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Just jumping on this to say: I had chronic lower back and wrist pain for a long time. Had the whole ergonomic setup. Adjustable desk, Kinesis keyboard, vertical

Just jumping on this to say: I had chronic lower back and wrist pain for a long time. Had the whole ergonomic setup. Adjustable desk, Kinesis keyboard, vertical mice, etc. What fixed me was starting to squat. Took like 3 weeks of squatting and I haven't had back or wrist pain since (it's been 10+ years). Now I just use the standard (and very nonergonomic) Apple keyboard and mouse.

jdreaver 2y ago
Huge +1 to this, but I would also add walking _at least_ 8000 steps per day. I still had some minor, nagging pain until I started walking more. Turns out humans are not meant to sit all day! I can highly recommend a book called _Built to Move_ [0]. It tells you to do a lot of things that many people consider common sense, like walk every day, eat vegetables, sleep 8 hours, etc. However, it also explains _why_ to do these things pretty concisely. The most impactful argument it made to me was you can't counteract sitting for 12 hours a day with any amount of exercise. You have to sit less and move around more. [0] https://thereadystate.com/built-to-move/ https://thereadystate.com/built-to-move/
- supersrdjan 2y ago
  It appears that the problem is not in sitting too much, but rather in sitting in chairs specifically. Apparently, hunter-gatherer people also spend about 10 hours a day sitting. But they sit on the ground. Or kneel or squat. And they don't have the issues we get from sitting too much: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1911868117 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1911868117 So... the end-game of ergonomic chairs might be no chair at all.
  - vladvasiliu 2y ago
    Given the tables in the results section, it would seem that the people in the study don't have long periods where they don't move. "average sedentary bout lengths" hover between 15 and 20 minutes. So the problem with "sitting in chairs specifically" is probably not the chair, but the fact that the chair facilitates longer "sedentary bout lengths". If this is correct, then the commenter suggesting to get up and move every so often is probably on point.
    - supersrdjan 2y ago
      Makes sense. That said, fidgeting and moving around is spontaneous when on the floor, you don’t have to be reminded to do it. Also, no chair is cheaper than an expensive chair.
      - vladvasiliu 2y ago
        > fidgeting and moving around is spontaneous when on the floor, you don’t have to be reminded to do it Indeed, it's actually what prompted me to go look over the document. I remember, as a kid, when out and about and before getting into the habit of sitting in a chair all day every day, I would sit on the floor or on random objects, like stones or tree trunks in the countryside. I wouldn't be able to sit still for long periods of time and would need to at least change positions. Whereas now, in my "ergonomic chair", I can sit for more than one hour at a time with minimal, if any, changes in position. Ditto for my couch (which wasn't marketed as "ergonomic" in any way). That being said, I've tried using a computer in other positions, like putting the laptop on a coffee table and squatting or sitting on the floor in front of it, or having it rest on my thies while squatting. It gets tiring very quickly, especially in the shoulders and neck area. So, in my case, what seems to work best is to get up regularly and walk around the room for a bit.
therealdrag0 2y ago
Any theory to why squatting would help wrists, isn’t the weight born by shoulders?
- swiftcoder 2y ago
  Even though the weight is carried by the shoulders, you are still stabilising with the wrists, and working on some arm flexibility that isn't much exercised in other contexts
  - toasterlovin 2y ago
    See my response. It was actually air squats, not barbell squats, so couldn’t have been this. Though my hunch is that weighted squats would work better, due to the mechanism you outline.
- toasterlovin 2y ago
  It was actually air squats that solved it for me, though I did start doing compound lifts with a barbell shortly afterwards. Two hypotheses: 1. I was just incredibly weak due to being sedentary and even a tiny amount of strength training released enough “get stronger” juice to my system that other muscles also got stronger. 2. Pain is a complex phenomena that relies on our bodies being properly calibrated and lack of any kind of strenuous activity mis-calibrated my pain system. I’m more inclined toward hypothesis 2. Further life experience has led me to believe that our physical and psychological systems are very much dependent on existing in a specific, narrow milieu to function properly.

jdreaver 2y ago

Huge +1 to this, but I would also add walking _at least_ 8000 steps per day. I still had some minor, nagging pain until I started walking more. Turns out humans are not meant to sit all day! I can highly recommend a book called _Built to Move_ [0]. It tells you to do a lot of things that many people consider common sense, like walk every day, eat vegetables, sleep 8 hours, etc. However, it also explains _why_ to do these things pretty concisely. The most impactful argument it made to me was you can't counteract sitting for 12 hours a day with any amount of exercise. You have to sit less and move around more. [0] https://thereadystate.com/built-to-move/ https://thereadystate.com/built-to-move/

supersrdjan 2y ago
It appears that the problem is not in sitting too much, but rather in sitting in chairs specifically. Apparently, hunter-gatherer people also spend about 10 hours a day sitting. But they sit on the ground. Or kneel or squat. And they don't have the issues we get from sitting too much: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1911868117 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1911868117 So... the end-game of ergonomic chairs might be no chair at all.
- vladvasiliu 2y ago
  Given the tables in the results section, it would seem that the people in the study don't have long periods where they don't move. "average sedentary bout lengths" hover between 15 and 20 minutes. So the problem with "sitting in chairs specifically" is probably not the chair, but the fact that the chair facilitates longer "sedentary bout lengths". If this is correct, then the commenter suggesting to get up and move every so often is probably on point.
  - supersrdjan 2y ago
    Makes sense. That said, fidgeting and moving around is spontaneous when on the floor, you don’t have to be reminded to do it. Also, no chair is cheaper than an expensive chair.
    - vladvasiliu 2y ago
      > fidgeting and moving around is spontaneous when on the floor, you don’t have to be reminded to do it Indeed, it's actually what prompted me to go look over the document. I remember, as a kid, when out and about and before getting into the habit of sitting in a chair all day every day, I would sit on the floor or on random objects, like stones or tree trunks in the countryside. I wouldn't be able to sit still for long periods of time and would need to at least change positions. Whereas now, in my "ergonomic chair", I can sit for more than one hour at a time with minimal, if any, changes in position. Ditto for my couch (which wasn't marketed as "ergonomic" in any way). That being said, I've tried using a computer in other positions, like putting the laptop on a coffee table and squatting or sitting on the floor in front of it, or having it rest on my thies while squatting. It gets tiring very quickly, especially in the shoulders and neck area. So, in my case, what seems to work best is to get up regularly and walk around the room for a bit.

therealdrag0 2y ago

Any theory to why squatting would help wrists, isn’t the weight born by shoulders?

swiftcoder 2y ago
Even though the weight is carried by the shoulders, you are still stabilising with the wrists, and working on some arm flexibility that isn't much exercised in other contexts
- toasterlovin 2y ago
  See my response. It was actually air squats, not barbell squats, so couldn’t have been this. Though my hunch is that weighted squats would work better, due to the mechanism you outline.
toasterlovin 2y ago
It was actually air squats that solved it for me, though I did start doing compound lifts with a barbell shortly afterwards. Two hypotheses: 1. I was just incredibly weak due to being sedentary and even a tiny amount of strength training released enough “get stronger” juice to my system that other muscles also got stronger. 2. Pain is a complex phenomena that relies on our bodies being properly calibrated and lack of any kind of strenuous activity mis-calibrated my pain system. I’m more inclined toward hypothesis 2. Further life experience has led me to believe that our physical and psychological systems are very much dependent on existing in a specific, narrow milieu to function properly.