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Sitting All Day: Worse For You Than You Might Think

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Re: Sitting All Day: Worse For You Than You Might Think

#81

Post by lutorm »

georgieporgie wrote: post #76
keeptrying wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't wear shoes. Walk around barefoot as much as possible - it will fix your back, knee and feet issues. Hard to do in corporate America but possible

I've been using a standing desk for about a month now. I tend to move in place quite a bit, shuffling my feet around, hooking a foot or thigh over a stool, and shifting weight between my legs. The two things I've noticed are significant tightening in my lower back and discomfort leading to pain in my heels. If I stand barefoot for much of the day, the heel pain can be so bad that there's a sort of burning sensation a…

I used to have the kind of heel pain that you describe when standing barefoot, and used Superfeet insoles in every pair of shoes I used. Ever since I started massaging the bottoms of my feet by "standing" (without full weight, obviously) on a 1" bounce ball and rolling it around under the arches and the front of the heel, that has almost totally gone away. The first time I did it, it was incredibly painful, but I noticed improvement almost immediately. Give it a try. I also find that massaging the soleus and gastrocniemus muscles in the calf by using the knee of the other leg helps.

Re: Sitting All Day: Worse For You Than You Might Think

#82

Post by lutorm »

samtp wrote: post #63
lpolovets wrote: post #5

I am not going to disagree with the article or dispute that sitting all day is not as healthy as occasionally moving around, but does anyone else feel like this is the latest "health scare" meme? It reminds me of how leg embolisms on long flights were the focus of attention a few years ago. (i.e. completely absent from the news at first, then an overabundance of stories once a single scientific study is published.)

This isn't a fad. I work with Dr. Blair at USC and he has been researching physical activity effects on health for the past 20 years. He is one of the leading exercise science researchers with over 2000 citations per year.

Since it hasn't been a topic in the press for those 20 years, I think that actually supports the idea that this is a fad. Fads are mostly disconnected from the slow progression of science. (I don't mean that makes it wrong, of course.)

Re: Sitting All Day: Worse For You Than You Might Think

#83

Post by eru »

hugh3 wrote: post #56
[deleted] wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

Lots of folks stand up all day for work. They tend to complain about their feet hurting. We're obviously designed for some kind of sitting. Our bodies bend very comfortably that way. If you walk uphill for ten miles, your body really wants to sit down on the nearest log or rock to take a rest (though how this was supposed to be comfortable back when we used to be naked is a mystery to me). I have no doubt that our an…

Our ancestors probably squatted down (http://www.t-nation.com/portal_includes/articles/2007/07-210...) more than they sat.

Re: Sitting All Day: Worse For You Than You Might Think

#84

Post by carbocation »

niels_olson wrote: post #41
postfuturist wrote: post #33

This sort of 'science writing' is infuriating: "Specifically, he found that men who reported more than 23 hours a week of sedentary activity had a 64 percent greater risk of dying from heart disease than those who reported less than 11 hours a week of sedentary activity. And many of these men routinely exercised." Well, is he controlling for those who exercise or not? If not, then what is the point?

As a physician, I find NPR is generally good at addressing issues at a level the average person can understand. No one is claiming the NPR article is the study. They do link to the studies in the text. As for controlling for exercise: the whole point of the article is that researchers are finding that outcomes are at least reliably associated (with or without causality) with sedentary activity, that is, specifically…

I've written to NPR previously about errors that I've found in their presentation of clinical trials and invariably they respond with, "Well, this is our interpretation." Nevermind that said interpretation would get them laughed off of the wards at any teaching hospital. Not saying that about the current article--merely pointing out that even NPR gets it egregiously wrong sometimes.

Re: Sitting All Day: Worse For You Than You Might Think

#85

Post by keeptrying »

georgieporgie wrote: post #76
keeptrying wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't wear shoes. Walk around barefoot as much as possible - it will fix your back, knee and feet issues. Hard to do in corporate America but possible

I've been using a standing desk for about a month now. I tend to move in place quite a bit, shuffling my feet around, hooking a foot or thigh over a stool, and shifting weight between my legs. The two things I've noticed are significant tightening in my lower back and discomfort leading to pain in my heels. If I stand barefoot for much of the day, the heel pain can be so bad that there's a sort of burning sensation a…

So you cant jump from shoes-all-your-life to no shoes. Nike Frees are a set of shoes which go from a lot of support to no support. Buy the middle nike free and use it for about 1 month and then move to the thinnest nike free for another month.

My dad used to have knee issues like crazy. He now moved to a village and never wears shoes. All his knee issues are gone. Better yet he can run into a river as if it was a paved road. (Riverbeds are covered in small slippery rocks which make it very hard to walk on)

Also you probably have some kind of problem with the fascia at the bottom of your foot. Get a tennis ball and use it to massage your whole foot. Do it once a day.

It will hurt like hell to start but your feet will feel awesome after it. After a few weeks the initial pain will go away completely.

Re: Sitting All Day: Worse For You Than You Might Think

#86

Post by keeptrying »

mr_justin wrote: post #67
keeptrying wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't wear shoes. Walk around barefoot as much as possible - it will fix your back, knee and feet issues. Hard to do in corporate America but possible

Unless you already have feet (plantar fasciitis is super common) problems, in which case it will make things much worse.

Agreed. Use a tennis ball to get rid of the plant fasciitis first.

Re: Sitting All Day: Worse For You Than You Might Think

#87

Post by bsgreenb »

orofino wrote: post #79
bsgreenb wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even controlling for exercize wouldn't save this study.. Genetic and environmental factors will correlate with a sit-down lifestyle, confounding any possible conclusions. You could rule out genetic and family environment factors by comparing identical twins who have different sitting habits. My bet is that a big chunk, if not all, of the effect here could be explained by that. For the remaining "effect", you'd still…

Couldn't the same be said of most medical findings? Should we verify all findings utilizing fully controlled testing on twins?

A twin study is just one form of (natural) experiment. It's common in medicine/epidemiology to perform double-blind trials with placebos, etc. Good medical research utilizes experiments rather than assuming causation from correlation like this study does.

I am a big fan of twin studies, though (my background is in behavior genetics). Take the example of smoking. The most solid demonstration that smoking was bad for your health (aside from maybe the experiments on other mammals) was comparison of twins where one twin smoked and the other didn't.

Re: Sitting All Day: Worse For You Than You Might Think

#88

Post by georgieporgie »

keeptrying wrote: post #85
georgieporgie wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using a standing desk for about a month now. I tend to move in place quite a bit, shuffling my feet around, hooking a foot or thigh over a stool, and shifting weight between my legs. The two things I've noticed are significant tightening in my lower back and discomfort leading to pain in my heels. If I stand barefoot for much of the day, the heel pain can be so bad that there's a sort of burning sensation a…

So you cant jump from shoes-all-your-life to no shoes. Nike Frees are a set of shoes which go from a lot of support to no support. Buy the middle nike free and use it for about 1 month and then move to the thinnest nike free for another month. My dad used to have knee issues like crazy. He now moved to a village and never wears shoes. All his knee issues are gone. Better yet he can run into a river as if it was a pav…

My dad

My point in posting my experience is that everyone is different, and people who say, "just do X and it will solve all your problems," have very little likelihood of being accurate. I'm glad your father is doing well, but trust me, I have a host of unavoidable, congenital issues that I have to deal with. Many, many people have other sorts of congenital issues which will make going barefoot painful.

you probably have some kind of problem with the fascia at the bottom of your foot

Nope. The pain is primarily around the edge of the heel. It's hard to explain, but definitely not tendon or ligament pain.

Re: Sitting All Day: Worse For You Than You Might Think

#89

Post by keeptrying »

georgieporgie wrote: post #88
keeptrying wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you cant jump from shoes-all-your-life to no shoes. Nike Frees are a set of shoes which go from a lot of support to no support. Buy the middle nike free and use it for about 1 month and then move to the thinnest nike free for another month. My dad used to have knee issues like crazy. He now moved to a village and never wears shoes. All his knee issues are gone. Better yet he can run into a river as if it was a pav…

My dad My point in posting my experience is that everyone is different, and people who say, "just do X and it will solve all your problems," have very little likelihood of being accurate. I'm glad your father is doing well, but trust me, I have a host of unavoidable, congenital issues that I have to deal with. Many, many people have other sorts of congenital issues which will make going barefoot painful. you probably…

True, I was writing for the "average case" because I thought it might help.

True if you have congenital issues eg: flat-footedness then you'd need to get special shoes with support built in.

Re: Sitting All Day: Worse For You Than You Might Think

#90

Post by cormullion »

oconnor0 wrote: post #69
Someone wrote: post #51

I think varicose veins are evidence that standing up all day isn't what we were evolved for. Looking at chimps, gorillas, orang utan seems to conform that. In my limited knowledge, those species spend hours sitting or lying down. => I would guess it is not the sitting, but the sitting for long stretches in the same posture that is the problem.

Interesting. What research is there on people standing all day getting varicose veins and the negatives of that versus sitting all day and the negatives of that?

Plenty of anti-standing information here:

http://www.hazards.org/standing/index.htm

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