[The] general trend is that people who frequently carry heavy loads and do other “back-breaking” work get fewer back injuries than those who sit in chairs for hours bent over a machine.
~ Daniel E. Lieberman
Monday afternoon, I dropped by my son’s apartment to give him a few things. He ran down twenty-eight flights of stairs and then climbed back up, carrying a decent load. As I drove off, I realized I'd forgotten to give him my homemade granola and some mail. Oops! I called him. He did it again. Impressively he was not flushed. Nor was he huffing and puffing. Typically, no complaints from him. He was appreciative, and it was fun for him.
Moving huge rocks and chopping wood were his favourite break-time activities when working from the cottage last summer. It’s more fun for Christian to get exercise by contributing to something aside from his impressively inflated biceps.
As the founder and illustrator of Popcross Studios, Christian does spend most of his day working on the computer. But he builds in physical activity whenever the opportunity arises. He has a pull-up bar and heavy dumbbells to lift. But carrying groceries up twenty-eight flights of stairs is a challenge that yields impressive results.
Does sitting really kill?
A few years ago, while doing a wellness presentation, I shared a slide cautioning that sitting was the new smoking, according to Public Health experts. An hour at the gym would not compensate for prolonged sitting.
I asked everyone to stand up and reminded them to do so every half hour throughout the day. Failure to do so would impair the body’s ability to heal and to use up stored fuel.
A feisty young attendee refused to do it. She said the claim was false.
I cited research conducted by Joan Vernikos, a NASA scientist whose job it was to help rehabilitate astronauts who lose bone and muscle mass while in space. Without gravity, bone and muscles atrophy rapidly.
Dr. Vernikos’ research concluded that getting up from a sitting position every half hour for the 16 hours we are awake is more effective than an hour at the gym, followed by prolonged sitting.
But, I was adding another to-do to a long list of items my attendees were required to get done at a job skills training facility. And it wasn’t fun. I had rationalized it because it was free, could be done anywhere and did not require a gym membership.
Need I have been so prescriptive, however? Is sitting really going to kill us? I had a nagging feeling that this outspoken young woman had something to teach me. She was challenging me to rethink how I present.
Mindset matters. The power of thought impacts outcome
I thought about the health benefits of meditation. They are comparable to that of exercise, yet we sit while doing it.
Then I thought about master chess players. Elite chess players can lose up to 6000 calories a day while competing. Not only is the brain a fuel guzzler, but it can crank up our metabolism when being challenged mentally.
Finally, I thought about the research conducted by Harvard’s Ellen Langer and Alia Crum on Hotel maids. It showed that people who move throughout the day, far exceeding the Surgeon General's recommendations for physical activity, did not benefit if they did not perceive what they do to be exercise. When researchers explained to the hotel maids how their actions translated to calorie burn, without changing behaviour they lost weight, reduced blood pressure, lowered body fat, shrunk waist-to-hip ratio and body mass index.
Demonizing sitting was not the right approach for me. Daniel E. Lieberman wisely cautions against this in his new book, Exercised: Why Something We Never Evolved to Do is Healthy and Rewarding.
From an evolutionary perspective, we are hard-wired to conserve energy - to be couch potatoes. I had to rename my third AGE-WELL tip to what Lieberman recommends - Exercise: Make it fun and necessary. If it is not fun or necessary we are less likely to do it. To read the first two posts in the series please click here and here.
When the facts change, I change my mind - what do you do, sir?
~ John Maynard Keynes
My husband jokes that I tend to speak the position of the latest research paper or book I read. He may be right. But I choose to read literature that promises to fill gaps in my knowledge.
Having heard Lieberman interviewed about his new book, I use his insights to help shape some of my thoughts and word selection. But what I have written does not do his work justice. I highly recommend you read his books. He is an insightful and entertaining Harvard professor and evolutionary biology researcher.
Muscle is expensive tissue. Use it or lose it
In the Blue Zones, places on the planet where a higher number of residents live much longer than average, active daily living is common well into old age. For example, in Okinawa, Japan, where people sleep and eat on floor mats, the squatting keeps the lower body muscles and skeleton robust. Squatting is a necessary part of daily living. It happens on autopilot - no willpower required.
Brazil research on 2002 people, between ages 51-80, over 6.3 years, found a direct correlation between the score assigned to one’s ability to sit on the floor and rise unassisted, with life span and quality of life. Subjects were given a score out of 10 (five points for sitting and five for standing) with a point subtracted every time they used a hand, knee or another body part for support. Try it. To successfully pull it off, strong muscles and healthy joints are critical. Don't be hard on yourself if you cannot yet pull it off. But, where there’s a will, there’s a way. We can regenerate bone and muscle mass into old age. We can all improve. If it makes you feel better, most of my colleagues in the fitness industry struggled with this.
Modern conveniences that reduce physical workload have contributed to the growth and prosperity of the fitness industry.
Public Health has medicalized exercise, prescribing the dose. Yet, fewer than 20% of the population gets the recommended amount: 150 minutes per week, which amounts to less than 22 minutes per day. Clearly, it’s not working.
What to do?
Walk, climb, dig, lift, carry, throw, run, chase, push, pull, stretch, dance, twirl. These activities help us stay healthy into old age. So play. Find fun and or rewarding ways to do these things. Push yourself until you get that natural endorphin high.
The euphoria one derives from physical exertion can be addictive, inspiring us to do more. (A word of caution however: if you exercise a lot but really struggle with the sit, stand test, possible causes may be that you have created muscle imbalances. Or you are not allowing sufficient recovery time. Re-evaluate your approach.)
Reframe boring household chores as exercise.
Walk to the grocery store and carry the groceries home.
Inconvenience yourself by making things slightly less accessible. Don't use the remote; move the printer; stand up to get some water, often.
Avoid boring, repetitive workout routines that take the fun out of the movement and cause injury. Daniel Lieberman tells the story about the invention of treadmills to be torture devices for prisoners in the Victorian era. Out in nature, no step is the same. We have to adapt to the local terrain while getting nature therapy. The nervous system is engaged in the adaptation, increasing the benefit.
Walk, jog or cycle to work if possible, or park further away.
Take the stairs instead of the escalator or elevator.
Step outside your comfort zone often to learn or to create something new. It does not matter whether it is a physical or mental project. Building a cottage during COVID had me in the best shape of my life, without thinking about exercise. I moved naturally - in flow.
These are just guidelines, not rules. But do as Daniel E. Lieberman advises. Exercise: make it fun and make it necessary. And don’t get too exercised about it. What a wise guy!
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