Art of Manliness What to Keep in Your Desk

For most of human history, piece of work has been a physically demanding activity.  Our cavemen ancestors chased down mastodons and hurled spears into their tough, simply tasty mankind, American homesteaders tamed the wilderness into productive farms with nothing just dust and sweat, and simply sixty years ago, the majority of men in America flexed their muscles on manufacturing plant floors or construction sites.

Fast-forward to today.

Instead of feeding ourselves past the sweat of our brows, virtually of us just slouch in a chair all day in a climate-controlled building while we push buttons and ship documents through the ether. And the sitting doesn't end after work. When nosotros get home, we plop downward in front of the TV to sentinel reality shows of men performing the kind of virile, physical, and ofttimes dingy work we daydream about doing while answering emails in our cubicle.

Man'southward transition from callused-handed, blue-collared laborer to soft-handed, white-collared desk jockey has done a number on us physically and mentally. Non only have our desk jobs made us weak, flabby, and stiff, sedentary work is sapping the very hormone that makes a man a human being: testosterone.

What'southward more, all this sitting is slowly eating abroad at our life meters. I study showed that men who sit for more than 6 hours of their leisure time each day had a 20% higher expiry rate than those who sat for three hours or less. For the desk jockey, death comes wrapped in a Successories Poster and waving a USB drive.

"Ah-ha!" y'all say. "I work out out like a beast in the gym every day and take a physique that rivals Eugen Sandow'southward. My hr-long, herculean effort counteracts all the sitting and slouching I do at work!"

Sad to interruption it to you Mac, just your visits to the gym aren't doing much to mitigate the damage that accumulates from all that desk-bound jockeying.

Studies take shown that consistent, vigorous workouts don't do much to get-go the impairment we exercise to our bodies by sitting downwards all day at our cushy Dilbert-esque jobs.

And then what'south a modernistic man to exercise?

If you want to live to encounter your future grandkids and maintain your manly physique and sense of well-being, you're going to demand to stay active throughout the day.

That can be tough when you're chained to a desk filling out TPS reports or attending unproductive brainstorming sessions on how to build more "synergy." But with a trivial creativity, and a flake of gusto (along with a thick skin about what other people recall of you), you can easily detect ways to sneak some exercise into your work routine and flip the Physicality Switch of Manliness. Beneath we offer a few uncomplicated suggestions on how to stay active all twenty-four hours fifty-fifty if y'all're a white-collared desk jockey. Incorporate them into your schedule and you'll notice yourself with hips every bit limber equally an Olympic powerlifter and more than energy than you had as a teenager.

one. Make Getting to Your Office a Challenge

Look for ways to brand getting to work and into the corporate cavern a challenge. Biking to work is of course ideal. If you have to drive, park at the far finish of the lot and so you have to walk further to the building, carry a giant Saddleback Briefcase (those suckers are heavy) filled with your laptop and small boulders, and hurdle over small hedges as you make your mode to the door.  For actress claiming, throw in some parkour and scale the walls like AoM reader Jeremiah Jacques:

2. Take the Stairs. While You're At It, Stitch Them

Instead of using the elevator to motion between floors, take the stairs. Beginning off walking, but work your way up to a full out sprint. Don't worry near looking like a crazy person. Virtually stairs in office buildings are subconscious away equally fire escapes and hardly anyone uses them. Once you reach your flooring, suspension exterior the door to catch your breath, straighten your tie, and mop your forehead with a handkerchief. Y'all just literally leveled upward on your loftier intensity training!

3. Get a Standing Desk

One of the best things you lot can do to mitigate the health-sapping effects of your desk jockey job is to become a standing desk. The drain on your weight and health, including hip and dorsum stiffness and pain, that comes from sitting down all day will disappear. While y'all might not exist able to convince your boss to bound for an expensive hydraulic-powered standing desk-bound (though I'd at least try lobbying him for it), you can jerry-rig your ain standing desk in various ways (search Flickr.com for "standing desk" for ideas).

To learn more than virtually the benefits of standing to work (and its manly history), cheque out this article from the archives on standing desks.

iv. Maintain Good Posture Throughout the Day

If y'all want to avert the Quasimodo shoulder slump that seems prevalent among desk jockeys, brand the attempt to practice good posture throughout the day. Yes, information technology's hard and tiring at beginning, but the struggle is well worth it. Practicing good posture while sitting and standing can reduce tension in your neck, shoulders, and dorsum, improve organ part, and strengthen your all-important core.

Check out this classic article for instructions on how to ameliorate your posture.

v. Do 10 Button-Ups and x Squats Every Time You Take a Bathroom/Java Intermission

When I clerked at a law house here in boondocks, my office saturday adjacent to that of the firm's sole surviving founding partner. He was one of the coolest sometime guys I've always met. He was sort of like Teddy Roosevelt in a lot of ways. The walls of his office were covered with stuffed and mounted wildlife from his many hunts; dropping memos off in his role was similar stepping into the Museum of Natural History. Despite beingness nearly 80 years old, this old partner was spry as a immature cadet. I asked him his secret to his youthful vigor at dejeuner one day, and this is what he said:

"Maintain a sense of humor. You need it in the legal business. And practise lots of push button-ups while yous're at work. I always exercise ten anytime I get up from my chair."

And he did.

Every now and then, when I walked by his office, I'd meet a short, bald erstwhile man on the flooring, cranking out push-ups in his waistcoat.

That little old homo inspired me. I started a like routine that summer at the constabulary firm. Someday I got upwards from my chair, I'd practise x push-ups. I likewise added 10 bodyweight squats for good measure. The result? I felt more energized and less stiff. More than importantly, I started losing some of the summer intern tiffin chub that I had gained over the summer.

Stay active throughout the day past incorporating a similar routine.

6. Get Upwardly and Walk Exterior for 15 Minutes Every 45 Minutes

I've noticed that I'chiliad more productive when I piece of work in shorter increments and take frequent, minor breaks throughout the day than if I slog through a project in a single sitting. Taking frequent breaks isn't only good for your brain, it can likewise exist good for your body, likewise.  To continue your encephalon and body running on all half dozen cylinders, use the Pomodoro Technique when you're working.

Set a timer for 45 minutes and work non-end. When the 45 minutes are upwards, take a break for 15. Instead of surfing the spider web or chatting with Mark in Hr, become outside and take a leisurely 15 infinitesimal stroll (unless of course you have a chore where your dominate expects you to be at your desk every minute). Plain old walking provides a surprising amount of wellness and heed benefits such as lowering our resting blood force per unit area, reducing obesity, and improving our working memory.

Doing your walk outside will also help you activate the Nature Switch of Manliness, which volition reduce stress, keep y'all mentally sharp, and even boost your testosterone.

You lot tin even make your walks productive by property meetings with co-workers as you stroll. There's something nearly walking and talking that gets the artistic juices flowing. Steve Jobs was famous for his walking meetings. Instead of sitting at a table in a stuffy briefing room, he'd inquire the person he wanted to meet with to take a walk with him outside. Co-workers would proceed to say that those "walking meetings" were some of the near productive meetings they ever experienced. Jobs was likely inspired by Aristotle's peripatetic pedagogy. Instead of standing in front of a large grouping of students to lecture, Aristotle preferred to walk and talk to his students.

If it worked for Jobs and Aristotle, maybe it will work for you. Fifty-fifty if you don't come up up with a quantum business thought during your walking meeting, yous're at least staying active.

7. Perform fifteen Dips When Leaving for and Returning from Lunch

Work those tri's earlier and after dejeuner by cranking out a quick set up of fifteen dips when you lot leave for and return from lunch. Just place your hands on your chair and walk your anxiety out in front of you. I like to go along my legs stretched straight out while I perform the dips. Lower yourself until your arms class a ninety degree angle and so press up. Repeat 14 more times.

8. Perform 30-Second Grok Squats Throughout the Day

Marking Sisson from Mark's Daily Apple tree introduced me to one of the best exercises to help convalesce the back, groin, and hip tightness that comes from sitting in a chair all day: the Grok Squat.

Also known as the Asian Squat or Indigenous Person Squat, the Grok Squat is a sitting position that you detect in cultures that don't have sofas or chairs similar we exercise in the West. Information technology'south something you did as a tot, and have forgotten; our virtually two-twelvemonth-onetime son, Gus, gets down into some actually amazing Grok Squats all the time.

The Grok Squat is very similar to a catcher'due south stance in baseball. Simply squat downwardly until your butt touches your ankles. Keep your heels firmly on the ground and back straight. Hold that position for thirty seconds to a minute. You should experience your hamstrings, quads, Achilles tendons, lower back, and groin gently stretching. If y'all're super stiff, it may take a few days of do to sink into a full-on Grok Squat. Keep at it. Your dorsum and hips will thank you.

To avoid the stiffness that comes from sitting and standing all day, incorporate several curt Grok squats into your daily routine. A cracking time to do them is right later your fifteen infinitesimal long walks. Before you resume working, simply crouch into a Grok squat and agree it for 30 seconds to a infinitesimal. For added effect, do the Grok Squat on top of your desk while property a stapler to a higher place your head like that monkey hoisting the bone at the showtime of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Illustrations by Ted Slampyak

Tags: Exercises

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