Quick, get out of that chair!
An article on the evils of sitting appeared recently in the NY Times that begins with the line “the chair is your enemy.” It goes on to state how sitting can lead to diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and a premature death before concluding, “irrespective of whether you exercise vigorously, sitting for long periods is bad for you.”
With such a strong into I was left a little disappointed by the piece. I was hoping for, perhaps, a biomechanical analysis of how sitting shut down a critical function or put strain on something we hadn’t previously considered. But, alas, the findings were a bit more logical. The meat of the article simply showed the relationship between those who sat a lot compared to those who didn’t, which found that the former group was far less healthy. This was almost “duh files” stuff.
It finally bothered with some science, right near the end, by citing an example using lipoprotein lipase. The implication being that sitting shut down a large part of your metabolic processes that could, over time, lead to weight gain. And while this wasn’t the zinger I was hoping for it was still a nice reminder to take breaks at work and stop vegging out for hours in front of a TV or computer.
So while the chair might not be the demonic villain we were hoping for, it also shouldn’t be lionized in Al Bundyian fashion as the pinnacle of hedonism. The human body was designed for movement and use it or lose it is not just a cliché. But you knew that already, right?
8 comments:
What about barstools?
-Chinanski
They're as right as any of us. They sit and they wait.
Somehow this post completely disappeared for a few days. Chairs are likely more insideous than we give them credit for.
The last time he paid for a drink, was the first time.
C'mon, Jim. One on the cuff?
And perhaps more insidious than I stated last time. This post is old. I did NOT re-post it. It just showed up. I guess that's kind of rad.
Back the subject matter at hand...
I've been sitting a bunch, my lower back hurts all the time, but I'm not really sure if there is a viable solution (besides getting up, which actually isn't that easy if you are one who relies on working while in the zone). I've done the exercise ball thing, had an aeron chair, really, they don't change much. Been meaning to ask some PT's I know about this, but figured you might have a bit of light to cast on a possible solution. I've heard that the pentagon actually uses treadmills at 1 mph and raised desks, which sounds awesome, but not easy to implement.
Aaron,
Improve the muscular balance and mobility will almost certainly help more than anything else. I'll try and get some workouts up for this. Essentially, you want to stretch our your psoas and piriformis, strengthen the glute med, all of which will relieve lower back strain. You could just do X2 as well.
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