Undoing the harm done to your body at work

What do you folks do during the work day to combat being chained to a chair? I’ve been trying micro-breaks and mobilizing http://saveyourself.ca/articles/microbreaking.php . I also alternate sitting on a Fitball seating disk (check Amazon). I also have been concentrating on my core muscles during exercising and just walking around. The change has made a dramatic difference in my back. Only took about a month or so. I was having a lot of aching pain in the connective tissue surrounding and underneath my right (mouse hand) scapula and having head aches/neck aches. Oh yeah, I also started using my left hand for my mouse. That helped to balance me out. Physical therapists told me I was having ergo-induced curvature.

I’m planning on jacking my desk up about a foot and getting a workbench stool to alternate standing and sitting. I was going to try actuator lifts, but I’ll probably just get a couple 12×2′s bolting them together then countersinking leg size holes into the sides then bracing across the backs. L-Shaped Desk with 4 leg pairs. Even better, I may put casters on it and set my desk free!

Is this your first marathon Rod? Sounds like a big undertaking!

Good luck!

I’ve got stairs in my building too. I’m on the 5th floor and try never to take the elevator. Amazing how that can really add to your day. During the “winter” I was taking a lap to the top (14th) then to to the basement and back up to the 5th. Unfortunately they choose not to cool the stair well so I cut the laps out….otherwise I’d come back to my desk a sweaty mess. It’s 115 or above on most days between May and Dec.

He he…funny story. My wife started initiating this (taking the exercise route) alot more over the last year. We went to Dubai a month or so ago. We stayed on the 21st floor of this hotel. She goes to the hotel management to find the door to the stairs . The first person didn’t even know where it was. Eventually we found it and up we went. The next day we were shopping at a mall beside the Burj Khalifa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burj_Khalifa). I suggested burning off our lunch by doing the stairs at the tower but she declined, thankfully.

In the mail: http://www.boingboing.net/filesroot/geekdesk.jpeg

Jk

I have a nice desk like that at work but I can’t talk my ‘financial advisor’ at home for something like that. My alternative is that I am going to get 4 Ikea Galant Lets (http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/20056915/) and setup a secondary desk in the basement that I can go hide when I want to stand. If I find that I’m down there more then I can switch desks around.