Don’t Just Sit There! Bundle from Katy Bowman

Just like smoking, prolonged sitting increases your risk for chronic diseases, including obesity and even death from cardiovascular disease and cancer. And, like smoking, sitting’s addictive nature makes it hard to quit! We’re quite literally “under the influence” of cushions and seat backs.

On the heels of this clever tagline, the standup desk movement has picked up steam, and workers are trading in their comfy office chairs for waist-level desks and all-day standing marathons.

But the solution is not as simple as sliding your chair aside and perching your monitor at standup height.

The problem is not sitting per se, it’s prolonged stillness and a lack of variation in your daily routine. If you stand there all day in one position you’ll be no better off than you were before…except you’ll be more tired, stiff, and sore!

And while we’re all for getting people out of their chairs and onto their feet, we know the prescription is a bit more physiologically nuanced than the standup desk movement and mainstream media would have us believe. The repetitive use of a single position (be it sitting, standing at a high-tech standup rig, or even sinking into the couch for the evening) makes us ill in a litany of ways.

For example, muscles adapt to repetitive positioning and unvarying load-bearing positions by changing their cellular makeup, which in turn leads to less joint range of motion. This muscle and joint “stiffness” can lead to a stiffening of the arterial walls within these muscles.

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