Life in the cube

I was sitting in my cube at work (hour 10), checking out Mayo Clinic’s website for anything new. I found a video of people working at treadmill desks.

I do not have a treadmill desk. Currently, I sit in my cube (to borrow a line from Sandra Bullock in the movie While You Were Sleeping) for 10.5 hours a day  “like a veal”. I am not burning the 10% more calories that people who are blessed with bad backs and get notes from the company’s contracted physical pherapy associates and are awarded “sit-stand” stations. So I sit, not stand.

I recently attended a yoga workshop led by Judith Hanson Lasater. I learned many things from listening to Judith, including that the optimal angle for the hips while sitting in a chair is 120 degrees. I am currently sitting in a chair at my job that gives me about a 45 degree angle of hipness. Not good.

I attempted to remedy this. I rolled up a blanket and put it on my desk chair which afforded me a hip angle that more closely approximated the goal. I was feeling smug about having saved about $50 on a new cushion for about an hour, when I started noticing that my right shoulder (which was now clearly at an untherapeutic angle) was killing me, thereby proving once again the theory that “the thigh bone’s connected to the shoulder bone”.

Darn! I guess I also need to attend a workshop about shoulders. Or ergonomics. Back to square one.

4 thoughts on “Life in the cube

  1. Yep, sitting all day can’t be good for anyone…..I do try to stretch and get up more, as I know you do…… Outside work activities like your yoga, walking, exercise should help shake those cobwebs too, and don’t negate chiropractic or massage….ahhhh!

  2. Great info regarding 120 degree hip angle for us “cube-ers”. Next… where to obtain said perfect chair insert to acquire it?? I saw something in a Sky Mall magazine that seems it might come close but I didn’t see any particular angles mentioned in the sense if degrees but they did have a convincing graphic of a well positioned spine in the sitting position! 129.00. I passed it by but now maybe should have paid more attention! Oh and the “sit- stand “station? Speaking from one who went through the paces to get one because of hip issues… you are not missing anything; causes shoulder issues!!

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