Comment by blunte | Hacker News Reader

Comment by blunte | Hacker News Reader

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Summary: a guy with an undiscovered previous injury aggravated it with a lifestyle change, and now it's on the front page of HN scaring people away from living a healthier (less-sitting) lifestyle.

You have one unfortunate story, but I have the opposite positive story. As usual, it means that people are not all the same - and what works for one doesn't necessarily work for another.

What's your bodyweight? Are you carrying a bit more weight than is ideal? Did you have any previous injuries with your legs/knees? (Yes, we know that now.)

I suspect that you weren't snowboarding for a fraction as many hours as you were standing, so it's not really surprising that one activity hurt and one didn't.

I spent four years standing 10-16 hours a day - or rather, standing/shuffling/dancing. Not only did I not develop problems, but my lower back pains (from sitting) went away. And for the last few years I've been standing at work and doing pretty heavy weight lifting. I still feel great, and I'm in my 40s. I hope my story does as much to encourage people as yours does to discourage them.

I think if we take the mid-point between your story and his, we're getting there.

Everything in moderation.

That means sitting is fine and standing is fine, just not too much excess of either.

My wife, an ex-carer, knows a number of athletic people who have very serious problems in their 50s and 60s as they've worn their hips and spine out. Conversely she knows a number of people with diabetes and heart problems in the same age range.

The interesting thing I did find out is that those who do not focus on any particular fitness goal, eat what they need and don't objectively go out and exercise are perfectly healthy and run rings around the other groups.

A word of caution: all of these people were quite happy with their physical state into their 40s. The same with drug use, particularly hash etc which really kills you when you get to your late 30s and early 40s.

A standing desk has little to do with any of the above. Moderation of all things does.

The problem is that modern life is not geared toward moderation. The way our economy is structured, most people have to spend their entire day working in order to make ends meet. And for a lot of people "work" means being tied to a computer for 8 or more hours. The human body is really not well suited to doing any one thing for longer than 8 hours at a time, but unfortunately our lifestyle almost requires it.

It most certainly doesn't require it. I think most people are just resigned to it.

My body weight is normal. I weight 73 kilograms and I am 178 centimeters high. Did heavy weight lifting for 2 years before the injury. No serious injuries prior to that. I was pretty confident I could take any type of physical exercises.

I did not make this post to scare people, but rather to inform them that everybody should give more time to diagnostics and see if they could perform some types of exercises/sports/whatever before they start.

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