written by john c ashworth, ma , cscs, ces

I wrote an article here a little more than a year ago about the death that trap sitting can become. In fact, Leigh Mills and I did a segment on that very topic and you can view that here if you like.

Today's topic for our Friday Fitness Segment has a similar theme with a new twist.

Not Exercise, Activity throughout the day...

If you work a sedentary job during the day ask yourself the following question..."How many time do you get out of your chair during the day with the sole purpose of moving your body in a way that transforms the dormant death-like state that that results if you don't?"  Probably not as much as you know you should, right?

I know all the talk about death probably seems a little over dramatic, but if you look closely inside the physiology of your body once you've sat for a couple hours, you would see that the dormant state your body takes on is not very life like.  For more on that, you can read my previous article on the subject.

Reinforcing the need for both exercise and increased levels of daily activity, in a recent study in the journal Preventive Medicine, researchers found that over 4 years, those who used cars daily for commuting tended to gain more weight than those who did not commute by car. In addition, the difference was even greater among those who were physically active during leisure time.  In other words, you need exercise AND increased levels of leisure time and work time activity in order to stay lean.

You mean exercise is not enough?

Well, it turns out that even if you exercise regularly, when you sit around too much for the rest of the day, you actually lose many of those benefits. All of the sitting has too powerful an effect on your body's willingness to go into that hibernation-like state.

Even if you don't want to or can't cycle to work. And even if you are not exercising regularly now, the moral of this story is that you really do need to find ways to move more during the day. If you don't, the weight stacks on over the years, you don't age well, and you're body quietly becomes ill.   Don't allow this to happen to you.  All you have to do is get up and move!

You'll feel better, I promise.

-John