Sitting vs Standing vs Kneeling

Three years ago, when I began my first and only full-time job as a computer programmer, I remember complaining about sitting for too long. Minus bathroom breaks, and lunch, my peers had no problem sitting in comfy rolling chairs from 10-6pm. It was the norm.

Since that day up until … now, I accepted the norm and forgot why I even removed my chair and squatted the rest of that day at work.

I mentioned in my last post, I’m set on getting back in shape and working out. It’s hard claiming you were once a “strength coach”, and can’t even squat 250 on the bar anymore. (I’m current 178lbs; best shape was at 170, worst shape was 190+).

The only hesitation I have with coding or any computer work in general while standing, is that after fifteen minutes, it gets hard to concentrate. Yeah — that sounds pretty lame and unathletic, but I assure you, it’s real and for me at least, intentional coding and hard hard thought-processing happen best when I’m sitting. Not standing, not lying down— sitting with two monitors and a good cup of coffee.

The best middle ground I found was kneeling on a mat. My working desk happens to be the perfect height when I kneel on my thick Amazon Basics yoga mat, assuming I kneel with upright ergonomic posture.

https://vimeo.com/396994922

My work station setup with kneeling mat.

Yeah, kneeling gets tiring too, but at least it feels like a stretch / workout. I alternate between half and full kneeling, and squeeze my glutes to get some psoas major / front hip stretching happening.

Why squeeze the glutes to relax the anterior hips? In exercise science, we call this reciprocal inhibition.

Reciprocal inhibition describes the process of muscles on one side of a joint relaxing to accommodate contraction on the other side of that joint.

wikipedia

I’ll see how this goes, but I’m already loving the glute burn.