Becoming a computer athlete requires strength and conditioning.  On the one hand, using a computer for eight hours a day, five days a week does not require an extreme amount of strength or endurance. On the other hand, leading a completely sedentary lifestyle with no exercise will lead to muscular atrophy, poor posture, poor health, and pain. You don’t necessarily need to engage in special activities in order to become a computer athlete. You just need to satisfy your basic need for whole-body conditioning, including aerobic exercise, weight-lifting, and stretching, so that you can be a happy, healthy computer user. Smaller individuals with smaller frames (typical of many women) may need to focus additionally on strength training. In general, you can satisfy your needs through a variety of activities, including dancing, yoga, ballet, gymnastics, running, climbing, and numerous others. It is particularly important to make sure you work out your core, or stomach, muscles and your lower back in order to maintain good posture. Aerobic exercise offers many benefits as well, including increasing cardiovascular health and promoting blood flow, which can have assist in the healing process. Weight training can help relieve stress and develop muscles that might otherwise atrophy; in addition, weight training can provide the strength you need to suspend your arms and hands so that you do not need to rest them on a surface while using the computer.

One pitfall to avoid is focusing on one area to the neglect of others. For example, engaging in endurance training, such as running long distance exclusively and becoming extremely skinny, may cause you to develop pain while using the computer. I am able to meet my needs for physical conditioning by lifting weights three times a week, jogging, walking to work, and stretching in the gym. I have found that whenever I slack off on exercise, I begin to develop pain somewhere in my body.

In short, I advocate full-body fitness for the computer athlete.

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