Why important getting out of the chair?

Most of us, shouldn’t think of standing as being active.

The simple act of standing works our body in a very fundamental way. Standing is actually a basic position for the human body. It’s what we are designed to do. On the other hand sitting, the activity we spend most of our day doing, is not an activity at all.

We have two types of muscles: The mobilizers, the ones that tend to be exercised when we are at the gym. They are our big muscle groups (e.g. quadriceps, back dorsal muscles). Groups that do the most of the work during our day and will get “tired” more quickly.
In the other hand we have the stabilizers, the ones that maintain our body upright. These ones tend to sustain the gravity force being exerted on the body during the day. they tend to spend a lot of energy as they right the forces of gravity.

And we can’t forget about the compressive forces on our lower back, that are approximately 40% greater when seated upright versus standing upright. The compressive forces increase even more significantly when assuming the all-too-common “leaning forward posture”, when at the computer or at the well known mobile phone.

So standing up often is what matters!

Every time you stand up, the body initiates to shift fluids, hormones start boiling up, it causes muscle contractions to happen and almost every nerve in the body is stimulated. But remember whether you are conscious of spending a lot of time sitting or standing, make sure you take regular breaks and change your posture often.

Here are some tips that you can do while at work:

• Walk to communicate instead of calling, emailing, or texting;
• Take the stairs instead of lifts;
• Consider a sit-stand workstation;
• Use the waste bin/printer/copier furthest away from your desk;
• Eat your lunch away from your desk;
• Practice good posture; keep the curves in your spine;

Come and Move@Work with me!