Ben Greenfield Life

A couple years ago, at the Ancestral Health Symposium, I presented a poster entitled  "Biohacking The Hazards of Sitting". As you can see in the video below, I actually thought I was being quite witty to present a poster on the dangers of sitting while sitting with poor posture in a folding chair. It's actually been over five years since I've adopted the habit of frequently alternating positions throughout my work day, a strategy I highlight in detail my video "How Should You Stand At A Standing Desk“ and also in last week's podcast "Standing Desks, Memory Foam & The Science Of Walking Barefoot In Shoes." My office is actually like a tiny playground, littered with kettlebells, a pull-up bar, a boxing heavy bag, this treadmill workstation, and a variety of standing surfaces, including my latest foot acupressure therapy invention, a Bulletproof Sleep Induction mat wrapped around a Kybounder mat. But I just can't get enough of this stuff.

So in a few weeks, I'm interviewing a fiction author about how she writes fiction while standing and walking to train for an ultramarathon, and in today's podcast, I'm interviewing a guy named Josh Kerst, who mans the helm of one of the most innovative standing workstation companies on the face of the planet: Focal Upright.

Josh is executive vice president of Focal Upright Furniture Inc. He holds a BSE (U of Michigan) in Industrial Engineering and is a Certified Professional Ergonomist (CPE), Certified Industrial Ergonomist (CIE) and is a Member of the ANSI/BIFMA X5.1 Office Seating committee. During our discussion, you'll discover:

-What it means to be an "active couch potato"...

-The shocking results of a study on athletes that found they can actually be more sedentary than the average office worker...

-Workplace positions that trigger a gene which restricts your ability to recover and drops your HDL...

-How long you would need to be sitting for the dangers of sitting to begin kicking in...

-How a dangerous response called the "compensation effect" can kick in if you exercise at the beginning of the day, and what you can do about it...

-Why a standing workstation can actually hurt your shoulders, elbows and wrists and how to set up proper ergonomics at a standing workstation...

-Ideas for creative positions you can work in aside from standing, walking or sitting... -Why you should a "stool" to your standing workstation setup...

-The brand new heart rate variability research coming out soon on standing mats for everything from balance to strengthening and stretching your feet while you are working...

-And much more!

Resources from this episode: -The Focal Upright Website (this is a place where you can also get the "Mogo" stool or the Locus seat we talk about) -The Kybounder balance deskmat -The Topo mat -The TrueForm treadmill -Yoga For The Upright Desk article -The Lighting Science "Awake & Alert" Bulbs -The Human Charger in-ear phototherapy device -Study: Sedentary behaviour among elite professional footballers: health and performance implications -Study: Identification of hemostatic genes expressed in human and rat leg muscles and a novel gene (LPP1/PAP2A) suppressed during prolonged physical inactivity (sitting) -Study: Research on "the compensation effect" -12 different apps that will remind you to take a break

Do you have questions, comments or feedback for Daniel Yellin or I? Leave your thoughts at BenGreenfieldFitness.com!

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