I like to find ways to connect the different things that I enjoy doing in life, even if at first they seem to have nothing to do with each other. Certain good practices can stand out more than others in any activity, and those practices can be applied more generally to other activities. Finding what works well in one activity can be used to achieve new levels of skill in other pursuits. Take some time to appreciate this, and you'll be surprised at how many connections you can make between seemingly independent things. What is really in common between different activities is you, the human being in the middle of it all.
The activity I'll explore today is weight lifting. I don't lift competitively, and my goal is to look fit and toned, not like the Incredible Hulk. I lift weights a couple times a week to stay strong and happy. Yes, happy. If I miss a workout I start to feel grouchy from the loss of physical activity. I sit at a computer all day and am otherwise relatively inactive, so my body and my mind need the physical exertion to keep from getting run down.
I have plenty of time to think during my workouts, and sometimes I ponder becoming a better programmer. As it turns out, a lot of the habits that help you progress in weight lifting can make you a better programmer, too. For instance:
Stick to a Schedule
You need a schedule. There is no getting around this fact in weight lifting. If you don't lift regularly, you're not going to get any stronger. Once you reach your desired level, you can maintain that level on two workouts a week, but until then, you need to be lifting three times per week, minimum. If you stick to a schedule, you'll be able to make fairly steady progress, especially in the beginning before your muscles build up a tolerance for the workout.
If life interrupts or you succumb to laziness and miss a few workouts, all is not lost. It will take less time to get back to where you were than the time that you missed. As a rule of thumb, it will take one workout per week missed to recover your lost strength and start making progress again. But it's easy to keep skipping more workouts once you've missed a few so I wouldn't start down that road.
A continuous improvement schedule is a good habit to get into for programming as well. It may not be as essential as in weight lifting, but doing programming workouts a couple times a week to maintain your skills - or more often to improve your skills - is a great idea. Take some time to solve small algorithmic problems or write utility programs to keep your problem solving skills fresh and strong. Get a few books and explore whole new areas of programming to really make progress and learn new skills.
A Routine is Good, a Rut is Bad
If your workout routine is working for you and you enjoy it, then keep at it. If you're dreading the boredom of your workouts or feeling like you're stuck in a rut, then it's time to mix things up a bit. After doing the same routine for a couple months, your muscles will get used to it and stop responding to the stress you're putting on them. You need to change what you're doing to shock your muscles out of their comfort zone so they can keep growing. Do different exercises, use free weights instead of machines, do more repetitions with less weight, do less repetitions with more weight, or even change the order of the exercises to make your body work in a way that it's not used to.
Your mind works pretty much the same way. It adapts quickly to a particular task and gets bored easily. Find ways to challenge yourself to keep programming fresh and interesting. Explore new languages, libraries, and frameworks. Write algorithms in different languages and compare their performance and readability. Try writing code that is as understandable as possible without comments. There are all kinds of things you can do to mix it up and get out of a rut. The point is to do something different. You'll see things in a new way, and your programming skills will get stronger because of it.
No Pain, No Gain
There is no escaping it. Weight lifting is hard. When you're pushing yourself, every workout will get your blood pumping and your heart racing and leave you somewhere between tired and exhausted. You shouldn't push to the point of injury or extreme fatigue because then you're doing more harm than good, but a little exhaustion is a good thing. If you're feeling back to normal, or even energized, about an hour after the workout, that's right about where you want to be.
On a longer timescale, getting into shape will take years of work. It's not going to happen overnight, and you'll get as much out of it as the amount of work that you put into it. When you're first starting a workout routine, you're not going to be able to do much, and you're going to be sore for weeks until your muscles adjust. Once your muscles have learned to deal with the exertion, you'll have to keep pushing them to make progress. When you've reached a level of fitness that's satisfying, you'll still have to keep up the workouts to maintain the gains you've achieved.
You should expect no less of programming. It's also hard, it takes a great deal of time and effort to get better, and the amount of mental exertion you'll go through will be exhausting. Like weight lifting, you don't want to overdo it when programming. At some point you'll lose the ability to retain anything else without resting, and you'll make more mistakes than you fix so that you'll actually make negative progress. You need to push to make progress, but it needs to be sustainable. And like weight lifting, programming is going to take years to reach a decent proficiency, and decades of maintenance. If you want to stay at a certain level, you'll need to keep working at programming.
You Can do More With a Spotter
A workout partner is a wonderful thing to have. They are so much more than a pair of helping hands when you can't push out that final rep. A good workout partner will motivate you when you aren't feeling up to a challenging exercise. They will help keep you safe if you bite off more than you can chew. They offer constructive advice when you make mistakes or lose your form. They will keep you honest and hold you to your workout schedule when you want to take the day off. They will bring different ideas to the workouts, encourage you to try new things, and mix things up when they get boring. That pretty much sums up the advantages of pair programming and code reviews, too.
Don't Focus Only on Your Chest
If you only work your chest with bench presses, chest flies, and the like, you're going to plateau in a hurry. Having a strong back helps stabilize your torso so you can lift more weight safely. Strong arms, wrists, and hands do a lot during any upper body exercise, so they shouldn't be ignored, either. A strong core is even more important for stabilizing your body, providing power, and preventing back injury. And finally, don't forget about your legs. Chicken legs look ridiculous on anyone. Don't put a big barrel chest on those stilts. Build a nice strong foundation for your upper body.
The equivalent mistake in programming would be focusing on one specialized corner of the field. Don't do that. Branch out and develop your other programming muscles. If you're an embedded programmer, learn some web programming. If you write desktop applications, learn database design. Work on your core by learning some operating system design, compilers, microprocessor architecture, digital design, discrete math, or graph theory. Don't think of this as a definitive list, just some ideas that you can expand on. Find an area where you're weak and develop it. Learning new programming subjects will make you stronger in the areas you already know and bring you new ideas that were previously inaccessible or unknown.
Don't Forget the Little Muscles
Weight machines are very good at targeting specific muscle groups, but they take all of the variation out of the exercises. If you're not doing any free weight exercises and you don't do exercises that target smaller muscles like your rotator cuffs, wrists, ankles, and hip adductors, the neglect will likely lead to injury eventually. However, if you do develop these muscles, they will help stabilize your joints, making lifting easier and safer.
Most free weight exercises work a much wider range of muscles because your body has to work to control the weight, bringing these smaller muscle groups into play and strengthening them as well. The exercises become a positive feedback loop where the smaller muscles get stronger, which helps you lift more weight, which makes the bigger muscles stronger, which helps you lift more weight, which requires the smaller muscles to get stronger to control the heavier weight. Targeting the smaller muscles with special exercises can also help this process along.
In programming your small muscle groups are what support you in your day-to-day programming: language features, sorting and searching algorithms, string processing, regular expressions, network protocols, IDEs, typing, etc. Don't neglect these things because you think you already know them or it's a waste of time. The stronger you are at them and the more automatic they become, the less mental energy you'll waste on them and the more you'll have available for the really complex programming challenges.
You're Going to Have Good Days and Bad Days
Some days you won't feel like you can lift anything. You feel exhausted before you even begin, and it takes every ounce of will to get through the workout. This is normal. Keep in mind that tomorrow will be better, and do what you can. Other days you'll feel like Superman, and you can add extra weight and reps without breaking a sweat. Take full advantage of your temporary super powers.
Who knows why this happens. Maybe it's something you ate, or how you slept (or didn't), or the weather, or your biological cycle. Whatever it is, you're going to have good days and bad days, whether it's weight lifting or programming. Take the bad days in stride and don't get discouraged. Enjoy the good days when they happen, but don't let them go to your head. And the rest of the time, keep on keepin' on, and you'll keep getting stronger.
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