It’s been going around for a while that sitting is the new smoking. Do I find this to be true? It’s hard for me to tell.
But one thing is certain. The types of sitting we take up all throughout our day, every day, is hurting us. The chair at your office, the driver seat in your car, the chair at the dinner table, the couch in the living room. They all put a strain on our mobility, posture, and energy levels.
We can feel this too. We subtly talk about it or groan when getting back up because we know it doesn’t fully agree with us. So is all sitting bad then? Should we never sit and just remain standing? That’s actually not the answer either.
What was the common denominator in the few examples of seats that we use every day? They’re all examples of modern furniture. If you didn’t think of that, it’s fine. It’s hard to question what we know as our natural environment. We don’t scrutinize the things we sit on because everyone uses them and we rely on them to do what we do.
What’s wrong with furniture then? Well, for starters, it is a fixed object. It doesn’t move, conform, or adapt. It just is what it is. Our bodies are all the things that it is not. We move, we conform, and we adapt. That means when we plop down in a chair, we take on the form of the chair.
Day after day, year after year, this turns into a bad thing. Your body adapts to the form of the furniture it occupies. So when you sit in a 90 degree office chair every day, your back compresses, hips get tight, leg muscles fall asleep, and so on. This is a very passive position.
Then when you get out of that chair, you realize how tight you are. This is because none of your joints or muscles are being tested. None of them are meeting their full ranges of motion.
The other problem with furniture is that when it’s too comfortable, like the nice couch in the living room, you won’t move once you sit down. It’s so soft and cushiony, it’s designed for you to not want to get back up.
This creates a massive deficit of movement. You could go an hour or more without moving a muscle. How are your muscles supposed to stay supple when this is a daily activity for them?
Another issue is the general misalignment it creates in your body. A nice, puffy couch cushion misaligns your hips and makes your back slouch as soon as you sink in. It is such a deactivated position that your muscles relax into their new, poor posture created by the couch.
So what’s the solution to all of this? More active sitting positions. That might mean ditching furniture like chairs and couches altogether. That’s mostly what I do now.
But what I’m trying to hammer home is that you need more engaged movement while you’re sitting. On a piece of furniture, none of your muscles are engaged. This is bad because they passively take on a new, crappier posture.
If you sit on the floor however, or on a surface with no back support, now YOU have to hold yourself up. That means using your core muscles. That’s a lot better already.
Also if you’re on the floor, you’ll have to take up different positions than just hanging your legs off a chair. You can sit cross-legged, push both legs to the left or right, or sit on your folded legs. All of these options either help open your hips more or put your joints (like the ankles, knees, hips) through their full ranges of motion and it’s while the muscles are engaged.
This is significantly better than sitting at 90 degrees in a chair. On top of this, you can rotate through all these positions to reap the benefits of working different muscles and joints.
Then there are things like squatting, kneeling, and standing which can also be cycled through. Now your workday (or wherever you’re sitting) is suddenly A LOT more active. Not active in the “I just ran 5 miles” active, but in a “I can confidently and painlessly move my body through any position” active which is so important to how you feel.
Especially if you want to be squatting and kneeling when you’re a senior, this is where it begins. You have to use the joints and muscles that you want to keep working. Thats how the human body works; use it or lose it. Your body will repurpose that energy elsewhere when its not being used.
As Ido Portal has said, “The body will become better at whatever you do, or don’t do. If you don’t move, your body will make you better at not moving.”
Sitting is not actually a bad thing. Humans have been doing it forever. It’s about how you sit and what you use as a crutch to sit. So take a long, hard look at your furniture, and make sure they’re not casting your body into a set position.
Because if you’re wondering where your mobility of yesteryear went, look no further. At least consider changing positions in your favorite chair. And do it often. Otherwise, sitting probably is the new smoking.
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