text: Sinister Sitting!! Stand Up & Move NOW! | JaxAllenFitness.com
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  4 thoughts on "Sinister Sitting!! Stand Up & Move NOW!"
  Jackie, this is fascinating and frightening at the same time, given how many of us have spent our careers deskbound staring at a computer screen all day, every day, hour after hour.
  As a heart attack survivor (and a 30+ year career veteran of journalism and public relations, most of that time spent writing frantically at the keyboard!), I am concerned about so many of us who spend our working lives sitting like this – and then come home after a long tiring day to sit some more in front of the tube all evening!!
  To me, the truly frightening part of these studies suggests that even daily exercise does not necessarily save us if we end up spending 6 hours sitting. I was a distance runner for 19 years before my heart attack – and believed that this gave me some kind of a free pass when it comes to heart attack. Alas, it did not! What it DID do, according to my cardiologist, is to help me develop strong collateral arteries in my heart that helped to bypass my fully occluded left anterior coronary artery that caused my heart attack.
  I'm now a born-again promoter of daily exercise. I like to quote cardiologist Dr. John Mandrola now, who says: "You only have to exercise on the days you plan to eat!" More on this at: "What Prevents Heart Disease Better Than Any Drug?" – http://myheartsisters.org/2011/08/17/best-heart-disease-prevention/
  Thanks for posting this warning about "sinister sitting"!
  Thought ud like to know. At Reps conference at NEC last month 2hrs sitting is now considered a Risk Factor for health!
  It was also agreed that steady state cardio exercise cannot improve body composition. I terval training ( intense) can.. The daily walk is better than sitting still, and viable for lots of reasons other than cardio health.
  We have to find ways to introduce hard exercise to the general public who will find it uncomfortable, sweaty and vert taxing!
  So, back to class planning for me!
  Good luck convincing the average consumer that uncomfortable, sweaty and taxing "hard exercise" is the way to go!
  Hard enough to get folks out the door for a simple neighbourhood walk. This is especially true for chronic disease patients living with co-morbidities. Last night, for example, I was doing one of my presentations on women's heart health and met a number of (older) women in my audience who had issues like rheumatoid arthritis, congestive heart failure and joint replacements. I could tell by the way their eyes glazed over during my pro-exercise cheerleading rant that they didn't (couldn't) see how they would possibly add "one more thing" to their daily To Do lists – when simply getting out of bed or taking a shower seemed too arduous a task to handle.
  Yes, it is hard.. My work whith Seniors has followed a different, yet slowly converging path to that of my other classes.
  I reached 30 years as a group exercise instructor in September and its amazing how the industry has changed – but the attitudes of the population has remained almost the same.
  We fitness leaders have managed to raise penetration from a pathetic 8% in the 80's to measely 12-14% now.
  My Seniors are mainly ex- Heart Patients (I say ex as they are the lucky ones that know what their Health Achilles heel is and have been treated) that are stage 4 rehab' and beyond. I run 2 types of session one aerobic in nature – much like an exercise to music class, with sing a long music. I choose exercises that can be done in day or casual wear. not everyone owns trainers or wants to wear track suits. I have gradually applied sports science to the plans in that we do much more stability, mobility and strength work to address their need to remain independant and mobile.
  The second session is all seated or supported by a chair. so, even those with heart failure and severe mobility problems can enjoy the chat and benefit from gentle stretches and Pilates based movements.
  I think there will always be a section of the population that will perhaps walk to get a paper from the local shop and maybe buy or borrow a dog and stay active that way.
  I manage to get non active partners involved in visits to garden centres – usually flat and quite far reaching… I know in the states they have walking groups in shopping Malls… maybe we should try that!
  The 80's were a disaster I think – so many women were tortured by Jane Fonda types – never to set foot inside a leisure centre ever again..