Desk jobs vs strength and flexibility
 

Just curious - those who have a desk job, have you had struggles with flexibility and core strength? What has worked for you in addressing this? Has it made any difference in your bike fit or riding experience?

EXAMPLE: When I first started commuting, I thought my 23" frame w/ drop bars was too big for me (at 6' tall), at first even fitting a hi-rise 60mm stem and riding on the bar tops, bars level-ish with saddle. I was in pain pretty much constantly and would gas out after much over 10-12 miles. After yoga, squats, correcting seated and standing posture and building a standing desk for work, I am comfortable on the hoods and in the drops on that frame now with a 3 1/2" saddle to bar drop and 130mm stem. Not quite a year between then and now, about 3,500 total miles, most of them on that bike. I'm not an athlete and never was, and am mostly inactive off the bike. I only turned to those things to help keep me on the bike. The changes I made were casual and gradual. I still have core strength and flex issues, but they're getting better slowly with time.

I'm curious to see if anyone else has specific things that worked for them.

For me it was doing Limber 11:

After doing that many times (because of issues unrelated to biking), suddenly riding the bike was a ton more comfortable.

---------

For me personally, I could not find a pair of clipless shoes that didn't make my feet hurt after riding for a while. I switched to flat shoes (five tens) and flat pedals with pins, and riding got a lot more comfortable for me as I no longer was trying to awkwardly keep pressure off of my feet. That won't be the case for everyone but it was for me. And that was after I tried several different shoes, shoe inserts, 2 fittings, etc.

---------

The only other thing that comes to mind is I've been going to a physical therapist and he's been doing something called "dry needling". They basically run a small electrical current through muscles to stimulate them and getting them working again. It's not a casual thing to do, but it's been very helpful in getting me flexibility after I injured my leg (not biking related).

Oh yeah-this has really become an issue for me the last few years. My job's become increasingly sit-at-a-computer-ey and my aging back and core have suffered. I've raised my handlebars and shortened my reach and I've tried to get into a core work routine I could stick to, but the honest, unfortunate fact is that I am a lazy, lazy man when it comes to exercise and I really HATE working out for it's own sake. I cycle for fun not so much for fitness, though I kind of become fit in some directions simply because I ride quite a bit. It unfortunately throws my body out of balance and my legs and lungs often try to write checks my back and shoulders can't cash and the results are often painful, up to and including a herniated disc in my neck a few years ago. So I try to do a few planks and push ups and crunches once or twice a week. If I make myself stick to it for a while it definitely helps. Sticking with it is hard tho...

hmmm. I've been sitting at desks in front of computers pretty much every day of work since 1986. I don't think that's a "cause" of any kind of fitness issues. A lack of exercise, however, is likely to "allow" such issues to take hold. Someone might have a job that gives them simultaneous exercise effects, but not most folks today who work indoors. If someone my age (54) doesn't want to dedicate time to exercise, which I completely understand, then, yep, that someone can expect to have aches and pains. I see dedicated exercise as a very effective offset to my desk job, and I do believe it helps prevent those physical issues.

I should get a standing desk. Sitting is lethal.

I've had bad core strength and flexibility all my life, and I had bad upper body strength. I got a scare three years ago when I injured my shoulders. I'm better than before my injury now, because I do some weight work with a barbell in my bedroom. I should add to my routines, and I will eventually. Right now, I do one or two exercises a day, very briefly. I don't like working out, so I don't put much time into it, but I'm seeing real benefits to the little exercise I do. I do dead lifts, overhead presses, and push-ups. I do stretches occasionally like toe-touching, though I can't really reach that far.

Walking helps with flexibility. Really. The more I walk, the better.

Are you doing an anaerobic (weight training) exercises? Particularly those surround the core muscles?

I think that sitting at a desk for hours does cause fitness issues, over and above the fact that it's simply not exercise. If nothing else stand up and move around every hour or so.

I desperately want one of those exercise balls to sit on. Barring that, there's this:

I sat on one for a few months. It wasn't so great. Yes, it kept me in motion, but it wasn't supportive enough.

Supportive? Back or backside?

There's no back support at all, of course. But the place where I put my tush was too soft. As with my saddles, I like my seats hard.

I had an instructor that had one of the exercise balls in his office instead of a chair. I guess its a stabilizing thing, but when I tried it out it wasn't so impressive. I think the more important thing is to never stay in one position for too long.

That said, I find the Herman Miller chairs to be a godsend when your jobs necessitates sitting for many hours. They are, by far, the most comfortable chairs I've ever sat in. I only wish I could afford one of my own.

My flexibility is worse than that of the average corpse. Unfortunately, I cannot blame this on sitting, because I have a rotten attention span and can't sit in once place for very long.

Interesting thread.

Back when I was a cager, I developed a pinched nerve in my neck that gave me intense pain down my arm and around my shoulder blade. Got that resolved with anti-inflammatories (Aleve), an epidural injection, physical therapy, and a sit/stand desk at work. The medicine helped relieve the problem short-term, the physical therapy helped me improve my posture and flexibility, and the sit/stand desk I believe plays a significant role in keeping me in a better state.

I just recently learned about the book Becoming a Supple Leopard. An orthopedic surgeon friend of mine recommended it. Since it's a pretty expensive book, I haven't bought it yet, but my wife found this other book by the same author at the library: Deskbound: Standing Up to a Sitting World. I've started reading it and I'm very impressed. The author has a PhD in Physical Therapy, and even though at first glance he looks like he would just be a Crossfit advertisement, the book does not read that way at all, it's very scientific, but presented in a very readable way. So far I've skimmed Section 1 on why bad posture is bad, and read Section 2: "Natural Body Principles: How to Organize and Stabilize Your Spine, Hips, and Shoulders". Very eye opening. I'm looking forward to reading the rest.

I read an interesting article a while back (Outside magazine?) that explained pretty convincingly that it's not sitting specifically, it's being stationary. Standing still for 8 hours a day is not much better than sitting 8 hours a day. I'd love to see more research, but I would be inclined to think that the advice to move for 20sec every 20min may be more helpful than "just stand up instead of sitting".

Your body does have muscles that run through it that evolved to sit under tension all day. But one of the reasons why you end up with posture problems because of sitting is because the body recruites muscles that were normally used for other purposes to do this instead. Hip flexors, hamstrings, etc...you sit in a chair and your body uses this muscles to keep you upright, over time these muscles start to become physically shorter to the length they're sitting in when you're in the chair.

Ergonomic chairs are designed to support your body in such a way that you don't need to use these muscles. Having ideal posture and muscle activation is the other way people avoid these issues, if your body is capable of sitting in a chair and not needing to engage them in the first place.

An exercise ball though provides no stability and greatly increases your need to keep these muscles engaged to stay upright...not the way you want to go for better posture and less issues from sitting.

An exercise ball can have different improvements, mostly in not smashing your glutes and hamstrings into a hard chair surface, but so can a better chair.

At least this is my understanding of the pros and cons of different chairs based on reading combined with personal experience.

This is a start, for those wanting science https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22890825

The studies they examined dealt with sedentary time, not exercise. Being sedentary for prolonged periods (desk job) by itself, regardless of exercise otherwise, is correlated to issues respective of health.