Learning to stand all over again

1 minute

Turns out, I have been standing all wrong. Forty years of standing around in various guises — chances are — been doing it wrong for most of them.

And chances are you are too.

I was listening to a Art of Manliness podcast about the dangerous of chronic sitting with Kelly Starrett where he puts forward a real passionate position asserting that sitting is worse than smoking.

Given all the problems I have been having with my legs and back, I had recently decided that I need to work on my mobility so the podcast came at just the right time.

I got his most recent book — Deskbound: Standing Up to a Sitting World — to read on the plane to Cochin. A plane is perhaps not the best place to be reading a book on why sitting is bad for you.

Turns out even before we get to the sitting properly, turns out I am not even standing right. Jesus! Standing! Surely that is so instinctive that we could not get it wrong.

I decided I was going to practice standing as soon as I get the chance. And since my airport transfer did not turn up, and after a series of calls he promised to be there in 45 mins, I figured I would have an hour at least to practice standing till he turned up.

Thats what I did. Standing right is not that hard, but sticking to it is. I have been practising it, and next step will be to sit right.