The Healthy Programmer

Unit-Testing Your Health

You wouldn’t refactor some misbehaving code without running a few unit tests first, and you shouldn’t try to refactor your health without testing, either. In the coming chapters we’ll use very specific exercises and activities to test different aspects of your body. But we’ll begin with some simple yes-or-no questions that can provide a good overview of your current condition. Write your answers on a piece of paper or in the margin—you may want to revisit these questions later in the book.

• Do you lose your breath after climbing a single flight of stairs?

• Do you regularly sit for more than one hour without getting up?

• In the last year, have you experienced back, neck, shoulder, or wrist pain that interfered with your ...