I write the occasional article about how people with desk jobs should train and avoid certain exercises.  Since then, I’ve received several questions from people with non sedentary jobs.  People on their feet all day long like my sister, the teacher.  So is there a difference between what I recommend for a stander and a sitter.  Nope.  And I’ll explain why.

The human race has been evolving for roughly the past 2 million years.  During this period our bodies, by natures design, have been built to remain in the standing position for several hours at any one time.

The first chair was invented just a couple thousand years ago.  Between then and now it has been just a blink of the eye in terms of human evolution.

Do you imagine that early man would take its rest breaks by sitting on perfectly elevated rocks?  I don’t.

We have taken this perfect, standing machine and since childhood, taught it that sitting is the standard and the norm.  Eating, schooling, doing homework, and driving.  All of these things done from the seated position during a huge developmental growth period.

It’s no wonder why we see so many orthopedic problems within our domesticated society.

What you have is a build vs. conditioning problem.  You have all the proper pieces to be a standing, pain free machine but you’ve conditioned it otherwise.  You’ve taken the parts from a mountain bike and have turned them into a 10 speed road bike.  Sure you can learn to race a 10 speed off road, and probably get pretty damn good at it too if it’s all you knew your entire life.  But is that ideal?  You’ll definitely have to replace a lot of tires along the way.

I’m not saying it’s a no win battle.  But it is a constant battle that you should always be considering when evaluating your own well being.  We’ve conditioned ourselves to be a lot more fragile than our ancestors.  In our daily lives we can never fully assume that we are in perfect heath just because we are ably performing regular daily activities.  Take a subjective look at your activities and workouts and ask yourself if there could be a better way of doing things.

And here is a quick video about the evolution of tech I thought was fun.  Enjoy.