper form at all times.

And if you want to be really hardcore, you can make your own primitive bow too. Nothing like nailing a bulls-eye with a bow you crafted yourself from scratch. Here's a link to one of the first ones I made: http://dougk16.deviantart.com/art/Primitive-Bow-I-122617866?...

Also, I'd recommend hay bales instead of the material referenced in the post. You can stack a bunch of hay bales together to make a bigger target, which will allow you to get further away, and they're the easiest material on the arrows themselves that I've found. They also don't degrade and leave any chunks behind on the ground. I get mine at a local nursery.

If you do have back pain, consider starting an exercise regimen slowly. If you have not been getting any exercise, the muscles that hold your spine in alignment are weak. If you put excessive stress on your back with weak muscles, you have a good chance of herniating a disk. A herniated disk is extremely painful and potentially expensive in terms of time, money and long term pain.

I would recommend starting slowly. Something like Pilates once a week for 2-5 months, then ramp up to twice a week. If you experience pain, back off. Consider adding in bicycling at some point. The road/touring bike position will require you to exercise the same muscles that have weakened.

I would be very sceptical about using weight training, and squatting and deadlifting in particular, as remedies for back pain. These exercises can bad for you if you have pre-existing issues, EVEN if performed with proper form. Exercise is obviously useful, but I see no clear reason why putting your body under serious loads is a good idea. Most serious amateur powerlifters and bodybuilders, for example, end up suffering from back/knee/shoulder issues at some point. Posture and mobility deficiencies can be improved in other ways, but this normally requires more thought than hitting the free weights.

This thing has been amazing for my back post workout.

http://www.amazon.com/RumbleRoller-RR316-Full-Size-31x6-Blue...

The Rumbleroller looks medieval! :)

A similar tool I swear by is the "MA Roller". It's a wooden roller that gives a very deep massage for your back and neck.

http://amzn.com/dp/B000KK0AHS

http://www.themaroller.com/howtouse.html

hmm.. I just might pick this up.

As one who learned the hard way with my back seizing up years ago due to slouching and breaking every rule of ergonomics I offer this:

* If you're going to sit, sit upright.

* Raise your monitor so that it is eye-level. Slouching down to look at your notebook will inevitably hurt you one day.

Archery is a fun sport, in Pasadena where I used to live, it was a favorite among engineers from NASA JPL. One of the guys brought in a high speed camera to analyze the motion of his arrows and adjust his bow accordingly. Very geek-friendly sport.

Any fun hobby that involves full-body exercise will probably help improve back pain, by strengthening the core muscles that support the back, while at the same time relieving mental stress that causes people to hunch up or sit tightly.

Archery can also mess up your back and shoulders if you do it wrong and/or the draw weight is too much for you. It's also an asymmetric activity, since you use your right and left sides differently.

Isn't archery kind of a one sided workout for your back? I imagine if you're a right-handed you'd only be effectively working out the right side of your back.

It does sound more fun than doing dumbbell rows.

I love archery for stress relief, too. The concentration to aim and fire properly, the satisfaction when you nail the target... it feels great. Shooting things in general, really.

Archery? Bay Area? Man. I'm going to look at the local google maps aerial shots and note houses with dog runs and avoid walking by 'em now.

Thanks! Carry on.

There is a pretty good archery range here. Its free to practice and they also offer free lessons periodically though its booked in advance and always full. Its near Woodside. You can find it on yelp

There's a lot of great ranges in Santa Clara county.

Mount Madonna Park has a breathtaking range.

Might also bring the benefit of looking at things far away too...

Depending on the type of back pain, walking regularly also helps.

Yoga's good too.

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