In order to become a computer athlete, you may need to condition yourself and engage in specialized training. The training you will require will depend on your goals and needs. If you want to be able to use the computer for 12 hours a day on a regular basis, you will likely need more training than someone who wants to use the computer for just four hours a day. Some types of conditioning involve making lifestyle changes, including changing your eating habits or learning to manage stress better. Other types of training include learning (or relearning) how to use your computer’s input devices in order to minimize the impacts of computer usage on your body.

Through training and by relearning how to use your computer, you can minimize the impact of computer usage on your body.

In addition to physical preparation, you can take steps to be mentally prepared for computing. First, as we will discuss later, managing and minimizing your stress and how you react to stress is extremely important. Second, by engaging in some physical activity, you will feel better in addition to all of the other benefits of exercise. Finally, in order to be able to focus and accomplish your goals, you need to have discipline. Whether you are at work or at home working on a side project, you need to manage your distractions and your tasks. You need to realize what you need to do yourself and what you can let others do, as well as when to ask for help. You need to train other people so that they can help you and share your workload with other people. There are many great books available that discuss how to get things done, as well as how to be persistent and overcome adversity. I have read several and have benefitted from the effort.

In conclusion, using a computer places significant demands on your body and mind. These demands can wear you down and lead to injury unless you take steps to deal with them. In order to deal with these demands, you can condition yourself through aerobic exercise, stretching, strength exercises, as well as by learning computer techniques and input devices as discussed in the Equipment and Usage section. As part of your mental preparation, you can devote time and energy to improve how you manage stress and focus on your objectives. In order to meet your strength and conditioning needs, be resourceful. You can work with a personal trainer, professional coach, join a team sport, or read self-help books such as this one.

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