Why We Do Pushups • Hacker News Board

Re: Why We Do Pushups

#11

Post by brosephius » Wed, Jul 20, 2011, 6:49 PM UTC

    we’re a tech co - meatheads are nowhere to be found

so programmers can't be athletic? I'm sure that's not what he meant, but that's how it comes across. also, the idea of group pushups as a "team building" activity - seriously? that just sounds awkward and weird. not to mention that pushups are not remotely sufficient as exercise if that's all you're doing.

you want to help your employees stay in shape? commit to making sure they have time to get some exercise, however way they enjoy doing so.

Re: Why We Do Pushups

#12

Post by psykotic » Wed, Jul 20, 2011, 6:51 PM UTC

stiff wrote: post #4

"team building" is like an arranged marriage - either you have a team or you don't, trying to force it doesn't yield any results and usually it's just an euphemism for being forced to do stupid things, most often to get drunk with everyone or "you are not being a team player". I would feel rather silly doing push-ups at work, especially at the command of my "team leader". Maybe people with more submissive personaliti…

Team building just makes me shudder. A bad experience with a job I had in Korea made me almost swear off drinking entirely because I came to associate it with hwaeshik where I'd drink with obnoxious seniors while having to ward off their passive-aggressive male dominance bullshit. It was partly my own fault for setting expectations the wrong way. My friend who hired me and was the team's other foreigner just refused to go from the start. That worked out better for him in the long run, even if it gave him the reputation of being the difficult anti-social foreigner.

Push-ups are well within my wheelhouse (and if you do a few hundred a day it's not a bad one-exercise regimen to keep some minimum level of upper body and core strength), but I'd still feel really stupid doing them with my team mates, especially in our business.

Re: Why We Do Pushups

#13

Post by stiff » Wed, Jul 20, 2011, 6:52 PM UTC

invalidOrTaken wrote: post #6

stiff wrote: post #4

"team building" is like an arranged marriage - either you have a team or you don't, trying to force it doesn't yield any results and usually it's just an euphemism for being forced to do stupid things, most often to get drunk with everyone or "you are not being a team player". I would feel rather silly doing push-ups at work, especially at the command of my "team leader". Maybe people with more submissive personaliti…

I don't think it's so cut and dried as "you have a team or you don't." Marriages aren't like that, friendships aren't like that---team cohesion falls on a spectrum as well. I think there's value to team-building exercises when the participants want to be on the team, because just wanting isn't enough. But I agree that those sorts of exercises are certainly not sufficient alone.

"you have a team or you don't" should be read in the context of the sentence it appeared in - I do agree there is a spectrum, the point was that you cannot somehow make a team from a bunch of people if they don't go along with each other well by themselves. Those "team building" activities have a very artificial feeling to them and while many management people gladly will jump on any currently popular management bandwagon, I think most participants just think it's ridiculous, even through no-one will say it out loud. The actual team building happens when people do their real work together and there are sensible ways to encourage this, there was recently this post roughly about how Pixar or Apple offices are arranged in a way that you have to go across the whole office to grab a tea, so that people run into each other many times a day and have a chance to discuss stuff.

Re: Why We Do Pushups

#14

Post by larsberg » Wed, Jul 20, 2011, 6:58 PM UTC

brosephius wrote: post #11

we’re a tech co - meatheads are nowhere to be found so programmers can't be athletic? I'm sure that's not what he meant, but that's how it comes across. also, the idea of group pushups as a "team building" activity - seriously? that just sounds awkward and weird. not to mention that pushups are not remotely sufficient as exercise if that's all you're doing. you want to help your employees stay in shape? commit to mak…

Yeah, I found that statement funny, since the first tech company I worked for was MSFT. Out in that area (the pacific northwest), physical activity is a huge deal -- hiking, skiing, and snowboarding especially. On every team I was on, the vast majority of the people were in stunningly good shape. Even the 35+, multiple-kids crowd.

I still remember one time that I almost killed an interview candidate by mistake. Ran down to pick him up in the lobby, and then started talking to him on the way up to our offices... realizing at the second of five floors that we needed to move this discussion to the elevator before he had a heart attack. We used the elevators so rarely that it hadn't even occurred to me!

Of course, there were strange things about it. Many people got season-long Mt. Baker lift passes, and you could basically write off schedule estimates for the first week of the season that there was enough powder on the ground.

Re: Why We Do Pushups

#15

Post by goldmab » Wed, Jul 20, 2011, 7:03 PM UTC

brosephius wrote: post #11

we’re a tech co - meatheads are nowhere to be found so programmers can't be athletic? I'm sure that's not what he meant, but that's how it comes across. also, the idea of group pushups as a "team building" activity - seriously? that just sounds awkward and weird. not to mention that pushups are not remotely sufficient as exercise if that's all you're doing. you want to help your employees stay in shape? commit to mak…

"Meathead" is just a stupid thing to call someone. It's a stereotype that requires no mental effort, and it makes you feel superior.

Re: Why We Do Pushups

#16

Post by psykotic » Wed, Jul 20, 2011, 7:11 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #8

Doing pushups should be balanced with pullups.

Or rows or any other kind of pulling. It's not unusual to prescribe a 2:1 work ratio of pulling to pushing. But push-pull imbalance tends to be more of a problem with weighted exercises like bench pressing than with plain old push-ups. There are lots of people who do push-ups without corresponding amounts of pull-ups with no ill effects.

Re: Why We Do Pushups

#17

Post by Symmetry » Wed, Jul 20, 2011, 7:14 PM UTC

brosephius wrote: post #11

we’re a tech co - meatheads are nowhere to be found so programmers can't be athletic? I'm sure that's not what he meant, but that's how it comes across. also, the idea of group pushups as a "team building" activity - seriously? that just sounds awkward and weird. not to mention that pushups are not remotely sufficient as exercise if that's all you're doing. you want to help your employees stay in shape? commit to mak…

If think you're parsing that wrong. Being a meathead isn't at all the same as being athletic, I would hope that nobody would think that programmers couldn't be athletic. But when people think of programmers excercizing, they tend to think of running or biking or skiing or hiking rather than a "meathead" form of exercise like group pushups. And the fact that you find group pushups "awkward and weird" shows that the author had some justification in being defensive about it.

Of course, I totally agree that they aren't a good enough form of exercise.

Re: Why We Do Pushups

#18

Post by jmonegro » Wed, Jul 20, 2011, 7:17 PM UTC

Symmetry wrote: post #17

brosephius wrote: post #11

we’re a tech co - meatheads are nowhere to be found so programmers can't be athletic? I'm sure that's not what he meant, but that's how it comes across. also, the idea of group pushups as a "team building" activity - seriously? that just sounds awkward and weird. not to mention that pushups are not remotely sufficient as exercise if that's all you're doing. you want to help your employees stay in shape? commit to mak…

If think you're parsing that wrong. Being a meathead isn't at all the same as being athletic, I would hope that nobody would think that programmers couldn't be athletic. But when people think of programmers excercizing, they tend to think of running or biking or skiing or hiking rather than a "meathead" form of exercise like group pushups. And the fact that you find group pushups "awkward and weird" shows that the au…

Pushups are not a "meathead" form of exercise.

Re: Why We Do Pushups

#19

Post by joe_the_user » Wed, Jul 20, 2011, 7:21 PM UTC

brosephius wrote: post #11

we’re a tech co - meatheads are nowhere to be found so programmers can't be athletic? I'm sure that's not what he meant, but that's how it comes across. also, the idea of group pushups as a "team building" activity - seriously? that just sounds awkward and weird. not to mention that pushups are not remotely sufficient as exercise if that's all you're doing. you want to help your employees stay in shape? commit to mak…

Indeed, this approach seems like a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Push-ups are, at-best, a difficult exercise to get right (see http://thetoptwoinches.wordpress.com/2007/12/04/100/). Do them in bad form and you can injure yourself. Is the team leader going to be both an expert at management AND an expert at physical education? Does the company want the lawsuits if an employee is injured exercising at the direction of their team leaders? Are investors aware that their money is being used for this stuff?

Oh, and considering this stuff is not related to the job at hand, you could also argue for a discrimination lawsuit considering it's creating a "hostile work environment" for anyone without a lot of shoulder strength (women, old people, the disabled).

Re: Why We Do Pushups

#20

Post by code_duck » Wed, Jul 20, 2011, 7:22 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #8

Doing pushups should be balanced with pullups.

It should really be balanced with a lot of things... I think if these guys really want to benefit their employees, they should get them together with a real trainer or fitness expert.