subject: Too Much Sitting Is Harmful To Health [print this page] Our modern lifestyles are mostly sedentary and allow the almost total avoidance of any physical activity as we have come to accept prolonged sitting commonplace during work, domestic and recreation tasks and activities. Much of the 16 hours we humans are awake each day is now spent sitting during one activity or another.
This sitting time is sedentary time and the harmful and dangerous health affects it is having on our lives are becoming more understood. It is hard to avoid sitting with our increasing amount of personal and work related computer use, our addiction to television, our transportation means and our automated household tasks and chores.
We literally can get through the entire day without moving a muscle and go from seated activity to seated activity. This creates an absence of total body movement with big muscle groups becoming immobilized through the act of sitting. It does make our lives 'easy' and 'comfortable' and 'convenient' but what of the cost to our physical bodies that need and must have a certain amount of vigorous movement to stimulate the 'growth and repair' hormones that keep us healthy and well?
Without this essential movement fats and sugars in the bloodstream sit around and cannot be cleared away without the action of the big muscles pushing and squeezing enzymes around the body. Without the processing of these fats and sugars they hang around causing damage to cells and tissues and cause a person to easily become overweight.
This closely parallels the modern day epidemic we are experiencing of deadly 'chronic lifestyle' diseases such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes along with obesity which comes with its own set of problems like disorders of the metabolism (the body's engine.)
Scientists are engaging in new investigations into the effects of this increasing sedentary time on our bodies as it has major worldwide medical and public health implications in our future. The numbers of people spending large amounts of time sitting motionless is growing at a rapid rate as the progression of human inactivity increases.
We do not have to go down this road and each of us has a responsibility to put enough proper physical activity into our lives if we wish our 'health span' to match our 'life span'. The only way to keep the 'growth and repair' hormones stimulated is to perform regular proper exercise that engages the muscular system to replicate the physical 'work' and essential movement that has been removed from our lives.
Only strength training exercise can do this in the manner required to renew and replace old worn out cells and tissues. Without this muscle tissue activity to keep us healthy chemicals whisper to the cells, decay, degenerate and die.
Seeking the help of a fitness professional to get your program set up properly is a great idea so you can get the best possible start to fight against the negative aspects of too much chair time.
Staying strong is not just about your appearance, it is about your health and if you work seated it is very much at risk. Your strength training program is a preventative self care measure that we each need to offset and counter this new modern threat of inactivity.
But the good bit is that you will experience immediate benefits to your physical, mental and emotion health. You will also quickly recognize that keeping yourself strong and fit was exactly what your body needed to stay youthful, slim and energetic.
