Stand Up and Work Challenge: Day 6
It’s Day 6 of your <a title=”How to finally make the switch to a standing desk” href=”https://deskhacks.com/how-to-finally-make-the-switch-to-a-standing-desk/” target=”_blank”>28-day transition to a standing desk</a>.
Last week was a nice slow ramp-up, and this week you’ll be starting to put in some serious time on your feet.
Stick with it! By the end of the week, you’ll have worked up to standing for two hours a day.
<h2>Today’s assignment</h2>
Stand for <strong>72 minutes</strong>.
<h2>How’d it go?</h2>
Leave a comment below when you finish your allotted standing time for the day.
Anything goes here. (Well, within reason.)
<h2>Not signed up for the challenge yet?</h2>
This challenge will help you make the transition to a standing desk, but only if you participate every day. If you’re ready to make the switch, drop your email address in the box below.
Today was the first day where my feet started to hurt. The foot aches are what killed my last effort at switching to a standing desk, so I’ll be curious to see if gradually building up my time like this helps them acclimate to the extra work. I’ll also be experimenting with shoes and mats to see if they help. Right now I’m doing my standing barefoot on a plush carpet.
Another thing I’m noticing after standing for a while is that my lower back gets stiff. My posture is much better when standing, so I think this is due to muscles in my back getting worked in ways they aren’t used to. I might need to come up with a little stretching routine to help alleviate this stiffness.
I have arthritis, plantar fasciitis, and flat feet, I know what it’s
like to deal with painful feet. I’ve found these foot drills to be
indispensable in improving my foot issues, check ’em out:
http://files.meetup.com/445445/footDrills.pdf
Also,
here’s some videos with Kelly Starrett about the same thing, good
stuff. He talks a little too much in west coast bro lingo for me but he
does have some really good insights:
http://www.allthingsgym.com/flat-feet-collapsed-arches-mwod/
My symptoms are pretty close to those… Sitting was screwing up my hips, and after last week, that pain dissipated… But now it’s my knees, and to a lesser extent my feet… But like you, I attribute that to new muscles being worked… It’s still a “better” pain than what I was experiencing — like after a workout… I was barefoot-on-carpet last week, too… I’m wearing sneakers this week to see if that improves things at all… Also, I have my annual physical this morning… I’ll mention this and see if the doc has any insight.
I’d be interested to hear what your doc has to say–please report back if you’re so inclined! 🙂
Doctor basically told me that sitting isn’t necessarily bad… IF you’re active when you’re NOT sitting… She also mentioned that too much standing has its drawbacks as well, and that a balance is ideal… Get up, move around, stretch, walk, strengthen your core, etc… It’s when you’re parked on your ass all day at work, then you come home and park again all evening when you run into trouble.
Yo, I last stood for like 24 minutes 5 days ago, now you want 72 minutes? Adios.
I had a pretty good time today on this one. I brought in a yoga mat from home and stood barefoot on that at work so not too bad with foot pains. Definitely expereiencing the lower back tightness though, a little weighted hip bend stretch normally gets me back to feeling good.
Are we supposed to make up the time we miss? Due to the holiday I missed day 4 & 5. Today wasn’t that bad but I caught myself leaning against the desk a lot.
Two days might be a bit too much of a jump–I’d probably spit the difference between today and tomorrow. I missed July 4 and just went ahead with day 5 as planned. Wasn’t a problem for me.
Today went well. I had better fitting shoes on (wider) and needed to do some work in photoshop. I got lost in the work, and the time flew by.
I’m actually almost never at my desk for that long of a period without stepping away, should I just go for total time standing throughout the day.
Finally got around to going to Ikea and building the new set up at which I went 72 minutes.
done….no issues at all…standing way more than usual.
Nice, way to go. 🙂 I’m making the transition better this time as well.
Started out barefoot and decided that wasn’t a good idea. Neither was my no-arch flats. Put on my Ecco minimalist athletic shoes and I was good to go. Was fighting “fires”, so I didn’t really have my mind on the standing. It went OK, with two stretch breaks.
Pretty good, today. I started to flag a little with ~24 minutes left in the time but then someone came into my office and distracted me. I *really* need to find a mat to stand on, over the holiday break!
I missed a couple of days during my Thanksgiving time off, so I thought that I’d just pick up where I left off. Today’s challenge went by quickly, as I’ve had a few projects that have stacked up. One element of standing that I didn’t think about is the need for a larger work surface when I’m standing. I have the Ergotron Sit-Stand desk-top mounted rig and it works wonderfully well, but I have to sit when I need to spread out a large project. Maybe the next step is the larger desk that moves up and down.
Has anyone found any half-sole inserts that work well? I find that the full inserts make the toe box of my dress shoes too tight.
Did day 5 & 6, off on Friday. So far so good.
As did the other steps, this one went by quickly and I wanted to go on.
But I do feel the need to “walk around”, as there is some tension in my hips.
Seventy-two minutes was a little harder to pull off. By 60 minutes, I began to fidget a little more. Maybe it was because I didn’t get around to it until the end of my day and was therefore distracted or maybe it was the surface. I was barefoot on a carpeted floor. For what it’s worth, I’m not at all discouraged. Ready for the next challenge.
I split it up as I hears no more than an hour at a time. Was a little tough, but I thunk that by splitting things up, it will be very weasy. I have been doing it 1st thing in the AM – seems to be a good time to start – especially when checking emails and less paper things…
Went well today – moved from foot to foot alot.
Not too bad today. I walked around mid-way through the 72 minutes and felt like this helped. Also today is my first day with the
Imprint CumulusPRO Commercial Grade Standing Desk Anti-Fatigue (on Amazon for $60). I will be curious if the mat helps with the incremental increases in standing time. I read somewhere about not standing for more than an hour. Can we split the intervals up or should we do the full time all at once?
I have been using the $40 Imprint Mat. I feel pretty good. I have stood more than the challenge has dictated. I also wear a FitBit so I go for a short walk each hour. My knees do hurt a bit, but I had a fall some months ago. Getting that checked out today, hopefully. I am not giving up. I also ordered some Dansko shoes so we will see how that goes.
I stood for the first time at work, normally I am at home to stand. 72 min went by quick when I focus, felt it when I was waiting for stuff to happen. My stand desk works great 🙂
The first week has been okay, though I missed some days due to a change in daily routine. I’ve chosen to slip back in on day 6, even though I haven’t built the muscle up at the nice easy pace. As I look at the timer for today, I’ve got 18 minutes left of my 1 hour and 12 minutes. There are some aches and pains, but mainly I am testing this out. Old ankle injuries and a poorly elevated laptop screen are my main pains.
I wasn’t feeling well yesterday so I didn’t stand at all. I picked up where I left off today. My neck was hurting a bit. It’s the same old problem. I don’t have a way to set my Varidesk at the same standing height as last time, so I’m having to adjust to get it right.
Unless anyone knows of a way to mark the height settings on a Varidesk.
Day 6 complete! I was not feeling like standing today, but I’m so glad I made the time. 🙂
Completed my 72 minutes with no issues. I have noticed lessening on my sacroiliac/sciatica issues. Only problem is heels hurt a bit – but until I get my anti-fatigue mat, I have taken a pair of flip flops and turned them backwards and rest my heels on them! Problem solved!