Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by mrpg on Wednesday February 28 2018, @06:50AM   Printer-friendly
from the dont-care-I-work-in-a-vacuum dept.

There's a better way to use a standing desk

[...] some research suggests that even regular exercise—as much as 60 minutes per day—is not enough to offset the effects of sedentary workdays.

A standing desk, seems like a great way to combat this problem, since it's unlikely that computer use will decrease anytime soon. But turns out that when you do the opposite of sitting—standing for incredibly long periods of the day—well, that's bad for you, too. A highly-cited study out last year in the Journal of Epidemiology on 7,000 office workers found that, "Occupations involving predominantly standing were associated with an approximately 2-fold risk of heart disease compared with occupations involving predominantly sitting."

Alan Taylor, a physiology expert at Nottingham University, told the Chicago Tribune that the expansion and popularity of standing desks has been largely driven not by scientific evidence, but rather by popularity and profit.

Welcome to medical science.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 5, Touché) by ledow on Wednesday February 28 2018, @08:35AM (3 children)

    by ledow (5567) on Wednesday February 28 2018, @08:35AM (#645037) Homepage

    Welcome to common sense.

    It's quite obvious that standing for long periods is "worse" for your body because your body doesn't like doing it unless you force it to. Standing up for long periods is uncomfortable. Like "sitting up straight"... you know what? That hurts and is uncomfortable unless you've trained yourself to it. Because your body prefers to naturally slouch a little in a chair (and that makes sense... your spine isn't perfectly straight!).

    Similarly, sitting and doing nothing gives you cramps, pins and needles, makes you want to shift about and fidget. Those are your body saying "Hey, this is great and all, but I do need to move a bit or things get stuck".

    Listen to your body. Eat when hungry. Sleep when tired. Stop what you are doing when in pain or uncomfortable. It's got 10's of millions of years advantage over you, and ALL of the advice along the lines of "sit up straight" etc. is only recent in comparison, and ALL starting to be proved to actually be worse than what you would do naturally.

    And it's quite obvious that standing is more stressful on the body. Sure, it can take a certain amount, it needs to to operate, but just simple gravity - the taller you are, the more upright you are, the more your heart has to work. That doesn't mean it explodes as you stand up, but it's more stressful on it. Doing it for any kind of extended period is uncomfortable BECAUSE your body says "Hey, can I get a rest?"

    Stop listening to those idiots who parrot Victorian-era rubbish that is uncomfortable or painful on your body.

    (Convesely - gym-work, running, etc... the way to get more flexible, improve muscle, etc. is to tear the muscle deliberately via exerting it - which hurts - and then let it heal, tear and heal, tear and heal. If you just tear it on the weekends, it heals and you see no benefit. To actually get stronger/fitter/better muscle, you need to constantly re-tear it over a sustained regular period of time. Those people who go to the gym only on the weekends... pretty much wasting their time. Those people who "jog a little" and don't actually feel any muscle burn at all, they are doing NOTHING for themselves that a walk wouldn't have done. Even the energy used up is no more on a sedentary jog than a walk. If you want to change the body, you have to exert it and force it to become accustomed to that. Whether that's weight-lifting, running marathons, or trying to do the splits. The thing is - you probably DON'T want to change the body by standing up for long periods, sitting in a chair for long periods, or anything else like that to the point that it hurts).

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +3  
       Interesting=1, Informative=1, Touché=1, Total=3
    Extra 'Touché' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   5  
  • (Score: 3, Informative) by MostCynical on Wednesday February 28 2018, @09:51AM (1 child)

    by MostCynical (2589) on Wednesday February 28 2018, @09:51AM (#645066) Journal

    So, lets see what happens when you put it together:
    https://www.amazon.com/TrekDesk-Treadmill-Desk-Standing-Workstation/dp/B002IYRBI0 [amazon.com]

    --
    "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
    • (Score: 2, Informative) by tftp on Wednesday February 28 2018, @05:30PM

      by tftp (806) on Wednesday February 28 2018, @05:30PM (#645269) Homepage
      Useless. As your body moves, you become incapable of accurate hand motions - mouse, keyboard, pen. Even your eyesight suffers, being forced to track the smakl letters that jump up and down. You can see this for yourself - take a book with you onto an elliptical exercise machine.
  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday February 28 2018, @02:57PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday February 28 2018, @02:57PM (#645162)

    Its interesting that your advice is basically correct although your proposed reaction mechanism does not really match current scientific research.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_hypertrophy [wikipedia.org]

    To probably very poorly summarize the article which is itself summary of zillions of pages of medical research, DOMS is caused by microtrauma which is caused by stretching exercises which you unfortunately have to do to prevent the larger scale more dangerous muscle tears, and muscle growth is solely from anaerobic stress.

    I think I get a better workout exercising first thing every weekday morning, but research seems to indicate my overall health would be better if I exercised at lunchtime to break up the sedentary day.