Damage Control: Office Jobs

I started a new job about a 2 month ago and it consists of a lot of sitting down and physical inactivity. Ironically I sometimes feel too drained to workout after doing nothing all day. As a result, I lost some strength and about 5 lbs from my steady weight. Here are some things I'm doing for Damage Control:

-4AM workouts

-Lunch Break Workouts

-Calorie dense snacks (cashews almonds walnuts etc)

-Placing a tennis ball underneath my hamstrings or glute or back when I sit

-Seated straightand bent arm arm Isometric holds

-Various seated stretches

- As frequent breaks as feasibly possible

-Slow protein breakfasts

What other things do you suggest from escaping the evils of the seated job? (other than getting a new job)

If it's a desk job, I've heard of desks that allow you to work standing up. I don't know if that's an option, but hey, this is just spitballing.

Here's a good article on sitting:

http://bretcontreras.wordpress.com/2010 ... -in-vices/

From the article:

Don’t train in the early morning when discs are hyper-hydrated as disc bending stresses increase by 300% and ligaments by 80% due to the increased disc-height (Adams et al. 1987). After just 30 minutes of waking discs lose 54% of the loss of daily disc height/water content (Reilly et al. 1984) and 90% within the first hour. Early spinal motion is unsafe (Adams and Dolan 1995). Avoiding lumbar flexion in the morning has been shown to reduce back pain symptoms (Snook et al. 1998). Play it safe and train 2 hours after waking

Make sure you have a chair that supports your spine. Theres a chair at our computer desk I refuse to sit in, 10 minutes in it and my lower back starts to hurt.

Do you squat or deadlift? This may be a good time to start.

Erik said:

If it's a desk job, I've heard of desks that allow you to work standing up. I don't know if that's an option, but hey, this is just spitballing.

This, get a riser for your desk if you can.

Also what time are you able to get to bed? Hopefully the 4 AM workouts aren't hurting more than they are helping if you can't get adequate sleep in. Obviously your abilities are way above mine but I know when I was trying to do multiple sessions per day before/after work while working a shifting schedule(start out beginning of the week going in @ 6AM and ending the week getting out of work at 1:30AM) it absolutely wrecked me.

The same phlight I am in.. Chained to the desk.

L-sit variations in the chair.

Different discrete press variations on the desk, 2 sec presses or so..

Found a pull-up bar installed in one of the workshops, but can not sneak down there all the time.

Avoiding the lift like the plague. Handrails in the back stairs are nice if a bit wide apart.

Storage room is clima controlled and have loads of floorspace. Bring gloves as floor is dirty..

Coming 5 minutes late for lunch is accepted. Going 5 minutes early is not. 5 minutes can be a lot of time..

I believe increasing blodflow now and then through the day makes me perform better at work. So what if I spend 20 secs more in the back stairs :wink:

Dont be afraid to stand out as the odd one. Do what you like as long as you socialize and integrate. Skipping lunch (quick bite at the desk at 1000 and 1400 if possible) for a workout once or twice a week is no problem. Be careful with body "odors" and dress code though.

Have your eyes tested now, and again in a year. Screen work is hard on the eyes and near-sightedness is no fun.

I am coming to the conclusion that sitting is a freakin' disaster. I think there is no better way of losing strength at record pace than sitting. Not to mention, sitting for four hours makes your lower back feel weak as a twig, legs like spaghetti, and hip flexors cramp. Some new rumors suggest sitting causes almost irreversible cardiovascular damage. Claiming that even exercising won't make up for the damage of sitting. I need to verify such claims, because then that could suggest sleeping is an equal enemy. That aspect sounds like hype, but I do know what it has done to me personally.

I feel you... years of desk work, tons of laptop work... still doing the damage to my body

PS: Look up Chair / Office yoga. Great stretch and flow stuff to get your blood flowing.

Standing is not possible at my work station for the first 2 hours and then for the first 2 hours after lunch, it's not feasible although not impossible to stand after those 2 hours though.

If I do a 5am I sleep no later than 9pm.

A friend of mine would use the lift, and then do a handstand and stay in it till the lift gets him where he needs to be.

I've also noticed with myself that if I feel tired but I want to work out, I can get into it by starting with handstands, not to hard but wakes me up and gets the blood flowing.

I know how frustrating it is to sit all day, especially since school just started. Luckily, I take PE this year. I will do lots of lowerbody work in the weight room and upperbody work at my house. To the average highschool guy gymnastics training can seem very eccentric.

Tsoon, that's a tough situation. The early workouts are your best move, because long days at work are definitely draining.

If you can, taking a 1-2 minute "break" every hour to do some bodyweight squats and push ups or dips or a quick L-sit hold will help a lot. That was what I did when I was in school during my Navy days, and it made a massive difference. I even did that when I was doing maintenance a lot of the time. Even 10 push ups and 10 squats can really help a lot, on the hour.

or even just sitting in a full squat on the floor can do wonders for your hips and back

toasty said:

or even just sitting in a full squat on the floor can do wonders for your hips and back

Probably why the western toilet had rendered people unfit lol. People had to sit full squat, hold & balance that hold to relieve themselves throughout.

Check out some Ergonomics stuff.

http://www.computingcomfort.org/ - Check if your desk, etc height etc are correct

Workrave - Free Sw that makes you take small, medium beaks & makes you do stretches etc. Awesom small app.

Ergonomic Keyboard / Mouse

http://www.applelinks.com/index.php/mor ... and_mouse/

crashnburn said:

toasty said:

or even just sitting in a full squat on the floor can do wonders for your hips and back

Probably why the western toilet had rendered people unfit lol. People had to sit full squat, hold & balance that hold to relieve themselves throughout.

Interestingly enough, squat-toilets are supposed to be much healthier for your GI tract

I have to move around a lot to keep myself sane. I've actually been sitting in [large] chairs in a full squat- maybe thats better that traditional sitting?

You mean like pulling your knees up to your chest when you sit, or actually keeping all your weight on your feet? I like to sit that way on my computer chair, but I lean back a bit so I'm also supported by the back.

Erik said:

You mean like pulling your knees up to your chest when you sit, or actually keeping all your weight on your feet? I like to sit that way on my computer chair, but I lean back a bit so I'm also supported by the back.

Do share a pic of how u do that?

Erik said:

You mean like pulling your knees up to your chest when you sit, or actually keeping all your weight on your feet? I like to sit that way on my computer chair, but I lean back a bit so I'm also supported by the back.

I sometimes do that also, but I mean putting all the weight on my feet

ive found that you can do makeshift bulgarian dips on two swiveling chairs and some creative body positions

Tsoonami,

A friend of mine was an editor at a video-game magazine in SF, and he ended up spending more time in an office than ever before. He's since moved on to fighting fires in LA.

He worked up insane volume of push-ups and push-up variations, squats, and HeSPUs; he found an overhanging pipe in a stairwell and went to work on pullups. He messed around with all different kinds of all-day volume and intensity schemes.

Pavel's got a section in "Beyond Bodybuilding" with some great ideas ("Hit the Deck," "NASA Push-up Program") that could be very easily scaled up to GB variations.

The one detail that my friend had was clear-cut goals that shaped his office training. His goals had to reflect his current work conditions, so training sprint intervals was out. He had goals like 25 OA push-ups each arm, sets of 100 push-ups, 100 HeSPUs in 10 minutes, things like that.

best with your training,

j

I've found it can be helpful to sit in the bottom of an olympic squat postion while I am in front of the computer. Maybe I can do this because I am taller, but it puts the des just about shoulder height. In this position, I like to rock different directions to get a good ankle and achilles stetch going on.

I assume if you work in cubicles this shouldnt be too much of a problem, as I do it in front of more than a few guys who laugh at me for it (we'll see who's laughing when were fifty and they can barely move without aches and pains). Of course if you have customers this may be a problem.

I am really not sure what all someone who had to sit in front of customers could do. Perhaps if the customer seem willing try to do your business standing. I know I would certainly understand it someone I was talking to wanted to stand for a while since they sit all day.

If you are a student, you could probably get away with standing in the back of the class. I always do this in military classes and just say it is to keep me awake on the rare occasion I get a funny look (Sometimes it really is to keep myself awake though!).

Here's an interesting story in pictures on 'cultural deformity' by Dr Ed Thomas. It outlines the change in our posture due to changing our sitting habits. Interestingly he is also keen to point out how in WWII squating was the prefered shooting position for infantrymen. This was changed latter due to recruits inability to squat.

http://ihpra.org/newsletter107.htm

Mr Brady, that was really informative! Thanks!