Comment by askonomm 2 days ago
Discovered in-door bouldering / rock climbing and now go 3x a week, am absolutely loving it! Because of that, I haven't really worked on any side projects in a while. Perhaps I don't need to? My job advances me plenty in my field, but it is a bit of a bitter-sweet feeling in a sense, like maybe I should try to squeeze more out of my free time somehow.
I’m replying from the cold east coast (from the edge of a wood chair in a lovely iykyk type of restaurant) to a human posting from el cap on hn; We have achieved peak technology. Oh yeah, I’m working on urban logistics, powered by AI.
I struggled with hand and wrist pain for years from spending too much time at a computer. I did physiotherapy for years and while it helped me manage pain, I was never able to truly build enough strength to get ahead of it until I started bouldering. I took it very slowly—I spent months on very easy problems—but because it was so much fun, I kept going back. Initially, I would only go on Saturday mornings, so I had the full weekend to recover before jumping back into the work week on Monday. After a two or three months of that, I was able to climb anytime I wished. I'm still not a particularly advanced climber, and I typically only go once per week, but I am still slowly progressing, and I absolutely love it.
Couple things to avoid finger injuries: go easy on one- and two-finger pockets, use an open crimp whenever possible (all finger joints are bent the normal direction, and your palm/thumb aren't really involved), and don't bother with the hangboard or campus board for the first ~year.
I wouldn't worry about it too much though - almost all of the people I know with finger injuries were trying to push into really being competitive climbers, not just doing it casually for fun/fitness.
Oh also to keep from tearing your skin don't climb tired. (That won't keep you from typing, it's just painful.)
I’ve been climbing for 20 years and it’s the thing that prevents RSI for me and makes it possible to use a computer too much :). Certainly possible to injure fingers but would be a very rare climbing injury that would threaten coding.
Climbing easy routes in a gym is pretty low impact. It’s only when you start to move into really hard crimps or slopers where you’ll hurt yourself. I was a climber bum for years and have climbed crazy stuff around the world and never hurt myself to where I couldn’t type. A lot of bloody tape, but still able to type.
Try top rope climbing! Bouldering is injury prone because every fall is a ground fall. With top rope climbing you should never hit the ground so way less injury prone.
I love the intense concentration for martial arts, but I had to stop because of this.
I never had a serious injury. Instead it would be minor injuries, that would make my ring finger 20% less responsive, that would totally mess up my typing cadence.
I tried capoeira, a non-contact martial art, for a while. This wasn’t as good for me as Taekwondo.
I climb a lot! (Actually currently sitting on Big Sur ledge on el cap posting this). It cuts into my free time programming for sure, but imo super worth it! Enjoy it, it’s a wonderful hobby.