I sit ~10 hours daily, including 2+ hours driving. I'm naturally skinny but haven't done much physical exercises in recent years ("busy"). Now, at age of 34, I'm starting to realize that my body won't last forever and finally started to exercise few times per week, after I found motivating enough guide¹. It amazing how much more energized it makes you feel.
Nice, but if you have body fat then you still need another guide to lose it. I'd rather have a guide that deals with muscles and fat simultaneously.
From the linked website:
> Recognize that all these guys have low body fat, which helps reveal their muscles. You will not actually lose fat by lifting weights, so weight loss is a separate goal altogether.
For almost a year I spent practically all day sitting in front of a PC monitor (used to work at home), with no exercise.
Then I developed pain in both knees, worse on the left knee. I figured that it was because of too much sitting, so I got a standing desk. In about a month, knee pains gone, completely.
Never even bothered to go see a doctor.
After standing for too long, I started having pains in my lower back. Solution? I got a bar stool, so I now alternate between standing and sitting.
What I learnt is that our body's joints (knee, elbow, waist, ankle, etc) were not designed to remain in one position for too long. Movement lubricates them.
My view might be classified as 'odd', but this is how I look at this problem, and this is what I ended up doing:
I do not mind living a decade shorter than those ones who are more active than me.
I have tried to be active, but could not fit it into my mentality. Note that I did not say my lifestyle, I said my mentality. I am unable to be active. I was not an active person a a kid, and I am not one as an adult.
If I aggregate all those activity hours together with all the stress about being more active (including following the effectiveness of standing desk news), it could maybe worth a couple of years of my life. I subtracted those years from that one decade, and decided that I am ok with not having that part of my life.
I continue programming 14 hours a day in the sitting style.
Telomere length as presently measured in white blood cells is a measure of immune health before all other factors: how often are new cells turning up with long telomeres (thus how well is the thymus and bone marrow stem cell population doing), how often are existing cells dividing and shortening their telomeres while doing it (how much stress is the immune system under, how much war is it waging), how many senescent cells are hanging around lowering the average, that sort of thing.
Exercise is very well associated with better immune function. So not a surprising result beyond the fact that they actually managed to get a result at all, as telomere length measured this way is actually a pretty terrible metric of aging. The correlations with aging only show up in large populations, and even there you'll find as many failures to identify associations as successes in the literature. For an individual knowing your immune cell telomere length won't tell you a great deal that you don't already know, and nor will changes over time. The numbers will be all over the map, and won't compare usefully at all with other individuals in your circumstances, unless you have a few thousand of them to compare with.
If you want a decent biomarker that might actually prove to be actionable, DNA methylation patterns after the model pioneered by Horvath et al look fairly promising. (There's even a Florida company offering an implementation as a service these days).
The sitting question is generating a lot of ink in the research community. All sorts of large epidemiological studies have tackled the topic. I think it remains unsettled as to whether it is the sitting or whether it is the inactivity: decent arguments from data could be made either way. If pulling in data from the broader context, however, the inactivity looks more compelling. Accelerometer studies are becoming more common since the miniaturization and cost reduction that came with cell phones, and these are showing that even very low levels of exercise appear to make noticeable differences to outcomes in later life - at the level of housework and puttering around the garden.
I am fairly young, 22, mostly sitting in front of the computer, even sitting while studying. So it could be said I sit around 10 hours per day.
When I was younger, up until the end of high school, I used to do sports, but since I got to college, I simply stopped caring. My body is skinny, really skinny, I weight 61kg, and I had that weight for last 7 years. But one day I thought maybe I should do something, not for the looks, but for the feel of my body, and physical body exhaustion just feels healthy sometimes.
So I thought running might be what I am looking for. Any advice on that? I am sure someone is doing it so (with lower body weight), any advice or thought on that? Btw when it's not winter, I skate, especially in summer, I use to skate all night, for 5-6 hours.
If you're that skinny I'd really suggest weightlifting with a couple days of cardio (run, swim, dance, whatever). I'm assuming you're a man, but I'm a really skinny woman and weightlifting helped me put on 10 pounds of muscle. I feel really strong and amazing.
Here is something most people can do that will have great impact on your overall health: take a walking break at work. Besides the health benefits it will help you clear your head and possibly find a solution to that problem, get some sun, chat with a co-worker about life, etc....
Pushups. They are the single best full body exercise, that can be done ANYWHERE, and rather quickly. When you've reached a sufficient rep, add a dip bar. Pull-ups should also be part of your routine as well.
Every hour or so while working at the computer, I'll get down and knock out twenty pushups or so. You'll be surprised at how fast you build up muscle endurance, and your lower back pain will be gone.
My advice would be to incorporate it as part of your everyday life. Cycle to work, if you live far, get a battery assisted bike.
I am a massive fan of yoga as well, the general and core strength you need for that is incredible along with keeping your body limber (which helps fighting injuries and just generally helps with people sitting a lot).
Get in a pool and just go as fast as you can, for as long as you can. Take a short break, repeat. Do this for 15 minutes a day and you will experience a massive difference in your life.
High intensity training is very good and a pool exercises a lot of muscles, great cardio and very little strain on your body.
Moderate exercise 150mn weekly. Can be distributed into 3 to 5 weekly sessions.
If you are male, you can also do intense instead of moderate exercise.
For types of exercise, endurance exercise like running or cross country skiing have been found to extend most lifespan, followed by team sports and last strength training
If all that sounds complicated, my advice is to find a job or a hobby that involves moderate exercise. Gardening as a hobby is a good example. Or commit to commute by bike every day
Most of the evidence I'ev seen points toward cardio for longevity. My goal isn't longevity, though.
Doing anything s better than doing nothing, so you should pursue the fitness routine that suits your goals, so that's cardio if you want to live forever, but I don't, so I squat.
Ride a bicycle to work, or the equivalent 45 minutes a day, 4 out of 5 days a week. Lower impact cardio than most other forms, fun, effective transportation, and if you want to turn it into an anaerobic intensity workout, you can.
Barbell training (e.g., presses, squats, deadlifts, etc.) 2+ days per week to the point that you can deadlift twice your bodyweight or more. Get to the point of being able to do 30 pullups in a row.
Running 30 minutes or more 3+ days per week until you can run a 5k in less than 20 minutes. (Any form of cardio is acceptable and has an equivalent distance and pace.)
The above are goals that are achievable for most people given time and not overly complicated training (probably a year or two with competent programming, adequate nutrition, and recovery) and easily maintained once reached until you're quite close to death. They are, to some degree, arbitrary, but represent a good area to target to reap the most benefits without risking injury from training volume.
Our bodies were meant to be used.
(This, of course, doesn't address diet, which is probably more important.)
Every time you close a ticket reward yourself with 10 push-ups or crunches. I know a guy that got a six-pack doing this. After doing it for a while hormones will start to kick in and you will crave it, meaning you will be more productive!
I work on personal projects, read HN, or do other things on my computer while I'm at home. I'm sitting at a desk and using my computer for 12+ hours a day. I rarely ever exercise, or even move my body much besides my fingers.
Do you even lift? It's really easy to start, and it's really easy to get caught up in the habit. It sounds implausible, but I became a much better programmer after I started lifting weights every day.
Similar story here for most of the last year. Previously I've had a long (walking) commute to work, enjoyed swimming, running and/or mountain biking. I tried HIIT briefly last year but couldn't find a way to reliably include it in my routine. Just started swimming a few weeks back and think I will maintain that longer term. People will tell you to do x/y/z thing, the truth is you need to find something which works for you and becomes a habit and you can fit into your schedule long term. That could be lifting, swimming, zumba classes, whatever.
Either that or decide you're OK with poor health and a shorter than necessary life! :)
get a sit/stand desk. Even better if it is with treadmill. I only wish i started to work standing 10-15 years ago instead of just the last couple of years.
I switched to a standup desk 5 years ago. I got a dog 3 years ago. I don't sit anymore and she forces me to take her for two walks almost everyday.
I don't exactly have more energy and I don't feel like I'm going to live forever, but I have noticed I am aging slightly slower than my colleagues who are forced to sit down in their offices for over 12 hours a day.
Yep. I am not much into workouts and such, but I got a dog couple of years ago and the daily walks + other outdoor activities I do with the dog certainly improved my life and also my health.
Can you really notice aging of yourself and others who you work with over a period of just 5 years? My coworkers look largely the same (to me) as they did 5 years ago, just with different hair styles. And I'm even less capable of noticing any age related differences in myself over a five year period.
These reports have an empiricist slant to them and there's usually no attempt to explain the result. No doubt there's truth to be found here, but note that mere act of sitting cannot be bad for health, otherwise seated meditation would be bad for health too (which it isn't).
I conjecture it is the combination of sitting and hard focus on work or video games which is relevant. The brain withdraws attention from the body (which, being supported, isn't required much beyond breathing and digestion). The result seems to be bad things like inflammation, poor lymph circulation, etc, though I think this isn't understood. I remember it was said that, a few decades back in the UK, bus drivers (seated) had more heart attacks than bus conductors (standing).
It could also very well be that those participants in the study who didn't "exercise" were lonely, were more or less alone or single, had no one to go take a walk with, have lost their closest relatives, have lost their significant other, etc. All those could factor in as much if not more than the "exercise". (and hence spend much more time indoors, probably watching the telly, and then things go from bad to worse in old age as health problems cascade)
And I quote "exercise" because it's not clear from the article if it's something like gymnastics, or the participant reported 30 min of daily walking and other activities like cycling. Point being, you could be unhappy and exercise a little bit every day and still be worse off than someone who's happy and loves to sit and watch the bird sings. Who knows.
I'd wager these days the quality of our food, and the bonds we have with people around us is far more incidental on our lifespan.
Here I am thinking of the less explored perspective:
> "One of the tragic outcomes of loneliness is that people turn to their televisions for consolation: two-fifths of older people report that the one-eyed god is their principal company."
Especially now that prolong sitting are stressful on obile or laptop devices often times with uncontrolled radiation coupled with the fact that backache is very likely sequel because of the big weight on it & imagine how many joints are strained in this very common yet vulnerable posture & unwisely used without exercise even within the attic or office!
It's precociously an aging grind we must all review our sitting routines & punctuate it with indoor workouts or simply move briskly within a small space
I'm in this category too though I can be bold to move out JUST TO STROLL half 1km away from my attic that doubles as my lodging after a bungalow opportunity with big lawn & manho tree eloped to someone else!
Gbemisoye TIJANI
Healthnewsworker ,life & health coach
@gbemi_gbemi
@bymst2bymst
ALLIanceglobal dis,
So they found that the group which sat for 10 hours but did 30 mins of exercise had cells just as robust as the group which ... what, sat around for 2 hours?
Where are the details?
Don't be fooled. Other studies showed that exercise doesn't negate the damage done by sitting:
The study linked was about elderly women specifically.
It actually sounds pretty obvious when you state it like "the subjects that were more active were more healthy" -- we already know that should be the case generally.
What's a good movement cycle? Both time and activity?
My watch reminds me to move to try and get 250 steps an hour, so hourly I try to get up and get some steps. However that's not an increased heart rate and etc.
Anecdote:
I used to work from home and pretty much sat down the whole day. I would still go for a run once or twice a week, but I would quickly experience a sharp pain in my lower back that made it really hard to run. Some Googling led me to believe that my tight hip flexors might be causing my back pain, and that sitting down all day could lead to tight hip flexors. I've since started working for a couple of hours per day at a ghetto standing desk and my back pains are pretty much gone.
Another thing that I really highly recommend is Joe DeFranco's stetching programme, Limber 11 (https://youtu.be/FSSDLDhbacc). You can do the whole thing in about 10 minutes, and it leaves your whole body feeling nice and relaxed.
I'll throw in my own anecdote and say I can confirm the whole back issue. I've recently stopped my weight lifting program which I put focus on my legs and lower back. My back pain reduced while doing the program but just two weeks off and I'm feeling pain from just adjusting in my seat now. I can't wait to get back to it soon.
Similar situation here (also years of powerlifting pretty much === lower back issues of some sort).
Standing desk + inversion table made a huge difference for me.
So, telomere length as a measure of aging is something that keeps popping up from my lay-person perspective. It seems important to know about, and I have little awareness of my lack of awareness, so, those of you who live and breathe telomere research.. could shed some light on my ignorance?
- what "big-picture" information governs the "big-picture" processes?
- critical details swept under the rug with my un-nuanced understanding of the hypothesis, (e.g. "telomeres do not shorten uniformly/monotonically/predictably")?
- how does empirical research concerning telomeres compare to the state (or even future) of our understanding/control of aging?
My solution to this is to set myself weekly goals in terms of steps. It changes your routine when you do that. At 12.7k steps a day, I basically have to elongate my walking commute, and find create ways to stand up and move all day.
This article (only a summary in the link below because we still live in the dark ages of research paywalls) from the Annals of Internal Medicine claims via meta-analysis that exposure to sitting will harm your health regardless of exercise.
[+] [-] jknoepfler|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Yaggo|9 years ago|reply
[1] https://www.julian.com/learn/muscle/intro
[+] [-] tmaly|9 years ago|reply
I am looking into the no equipment, no gym style workouts that take 20 minutes.
[+] [-] amelius|9 years ago|reply
From the linked website:
> Recognize that all these guys have low body fat, which helps reveal their muscles. You will not actually lose fat by lifting weights, so weight loss is a separate goal altogether.
[+] [-] antocv|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] finid|9 years ago|reply
Then I developed pain in both knees, worse on the left knee. I figured that it was because of too much sitting, so I got a standing desk. In about a month, knee pains gone, completely.
Never even bothered to go see a doctor.
After standing for too long, I started having pains in my lower back. Solution? I got a bar stool, so I now alternate between standing and sitting.
What I learnt is that our body's joints (knee, elbow, waist, ankle, etc) were not designed to remain in one position for too long. Movement lubricates them.
[+] [-] david___sh|9 years ago|reply
I do not mind living a decade shorter than those ones who are more active than me.
I have tried to be active, but could not fit it into my mentality. Note that I did not say my lifestyle, I said my mentality. I am unable to be active. I was not an active person a a kid, and I am not one as an adult.
If I aggregate all those activity hours together with all the stress about being more active (including following the effectiveness of standing desk news), it could maybe worth a couple of years of my life. I subtracted those years from that one decade, and decided that I am ok with not having that part of my life.
I continue programming 14 hours a day in the sitting style.
[+] [-] reasonattlm|9 years ago|reply
Exercise is very well associated with better immune function. So not a surprising result beyond the fact that they actually managed to get a result at all, as telomere length measured this way is actually a pretty terrible metric of aging. The correlations with aging only show up in large populations, and even there you'll find as many failures to identify associations as successes in the literature. For an individual knowing your immune cell telomere length won't tell you a great deal that you don't already know, and nor will changes over time. The numbers will be all over the map, and won't compare usefully at all with other individuals in your circumstances, unless you have a few thousand of them to compare with.
If you want a decent biomarker that might actually prove to be actionable, DNA methylation patterns after the model pioneered by Horvath et al look fairly promising. (There's even a Florida company offering an implementation as a service these days).
The sitting question is generating a lot of ink in the research community. All sorts of large epidemiological studies have tackled the topic. I think it remains unsettled as to whether it is the sitting or whether it is the inactivity: decent arguments from data could be made either way. If pulling in data from the broader context, however, the inactivity looks more compelling. Accelerometer studies are becoming more common since the miniaturization and cost reduction that came with cell phones, and these are showing that even very low levels of exercise appear to make noticeable differences to outcomes in later life - at the level of housework and puttering around the garden.
[+] [-] Philipp__|9 years ago|reply
When I was younger, up until the end of high school, I used to do sports, but since I got to college, I simply stopped caring. My body is skinny, really skinny, I weight 61kg, and I had that weight for last 7 years. But one day I thought maybe I should do something, not for the looks, but for the feel of my body, and physical body exhaustion just feels healthy sometimes.
So I thought running might be what I am looking for. Any advice on that? I am sure someone is doing it so (with lower body weight), any advice or thought on that? Btw when it's not winter, I skate, especially in summer, I use to skate all night, for 5-6 hours.
[+] [-] magic_beans|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Xiol|9 years ago|reply
http://www.nhs.uk/LiveWell/c25k/Pages/couch-to-5k.aspx
[+] [-] rokhayakebe|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Question1101|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] overcast|9 years ago|reply
Every hour or so while working at the computer, I'll get down and knock out twenty pushups or so. You'll be surprised at how fast you build up muscle endurance, and your lower back pain will be gone.
[+] [-] lennelpennel|9 years ago|reply
Get in a pool and just go as fast as you can, for as long as you can. Take a short break, repeat. Do this for 15 minutes a day and you will experience a massive difference in your life. High intensity training is very good and a pool exercises a lot of muscles, great cardio and very little strain on your body.
Aim for 20 minutes each day, 5 days a week.
[+] [-] mtw|9 years ago|reply
If you are male, you can also do intense instead of moderate exercise.
For types of exercise, endurance exercise like running or cross country skiing have been found to extend most lifespan, followed by team sports and last strength training
If all that sounds complicated, my advice is to find a job or a hobby that involves moderate exercise. Gardening as a hobby is a good example. Or commit to commute by bike every day
[+] [-] R_haterade|9 years ago|reply
Most of the evidence I'ev seen points toward cardio for longevity. My goal isn't longevity, though.
Doing anything s better than doing nothing, so you should pursue the fitness routine that suits your goals, so that's cardio if you want to live forever, but I don't, so I squat.
[+] [-] bbarn|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sn9|9 years ago|reply
Running 30 minutes or more 3+ days per week until you can run a 5k in less than 20 minutes. (Any form of cardio is acceptable and has an equivalent distance and pace.)
The above are goals that are achievable for most people given time and not overly complicated training (probably a year or two with competent programming, adequate nutrition, and recovery) and easily maintained once reached until you're quite close to death. They are, to some degree, arbitrary, but represent a good area to target to reap the most benefits without risking injury from training volume.
Our bodies were meant to be used.
(This, of course, doesn't address diet, which is probably more important.)
[+] [-] z3t4|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] debt|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rendaw|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] debt|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] winter_blue|9 years ago|reply
This is really terrible news for people like me.
[+] [-] fapjacks|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] robinwarren|9 years ago|reply
Either that or decide you're OK with poor health and a shorter than necessary life! :)
[+] [-] ironmagma|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] trhway|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] debt|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blueside|9 years ago|reply
I don't exactly have more energy and I don't feel like I'm going to live forever, but I have noticed I am aging slightly slower than my colleagues who are forced to sit down in their offices for over 12 hours a day.
[+] [-] nikkwong|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chrisper|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brandon272|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jnordwick|9 years ago|reply
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyl...
[+] [-] MrQuincle|9 years ago|reply
Spending time with mindless exercise: 1/48 part of a year times 70 years is 1.46 years.
If true that's around 8 more years in return for every 1.5 you put in. Nice ROI. :-)
[+] [-] pazimzadeh|9 years ago|reply
Reminds me of Bret Victor's Seeing Spaces http://worrydream.com/SeeingSpaces/.
[+] [-] umberway|9 years ago|reply
I conjecture it is the combination of sitting and hard focus on work or video games which is relevant. The brain withdraws attention from the body (which, being supported, isn't required much beyond breathing and digestion). The result seems to be bad things like inflammation, poor lymph circulation, etc, though I think this isn't understood. I remember it was said that, a few decades back in the UK, bus drivers (seated) had more heart attacks than bus conductors (standing).
[+] [-] johndoe4589|9 years ago|reply
And I quote "exercise" because it's not clear from the article if it's something like gymnastics, or the participant reported 30 min of daily walking and other activities like cycling. Point being, you could be unhappy and exercise a little bit every day and still be worse off than someone who's happy and loves to sit and watch the bird sings. Who knows.
I'd wager these days the quality of our food, and the bonds we have with people around us is far more incidental on our lifespan.
Here I am thinking of the less explored perspective:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/14/age-of...
Quoting
> "One of the tragic outcomes of loneliness is that people turn to their televisions for consolation: two-fifths of older people report that the one-eyed god is their principal company."
[+] [-] Gbemitj2017|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] EGreg|9 years ago|reply
Where are the details?
Don't be fooled. Other studies showed that exercise doesn't negate the damage done by sitting:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2015/01/21/heal...
http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/adult-health/exp...
Get off your butt, especially if you work on a computer. Take breaks to alternate between mental and physical activity.
[+] [-] nitemice|9 years ago|reply
http://arstechnica.com/science/2017/01/any-exercise-is-good-...
[+] [-] JasonInSeattle|9 years ago|reply
It actually sounds pretty obvious when you state it like "the subjects that were more active were more healthy" -- we already know that should be the case generally.
[+] [-] notheguyouthink|9 years ago|reply
My watch reminds me to move to try and get 250 steps an hour, so hourly I try to get up and get some steps. However that's not an increased heart rate and etc.
[+] [-] db1|9 years ago|reply
Another thing that I really highly recommend is Joe DeFranco's stetching programme, Limber 11 (https://youtu.be/FSSDLDhbacc). You can do the whole thing in about 10 minutes, and it leaves your whole body feeling nice and relaxed.
[+] [-] norea-armozel|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ChemicalWarfare|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pizza|9 years ago|reply
- what "big-picture" information governs the "big-picture" processes?
- critical details swept under the rug with my un-nuanced understanding of the hypothesis, (e.g. "telomeres do not shorten uniformly/monotonically/predictably")?
- how does empirical research concerning telomeres compare to the state (or even future) of our understanding/control of aging?
[+] [-] EternalData|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kingkawn|9 years ago|reply
http://annals.org/aim/article/2091327/sedentary-time-its-ass...