After I had my tennis elbow due to overwork at the computer, and many months in PT, I learned my lesson: Go work out regularly.
It's worked out great. Better health metrics, stronger muscles, etc.
And then I had ergo pains again. And again.
So I unlearned my lesson.
Exercise does great things for me. Solving my ergo related pains? No.
I promise you that exercise is not much of a cure. By all means, go do it because you should anyway. But don't go to sleep thinking it is a solution.
In this guy's case, he tried exercise. Various types. He biked to work. It still didn't fix things.
His problem was cold. There's probably not much else that could fix that.
What I've learned in the past two years of intense PT is the most important thing is to focus on fixing muscle imbalance through strengthening (specifically, avoiding upper crossed and lower crossed syndromes). These put the body in a better position and reduce the load on neck muscles, which in turn reduce referred pain and muscle tightness into the arms and wrists. Most RSI-like symptoms are actually problems starting in the neck.
Having a well-balanced body that is durable is an amazing protector against all sorts of poor physical environments. The article alludes to this by saying 'improve your posture', but that's not very specific - posture improves when you have better balance between muscle groups.
Of course, improving ergonomics, body mindfulness, getting adequate rest, temperature, etc are important as well, but those alone don't do it, nor does cardio.
General gym workouts help, so long as I use weights and machines with care. But I have gone back biking after forgetting about the wrist pain, only for it all to come back and become chronic again.
It doesn't take much time to learn how to do it correctly, and it's a lot more fun than running. All those aches and pains have gone away. Seriously, I can't recommend enough getting into lifting.
Power cage [0]
Realistically, the most expensive part of the setup was...the weights. Shipping that shit costs a lot, and they're not cheap to begin with. I bought some bumper plates for deadlifting, and a bunch more as regular plates. Total weight is like 400 - 500 lbs, I forget exactly. All in all, it cost me like....$1400 or so. Worth it if you know you're gonna stick with it, but you should probably start in a gym and make sure it's gonna stick.
Oh, and if you want advice on getting started, let me know.
[0]: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004UMM4QC/ref=oh_aui_deta...
But yes if you're using a squat rack for anything other than squatting, and the gym is busy, give others a turn. Or at least let them work in with you.
ehhhh... years of daily pushups contributed to the slow shredding of cartilage in my wrist and two operations before i could type again.
but
> walk around a bit, get some water, [...] SLEEP.
this. can't stress enough.
Also, stretch your arms.
For me, this book was a God-send:
https://www.amazon.com/Repetitive-Strain-Injury-Computer-Use...
I had pretty serious RSI issues a few years ago. Thanks to this book (and working out), I forgot all about it - you can do it, too!
It took me way too long to realize that coding all day and games all night is a recipe for pain. Working out is not fun, but it's absolutely necessary for serious software work.
If you have the stiffness and pain in your muscles, hydrate yourself well, take the day off from these exercises and substitute light stretching to work on your flexibility, but always always drink plenty of water.
Thought I had RSI. Got x-rays etc. Started lifting heavy weights. No more RSI.
You can't do nothing but code, or your body will rot. Go swim, run, lift some heavy stuff. Body works better.
https://github.com/melling/ErgonomicNotes
There's an extensive checklist of things people have tried but there doesn't seem to be one answer that works.
Anecdotal, but what worked for me was stopping walking around with my hands in my pockets. Seriously! Must've been something to do with body tension - once I figured out that letting my arms swing freely when I walked places, instead of keeping them rigidly in my pockets, the pain went away and hasn't come back.
For me, it was not exercising my wrists in any way. When I'd code, my wrists would be in one position which would eventually start to hurt. But then I took up rock climbing. In climbing, my wrists were forced to strengthen and be put in many other positions. And my RSI pain just went away. I wasn't coding any less than before. But in the time I wasn't coding, I was doing the exercises necessary to keep my wrists healthy.
Also, as an aside, most people's pain tolerance is also terrible. They let their mind take minimal pain signals from their bodies and magnify it tenfold until its excruciating. Some basic meditation training will teach people to minimize what little actual pain they have, which could also allow most to continue working through the pain.
Exercise does work wonders. And will solve SOME problems. But some problems really do need their own solutions. And sometimes it does take time and effort to figure out exactly what that solution is.
I have a regime of dumbbell exercises plus at least 5x25 pressups spread through the day.
In this I'm lucky to work from home - not everyone has the freedom to knock out a set in their office environment.
Maintaining condition goes far in mitigating the stress of the particular motor repetitions required by our profession, but I also find that periodically firing up the physical engine calalyses problem solving too.
I used to have a lot of wrist trouble (carpal tunnel I assume) from drumming and computing incessantly, but as long as I stick to the regime, I have no issues.
That said, the suggestion about fingerless gloves is spot-on. Some folks just get cold easier: For me, cold hands could just be related to hormones (female here). Chronic due to the recurring nature of it all, but seriously not a big deal.
Given that I have chronically cold hands only during the winter months, I'll assume that it isn't something that warrants concern.
I started working out with machines. It helped.
I started working out with barbells. It helped more.
I started working out with free weights. It helped even more.
I started boxing. It fixed my RSI right up.
The pattern: the most intensive and freeest exercises have the greatest effect.
Any pain I have in it is halved, and it feels much looser and stretched out. And as a bonus my medium distance vision also gets a workout.
I bought a power tower for chinups and pullups earlier this year but unfortunately it contributed to aggravating both my elbows and forearm.
One note - you can't just do pushups and call it a day. You need to work your back muscles to keep balance between those muscle groups. Pushups alone will cause your shoulders to roll forward, exacerbate forward head posture, and lead to upper crossed syndrome, which is already a major cause of many computer related RSI issues. Personal experience speaking here.
Last year I broke my arm, metal plates put in, then taken out, ended up with nerve damage and no feeling in half my hand, 3rd surgery to fix the nerve.
About 3 months ago pain started to come back. Doctor gave me the all clear to go back to the gym. Started 2 weeks ago. Pain gone completely.
Gym may not work for everyone. Works for me.
If that's not correct, I can't follow why you just discarded the entire article.
My post became longer than I expected to write
TL;DR: Similar problems, fixed diet, lost a bunch of weight, started exercising daily after achieving normal weight, all problems thing of the past. True for > 5 years now.
Both of my wrists were broken in my youth, in separate incidents. To make matters worse, one didn't heal correctly and needed to be re-broken.
Until my late 20s I obsessively spent long sleepless days at the computer, all classic qwerty keyboards, either model M or classic thinkpads later. My wrists would bother me at the computer, but they also would hurt when it rained, or other random moments. When I would try do some push-ups, my wrists would hurt like hell before I got anywhere near the expected muscle fatigue. This was generally accepted as expected and how things would be forever (or worse) thanks to the broken bones, according to those I consulted (doctors and family).
Except I wasn't minding nutrition, physical activity, or sleep at all, and lived in an environment (fly-over state) with an unhealthy food culture and awful climate. Without making a conscious deliberate effort, the default outcome was to slowly become fat and sick.
Fortunately a startup relocated me to the bay area, where I discovered even walking up a mild hill had become a strenuous, exhausting activity. Having a great climate, accessible local produce that actually tasted good, and a newfound interest in enjoying a life beyond the keyboard with the abundant outdoor beauty and activities, improving these facets of life came easily and I dare say I played little role beyond cooperating.
For ~5 years now I've been doing 300-600 push-ups daily, two sets in the morning and two in the evening. My wrists never bother me, not during push-ups, not at the computer, my injuries are a forgotten memory that I'm only reminded of in threads like these. There's usually also some sets of ~12 hand-stand push-ups, and holding a hand-stand for a minute while doing leg-spreads against a wall.
The only reason I'm able to sustain this daily routine is my weight got down to ~165 (5'8") from ~225. This didn't result from exercise, just vastly improved nutrition fixed my weight. After my weight was normal, the activity started because it was easy, fun, and painless. Words can't describe the pleasure of doing calisthenics with a body 25% lighter than it used to be. My experience exercising now is a daily celebration of being alive and well, and the feedback these activities provide keep my life in check.
I've also noticed that as I became stronger and more adept at push-ups, I was less abusive to my wrist joints and instead distributed the weight across my fingers and even slightly elevated the heel of my palm rather than leaving the area inactive (letting the wrist joint just take up all the abuse as I repeatedly drove my weight into the floor through it.) This wasn't possible for a long time because all the other muscles had to develop and catch up to the chest which was always capable of doing 20-30.
For those of you saying your wrists are ruined from daily push-ups, I'm dubious of your claims. My wrists seem to only become more resilient as I do more push-ups. If you're overweight, have gout, or something else caused by poor nutrition then you should probably address that instead of ceasing the activities altogether. There are more or less abusive techniques to push-ups, and if you're doing them daily in large quantities, you should be able to develop a painless technique, be nicer to your joints by activating the muscles in the area.
My $.02.
Push-ups, pull-ups, dips, and sit-ups. Every day. You'll be a coding machine. At the VERY least, push-ups. Every hour or two, take a break, knock off ten push-ups, walk around a bit, get some water, get back to work. I'll do this right at the office, often in the server room.
A good chair helps, but all of this other nonsense is unnecessary. Exercise, and nutrition is the key to basically everything in life.
As mentioned below. SLEEP.