The Ultimate Guide To Standing vs. Sitting, Anti-Fatigue Mats, Standing Desks, Sitting Myths & More!

In this episode of the Ben Greenfield.

Fitness show, what they found is when you're sitting, it's suppressed. And so this LPP one is impacted by exercise. But the really scary part is that it's sensitive to sitting but resistant to exercise. So the best ergonomic position, the absolute best one, is always your next one. Since 1960, the number of jobs that involve sort of sedentary activity have increased by a whopping 83%. Nearly half of all the jobs that are out there for us Spoons spend our day in the office don't involve a whole lot of activity.

He's an expert in human performance and nutrition, voted America's top personal trainer and one of the globe's most influential people in health and fitness. His show provides you with everything you need to optimize physical and mental performance. He is Ben Greenfield.

Power, speed, mobility, balance, whatever it is for you, that's the natural movement. Get out there. When you look at all the stuff, studies done, studies that have shown the greatest efficacy.

All the information you need in one place right here, right now on the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast.

Hey, folks, it's Ben Greenfield here. And it's actually been over five years since I've personally adopted the habit of frequently alternating positions throughout my workday. I have a video on YouTube that a lot of people seem to have watched called how should you stand at a standing desk? I recorded a podcast recently about this, this idea of standing on memory foam and using these different kind of mats under your desk. And my own personal office that I'm in right now, it's like this tiny playground. It's littered with kettlebells and a pull up bar and a boxing bag and a treadmill workstation and a variety of different standing surfaces. I've even the one that I'm standing on right now is actually I've taken an acupressure mat, which is a mat that has all these little pokey things coming out of it, and I've wrapped it around like one of these square foam mats. And so I'm getting acupressure therapy on my feet as I'm podcasting. Isn't that cool? But I just can't get enough of this stuff. So today I'm interviewing a guy named Josh Kirst. And Josh mans the helm of one of the most innovative standing workstation companies on the face of the planet that makes extremely cool looking and very functional furniture for offices and for the whole standing workstation environment. His company is called Focal Upright. Josh is actually the executive vice president of Focal Upright furniture. He is himself a certified nerd. He holds a BSE in industrial engineering. He's a certified professional ergonomist, which is something that we're going to get into today. This whole concept of workplace ergonomics and everything from carpal tunnel to how far away your monitor should be from your face, whether you're sitting or standing. He's a certified industrial ergonomist and he is a member of the ANSI office seating committee. I have no clue what that is, but it does sound impressive. So, Josh, welcome to the show.

Ben, it's a pleasure to be here. You know, I am, I think of myself as a, an ergonomics geek and also an avid health enthusiast, sailor, sometimes tennis player. And my newest passion is stand up paddle boarding. So like to shed a little light on this whole topic of inactivity. And what's up with sitting?

Well, have you created the stand up paddle boarding desk yet?

Working on that, Trust me, as a product designer, it's in the wings.

I could just imagine that you've got a little pole with maybe like a Kindle on it coming up from your paddle board and you could be out in the sunshine on the ocean. There'd probably have to be some waterproofing involved, but I'd buy one of those.

I can tell you, you're not far.

Anyways, before we started recording today's show, you actually used this really cool term that I think really encompasses a big issue that I see out there in active people, in athletes, in exercise enthusiasts, and that's this concept of an active couch potato. An active couch potato. And you were telling me about this study in English Premier League players that looked at these folks who were athletes but also lived rather sedentary lives off the field. Can you get into what that study looked at and also what this term active couch potato actually means?

Yeah, absolutely. So full transparency, active couch potato. Actually, that term came from Genevieve Healy, Australian, from University of Queensland. It's really a term to describe those of us who otherwise have active outside of the office activities that we do. We might meet our recommended exercise guidelines, but we spend long periods of time sitting down. And, you know, that's actually an increasing number of us. Since 1960, in my lifetime, the number of jobs that involve sort of sedentary activity have increased by a whopping 83%. You know, that means that nearly half of all the jobs that are out there for us who, you know, spend our day in the office don't involve a whole lot of activity. So, you know, when we look at active couch potato. There is, you know, sort of this concept of maybe I can exercise my way out of this problem. And you know, there was a recent study that was actually looked at by Dr. Richard Wheeler. He's, he was, he's a physician for a Premier League club football club. He's also an advisor to the UK British Paralympic squad. And what they looked at is what is the real factor if I spend a whole bunch of time exercising and spending time on the pitch and what do I do on the time that I'm not on the pitch? And what they found was pretty shocking. So the uncomfortable truth is there was about 79% of the time when they weren't on the pitch that folks were spending their non training time, these otherwise very active people, they were spending in a sedentary state. And so what happens?

And these are professional footballers, right?

Absolutely, absolutely. You know, the best of the best. And you know, what they're finding is, you know, there's very little research in this area. And so what Dr. Wheeler finds is that, you know, there's far greater time spent inactive than those that weren't even athletes. And so what is the impact of that on recovery and, and heaven forbid, what happens when these guys retire, you know?

Yeah, yeah. And I'll put the full link to the PDF for that study in the show notes. You can go over to BenGreenfieldFitness.com standmore BenGreenfieldFitness.com Standmore will get you access to all the show notes as well as that particular study. But it really was interesting. These dudes were professional athletes out destroying their body on the field, but then the amount of sedentary time that they engaged in was as much as or greater than the average person who wasn't a professional athlete. What does that mean from a health standpoint? What happens?

Yeah, so there's actually two things that happen, right? So one of them is that we think we can exercise our way out of this problem. And it turns out there's yet another, I am a geek. So there is another researcher out there, Dr. Mark Hamilton, he's down at Louisiana State and he's actually identified this key gene and I won't get too technical, but it's called LPP1. Basically, that gene helps prevent us from blood clotting and inflammation. It keeps your cardiovascular system healthy. What they found is when you're sitting, it is suppressed. This LPP one is impacted by exercise. But the really scary part is that it's sensitive to sitting but resistant to exercise. So we really have to be concerned, I think for our health, that we just can't exercise our way out of this. We have to think of this as a holistic aspect. What are we doing in the balance of the day, what are we putting in our body and how are we spending our day?

This LPP gene. And I'll put a link to that study as well in the show notes, I noticed that that one is particularly responsible for, I believe, decreasing the slowing of blood flow. And so when you're sitting for long periods of time and then you stand up and you begin moving, say you go to do your CrossFit wad at the end of the day, after like eight hours of sitting, it would mean that not only are you getting fewer of the metabolic benefits of standing and being active during the workday, but because of that drop in blood flow, would you theoretically be at a higher likelihood of having like a cardiovascular event or any other like oxygen or nutrient delivery issues associated with low blood flow in that workout that you do at the end of the day?

Yeah, absolutely. And it's not just about that. It's the recovery, you know, the whole aspect of recovery. So you hit the nail right on the head. So it turns out it works in combination with this other aspect, which is a lipoprotein called lipase, and that's an enzyme. And so I think of that as, I don't know if you ever played Pac man, but it's like the little Pac man eating the dots. It's the vacuum cleaner for fat in our bloodstream. And so when we move, and he's coined this phrase, lipa, or low intensity physical activity, it sort of just chomps away at those fats. And what we find is that when we're actually not active, that lipase activity drops. It drops. It's, it's virtually non existent. It's 90 to 95% reduction. So that's a 75% reduction in the ability of the muscles to remove these sort of noxious fats from our bloodstream. And then unfortunately, there's also this decrease in the good cholesterol that we're all looking for, that hdl. Right.

Really? So HDL will drop if you're spending long periods of time sitting?

Yeah, and just a few hours of sitting suppresses that gene that helps our cardiovascular system maintain that healthy aspect. And we want to control inflammation. That's our body's natural defense against injury. And so the worrying thing is after a day of sitting, exercise doesn't seem to turn the genes back on again. It's sensitive to sitting and resistant to exercise.

Interesting. So in terms of the amount of time that it would take to say, like suppress that LPP gene or to suppress lipase or to say drop hdl, how long a period of time are we talking about? Are we talking about 2 hours spent sitting? 8 hours? How long do you actually have to have your butt planted in a chair?

That's a great question. So the negative impact starts happening pretty quickly. We see in a few minutes the trend starting to happen. And when people start to exceed two hours a day or two hours of non stop exposure, that it really kicks in. Now we'll compare that to what sort of the data is of how much time people really spend sitting. You know, the latest information we have is that, you know, we think of ourselves as we're actually professional sitters. We spend about 64 hours a week sitting. I'll do the math for you. It's nine hours a day. We spend a small amount of time standing and milling about. So, you know, it is just a few hours of that sitting can really, you know, put our whole system in a detriment. And, you know, it takes a lot to again to resist that sensitivity to sitting and to overcome it. That's where this low intensity physical activity, you know, thinking about doing a little over a long period of time rather than trying to do a whole bunch at the end or the beginning of the day.

So that's two hours of consistent prolonged sitting during the day. But if you were to break that up, if you were to even break like eight hours of sitting up with frequent breaks, that would at least ensure you you were not sitting for up to two hours. You could eliminate a lot of this damage that would occur from sitting.

Yeah, Ben, you nailed it. Absolutely. So that's sort of the newest message. That's the recommendation. Get up. You know, you shouldn't have to call your doctor to see if getting off your is right for you. You know, I think you really have to think about getting up every 30 minutes. That we find in the data that 20 to 30 minutes of prolonged sitting or inactivity of any manner is really the limit. And if we can get up a couple times an hour, we're going to use the word transitions. And if listeners only remember one thing from this podcast, may it be the next step which is the best ergonomic position? The absolute best one is always your next one.

Yeah, that's like the best workout is the one you're not doing. That whole idea of specific adaptation to impose demands that's really interesting. I've never thought about it that way. But it is true that right now I'm standing on this silly little mat while I'm talking to you, but probably the best position for me to be in is kneeling, right? Or maybe leaning against my stool. So you've got this research that you mentioned to me again before we started recording that was presented at the American College of Sports Medicine meeting in which they talked about what happens to people during the day when they've exercised. And I thought this was really interesting. Now, I'm not a morning exercise guy. I tend to do more of my hard exercise at the end of the day. But I know a lot of people who start their day with a 4 or 5 or a 6am CrossFit wad or a bike ride or something like that. Can you explain what this research actually found?

Yep. So what they found, and this was at Illinois State University, they found that people are actually, when they exercise, that the balance of their day, they're 30% less active overall on days when they exercise versus days that they don't hit the gym. And so, you know, again, there's been a term other than active couch potato. They use this term called compensation effect that, you know, maybe I've done enough for the day, I deserve something or I, I don't need to really continue on. And you know, what they found is that those harmful biological signals are not, they're not enough for us to actually. So those bio signals are not enough for us to continue. I look at it this way. My Bronx Nana lived till she was 93 in a brownstone, right? And every time I just say her name and I, I immediately smell ravioli coming from her kitchen, right? I remember after we would eat, we would take a walk around the neighborhood, right? And that was part of the whole benefit of after you eat that you exercise. You can cut your glucose levels in half in as little as 30 minutes. So make no mistake, it's good to exercise and it's good to be active, especially after you eat. But if you have one of those stand up desks if you are going to exercise, what they found is it's definitely better after you eat and to get that activity going, but to continue on the rest of the day, not to fall into the trap of that compensation effect, as it were, because it's a holistic aspect. It's what we do with our body, what we put in our body that makes the difference.

I've been certainly pulled into that myself on the rare occasions when I Do a hard workout at the beginning of the day to justify that by either sitting more or also I know the compensation effect applies to eating as well by eating more. And even I know a lot of folks who do like say intermittent fasting. I've looked at their diets and even plugged some of those diets into these calorie calculators. And some folks who for example, skip breakfast and pat themselves on the back for intermittent fasting, they go ape nuts at dinner and they wind up instead of eating say 800 calories with dinner, consume 1500 with dinner and it's kind of a wash. And it seems like the same thing can happen with exercise to where you do that really difficult, say 40 minute wad at 6am, you shower, you head to the office and then you pat yourself on the back that you just went to the pain cave and back that morning. So you sit from 8am till noon not moving, being hyper productive because hey, you already worked out.

Yeah. And so that's, you know, that's perhaps why we're seeing this 30% greater than, you know, than the non athletes and those that the days that you don't exercise. So I think it's a message, you know, you know, there's this huge emphasis now on technology and the idea of Fitbits and all those things to help remind us. I just try and remember that a body has a natural Fitbit. It's called proprioception. And the more we can be in tune to that and the more we can take the day as a whole and not just do it in huge bursts, but again, the word is balance. And just like anything else, the best posture is always your next one. And if you can find a way in your office to keep that movement going. Listen, the last thing I want to do after a big workout is tighten my hip flexors and compress my lower back and get my oxygenated blood flow down. I want to keep that going. And so that's where that low intensity physical activity really is. The magic, right?

Exactly. And I like what you mentioned about these reminders versus listening to your body's own clues, like your own proprioceptive cues that it might be time to change position. When I used to do Ironman triathlon, I initially would set a little clock on my stopwatch during the race to beep every 15 to 20 minutes to remind me to drink or to remind me to eat or take my electrolyte capsules. And I eventually got to the point after a couple years of racing to where I was able to listen to my body. I knew when it was time to drink, I knew when it was time to eat. I would be able to tell you almost to the minute when 15 or 20 minutes had gone by. And I think that that should be everybody's aspiration would be, yeah, maybe initially you need one of these apps like I think there's one called Work Break or Stretch Time. You could go Google stretching apps for. Maybe I'll put a few links for folks in the show notes. But there's these apps that will just pop up at certain frequencies and remind you, hey, take a break. Pomodoro technique, go whatever, 55 minutes on and seven minutes off or whatever the time period is. But I think that ultimately for you to really be clued in to your body, that you should get to the point and this is what I personally do to where I don't use any of those timers or any of those work break apps. I just know I listen to my body and, and when it's time to switch position, when something's feeling fatigued or tight or I feel like I've got joints locked or something is starting to hurt, I switch positions.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I think, you know, the key that I've found in my personal experience. So, you know, as an ergonomist, you know, back in the 90s, I was the guy who outfitted his entire staff with sit to stand desks. And you know, I looked around and after, you know, the new shininess was worn off, very few people were standing. And it is something that you have to initially set a reminder for. And I think that's what led me to a sort of a new design form factor which is halfway between sitting and standing, which is really what I'm calling a stand assist or, you know, a way to keep that motion going. I like the benefits of thinking on my feet. I like the 10 to 15% oxygenated blood flow that happens. I like not being, you know, sad and depressed in a chair in my office. I. I like those feel good hormones and I like it when they reach my brain. I just want to make sure it's all in balance because standing gets tiring. And I think that's why the whole idea of coming up with some alternatives to shift that posture around is really important.

Yeah. I've got another question for you about shifting posture around before I do that. For those of you listening in, I did find a very recently published article on 12 different apps that will remind you to take a break and when to take a break. When you're at work. And I'll put a link to that in the show notes if you want to. If you want to start by getting an app, because, like I mentioned, you may need to initially have that reminder. So I'll put a link to that article over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com standmore. But my question for you now, Josh, is my back hurts a lot less now that I use a standing workstation or a treadmill workstation. I'll do some lunging. I'll do some kneeling. I'll lie down on my stomach sometimes, lie down on my back sometimes, and occasionally I'll even. Even sit. But my primary position really is standing. At a standing workstation, that's probably about 60 to 70% of my work time. I've found that even though my back hurts less, my wrists and my elbows actually hurt more. And I'm curious, I'm totally kind of looking for, I guess, a free personal consultation while I have you on my podcast. What would you say, as an ergonomist to that? What do you think would cause someone at a standing workstation to have shoulder or elbow or wrist pain?

Yeah. So full transparency. I'm a University of Michigan guy, so I look towards this university down south of me. It's the Ohio State University. It pains me to say that, Ben, but actually, for some Data on this, Dr. Bill Maris and the Spine Research Institute is doing some great work on this. What they're finding, actually, is that after about 20 to 30 minutes of standing, our body actually tries to get support in different ways. So we move our feet. We might actually find something called a kyphotic response. So our shoulders start hunching forward, and we inadvertently rest our hands and our wrists and our elbows on a flat work surface. You know, what we see is we're able, after a period of time, to create a more lordotic position. And for the listenership, lordotics is basically your shoulders pitch behind your hips. Kind of think the position of those Grateful Dead bears, you know, leaning back. And, you know, I'm a sailor, so it's kind of like hiking out. And that real shift opens up the spine and actually helps reduce spinal stenosis. And another thing we found is that ergonomists, we've got it all wrong. Ergonomics, what I call Ergonomics 1.0, was where we had these keyboards tip forward and try and reduce this tipping or this wrist angle. We're finding actually when our shoulders go back, that positive tilting, tilting it towards our body can help reduce that Wrist stress and elbow stress, sort of form following function, I think of it. Who were the first ergonomists? I think they were probably monks. When they transcribed the Bible, they didn't do it on flat surfaces. They did on angled surfaces. Otherwise they would have got carpal tunnel monchitis or something bad like that. Right.

Okay. So right now I'm standing. For me, to achieve that lordotic, rather than that kyphotic posture that you're talking about, would I simply shift my hips farther, farther posteriorly behind me?

You shift your hips forward, actually.

Okay, so I tuck my pelvis and shift my hips forward.

Absolutely.

And when I do that, what should I expect to happen at the elbows and the wrists? If I'm standing at a workstation and I shift my hips forward, should they bend, should I feel less pressure on the table on which they're resting, or what should that actually feel like?

All right, so here's my pro tip. So before we go into that lordotic position, we stand at our desk and then we shake our arms out. Relax. It's ergonomics, really. And now we almost close our eyes and raise our hands to a handshake position and we should walk forward and the bottom of our hand should just graze the top of the keyboard. And so I like to say, if you can't shake hands with the work, it's unfriendly. So with these height adjustable workstations, I find that the majority of people have them inappropriately positioned, so it's either too low or too high. So once you've got that perfect fit and you have some sort of foot support, whether it be a foot rail or an all terrain place your non dominant foot. So I'm a righty, so that means my left foot up on that foot rail. And that sort of gives us an open hip position and naturally puts our shoulders back so our hips go forward, our foot goes up on that foot rail, and we can actually sort of lean back just a little bit, giving us that natural lordosis. Now, you know, I make a point of actually tilting my desks and I actually make a line of those because I find that that form follows function. That way it's much, much easier to adopt as, as well with a stand assist. But those.

Okay, gotcha. I've. I've actually tried this as you've been talking. I have both a treadmill as well as a foam target for shooting arrows. Don't ask. Sitting in front of me here at my desk. And I've got my foot now up on the treadmill and it feels like that automatically kind of shifted my hips forward. So would it behoove people then? And I do want to ask you about all these different anti fatigue and balance mats and things like that that are popping up nowadays. Would it behoove someone who is using a standing workstation to then ensure that they have something like a footstool or a log or maybe a small foam roller or something they could put their foot up on or one foot up on and have one foot down as an alternate position?

Yeah, absolutely. I use the 10 and 2 rule. Those are where you put your hands on the steering wheel. 10 and 2 means after 10 minutes of any posture, I spend 2 minutes in an alternative posture. The 2 minutes as my non dominant foot up on a foot rail. I like to think that 5 million, you know, think about going to a pub or any other establishment. Do they want you to stay or do they want you to go? 5 million Irishmen can't be wrong. So at this point it also opens up from a science standpoint, the hip position, right. Our flexors are extremely tight when we sit at 90 degrees. Going to the maximum to 180 is a real tough position. Actually, back in the 50s there was a guy named Dr. Keegan who opened up that hip and created these kneeling chairs. That was a good initial idea. Unfortunately it came down do you want a bad back or bad knees and which one quick? I don't think I want either of those. So that's the whole idea of sort of this upright dynamic seating and stand assists where that's come from. But I would tell listenership to absolutely give you something to change your posture and change it up frequently.

Yeah, that's actually a great lead into the next question that I wanted to ask you. We've obviously talked about sitting and how if you are going to sit, you shouldn't sit for at any point more than two hours. For any given time during the day, we've talked about standing and even standing with one foot up. I mentioned walking on a treadmill as being another option. Using one of these treadmill workstations. What are a couple of other positions that you find yourself in during the day as alternate positions to either standing, sitting or walking or positions that you would recommend as something maybe somebody hadn't thought of?

Yeah. So I'll take walking one step further. I would say that I'm a big fan of the walking meeting. The very clickable phrase sitting is the new smoking came from my friend Nilifer Merchant. She brought that up in a Ted Talk a couple of years ago. But, you know, the idea that also getting out and spending time in a walking meeting is a really great posture. It's a way to be digitally anonymous, to have a small group of two to four people. I like to carry with me on those walking meetings. A stand assist. A stand assist is nothing more. Listen, it's this podcast being recorded right around the time of the holidays here. I know that I'll be seeing my friends and my family. And what happens when we all get together? We inevitably all congregate in the kitchen and inevitably will end up leaning up against the kitchen counter. This idea of perching or leaning is really what I'm calling a third posture. It's perching or opening up the hip to 135 degree angle. Ironically, it's what the body adopts in the absence of gravity. So if you're trying to imagine this, look at an astronaut in space. It's where your body comes to that natural position. It kind of looks like Josh on a Harley with highway pegs. You know, my open hip position, nice arm position. And I think that leaning or dynamic perching position really represents an alternative that allows me to take my own advice. You know, the best posture is always your next one.

So you're actually leaning with your. With your back to this surface.

Yeah. Think of.

Okay.

You know, if you've ever seen a parade route, you know, someone on a parade, they actually have a back support or actually a leaning support. You might see that on the front of a fishing boat, perhaps, you know, and so what we've done is really taken that to the next step. And I, as you mentioned, I'm a member of the BIFMA x51 business industry Furniture manufacturers Association.

Yes. And everybody knows what that is.

Yeah. Of course, they're all geeks like me, the PFMA x51 committee on this. And we're seeing a tremendous growth in the number of vendors and manufacturers and designers that are trying to really bring some of these health risks of sitting under control and give people some alternatives. So I get asked once a week, right, Should I sit all day? Should I stand all day? And I say, I don't mean to alarm you, but there might be a third alternative. Right. So that's happening between.

Yeah, interesting. Now, one of the things I wanted to ask you about, in full disclosure, I do know that your company actually makes the particular stool that I use for this, but I will actually lean back on this stool called a mogo, which is. Well, it's just what it Sounds like it's a stool that allows you to lean your body and almost perch in what sounds like a way that you've just described. Is that similar to leaning against a counter when you're using one of these stools, or is that a completely different position?

No, I think you got it. I mean, really, what it is, it's supporting the pelvic area. So we're actually spending some time with that Natural lordosis. I think one of the key aspects is, listen, when you sit in a chair, the responsibility for your posture has been taken away from you. You can sit, you can slump, you can slump your shoulders, you can text neck, do all those things. With dynamic seating, I think the whole principle is that we give back to you what is rightfully yours. Right. Your posture. If you're on a bicycle, you own your posture. You know, you control, you tighten your abs, you create something called neat. NEAT is an acronym for non Exercise activity thermogenesis, where I'm firing off my obliques and then recovering. And so that whole idea of natural lordosis is really promoted by this posture.

Yeah, I actually, I hadn't used this stool for about six months, and when I. When I booked you to come on the podcast, that jogged my memory about that being an alternate position that I. That I hadn't been using. And so I took it back out, and it's up at the kitchen. Kitchen table now, which, because I have two different standing workstations, I have my office, which is where I have, like a bigger desk, like a standing workstation desk with a treadmill next to it. But then up at the kitchen table, I have one of these things called. It's probably a competitor of your company's, but it's called a Vera desk, which is like this little desk that you put on a table, and it goes up and down, and I could put my laptop on it, but I put your Mogo Store stool up there by the kitchen table. And I've been using that the past couple of weeks, and it seems to have helped me achieve a position that puts a little less stress on my shoulders and my wrists. I hadn't realized that until we were just talking. That's because it allows you to achieve this position of lordosis when you're leaning against something like a stool rather than just standing straight up and down. Do I understand that correctly?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So form follows function. If you look at it from a right side view, you can see it almost happen. We've actually done some analysis and looked at that and had individuals go through not just a few minutes and not just through a few hours. What happens to our body and the compensating mechanism. So there are sort of things we can see and there's some sort of unintended things that happen over a period of time or inside our body, as I mentioned, with some of those genes that happen.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I do think. I think that that mogo stool is actually pretty. Pretty cool. I like that you can fold it up and take it with you on the go. And again, not to belabor the point, but if anybody wants to get one, I'll put a link to that in the shownotes over@bengreenfieldfitness.com standmore just because I at the time happened to be a little bit infatuated with it. Thanks to you, Josh.

Yeah, thanks.

Okay, so I want to ask you now about some of these standing mats. I actually have a project that I've. That I've earmarked as soon as the river isn't frozen over anymore to do with my kids. And that is I want to create one of these pebble mats. I want to get a bunch of river rocks from down by the river and create a mat that has all these little pebbles that you can stand on that kind of force your feet to shift and be in new positions during the day. Kind of like this acupressure mat that I'm standing on right now, but maybe a little bit more beautiful. As far as these newer standing mats, there's a lot of them out there. There's one called the Kai Bounder. I recently had the inventor of that one. It's patterned after these Korean rice paddy fields. You stand on it and it makes you balance, almost like a balance mat that you'd see at a gym. There's another one called the Fluid Stance, and the company that owns the Fluid Stance recently sent that to me. And it's almost like a skateboard with a little balance fulcrum in the middle that forces you to balance from side to side as you're working. And then there are these mats with different topographies on them. I think the most popular one is called the Topo Matte. Now, when it comes to these mats, I'm curious because it sounds like you're kind of on the cutting edge of this stuff. Has there been any research or any studies that have looked at anything from the changes in the in foot health or foot strength or the actual effects of using something like that?

Yeah. So you ask a really good question, because in Terms of the published literature, there's very, very little. And it comes down to identifying how much information and what we can quantify the differences subjectively and objectively for. So you know, what we, what we are looking for is, and what I observed is there's sort of the subconscious movement that happens. I've coined the phrase rocking your day job. Whether it's, you know, side to side or ap, sorry, anterior and posteriorly, that whole idea of transitions because I'm a big fan of, you know, changing and obviously getting that next posture. There is this whole other aspect that other than in an office space, the world and nature is rarely flat. Right. There's, there's just a tremendous change and variability in terrain.

Yeah, sure. Tell that to anybody who has tried to set up a tent while camping.

Right, yeah. So, you know, I think as you know, we look at and there's this great researcher who's recently on npr, Esther Goklay and she talks about eight ways to a pain free back and why in many of the indigenous cultures there's very little expression of lower back pain because they spend all this time on these varying terrains. So you would think that there'd be this great literature review of all this wonderful published aspects. And you know what? There's just the uncomfortable truth is we really don't have a whole lot of it. Recently Dr. Monroe Kaiserling at the University of Michigan looked around this topic and said, you know what? We really can't say with any measure of certainty because of what's happening because they haven't uniquely identified whether it's the modulus or the durometer, sorry, the stiffness and the rebound of the individual mat. Whether it's subjective factors or objective factors, I will tell you that there is hope. And right now there is something called heart rate variability. Hrv.

Oh yeah, we've talked about that a lot on this show before.

So this study that is being published right now, and I wish I could share more with you that's going to be coming out that talks about HRV and how just like you could ask me if I was. It's sort of the lie detector test of if your listenership is familiar with hrv then they understand that's an objective measure of discomfort or comfort.

Yeah.

And so that's going to really pinpoint this. So I'd say stay tuned. We're going to see more of that here in the near future. But right now there's some unpublished stuff out there. I think there's three aspects. One is they're Looking at moves per minute. Right. So as one of the data points, does the mat induce more moves? There's actually the footprint or ground covered. You know, so sort of the wristwatches will tell you number of steps and actually the terrain you've covered. And then there's sort of this transition fore and aft. So you know, I hesitate to put that out there because it's unpublished and you know, largely done by the vendors themselves. But, but stay tuned.

Okay. I want to ask you about a couple of things that again, full disclosure, are created by the company that you work for, but that are related to this question. I see that you actually have an anti fatigue mat that you guys, you show it on your website and the shape of it is to me very strange. It's like flat with a curvature and it's very asymmetric. Can you tell me why the anti fatigue mat on your website is designed the way that that it is?

Yeah. So again, I want to promote movement. So there's a special modulus and durometer that you know, after 30 years of sort of experimentation we've sort of honed in on. But that's not enough. Right. We need to create sort of that toes up dorsiflexion position that is so good. And in combination with a way to, you know, do desk lunges. And I've actually created a standing desk yoga series if people are interested. Downward desk dog and various. I have other elements that give people a chance to keep some measure of dynamic motion through their day.

So you know, that really just interrupt you real quick. Where can I find that?

So if you look on our focalupright.com under our blog section, there's actually a link to that and there's actually a media hub that we have some of.

That posted as well. Okay, cool. I'll put a link to that in the show. Notes for folks.

Yeah, that was a nice series. And some five minute yoga things that you can do. And I think it really brings. Brings another measure of wellness and something I can actually do during the day. So yeah, that's kind of our message with the anti fatigue mat. I think again, you want to own your posture. You want to make sure I actually for a period of the time during the day actually the asymmetric design is so I can actually straddle the mat and actually not use that. Go in between a hard surface and a soft surface again to change it up.

Got it. And it looks like that particular mat is kind of designed to be used with more of this stool or this Leaning setup?

Yeah, absolutely.

Okay, cool. Got it. Very interesting. You guys create some pretty crazy looking standing workstation setups. I like it. So let's say, kind of a fun question here, Josh. Let's say you were going to design an office. I was talking about my own office. So I've got little kettlebells and, and pull up bars here and there. But if you were to design an office that was gonna be like the ultimate office, conducive to both productivity as well as decreasing the risk factors that we talked about earlier, like downregulation of lipase or the downregulation of this gene responsible for, you know, enhancing blood flow, those type of things. Besides some of the, the practical stuff we've already discussed, you know, just changing positions more, et cetera. What kind of things would you encounter incorporate? As a professional ergonomist, what kind of things would you incorporate into the ultimate active office?

That's a great question. Let's see, first, maybe not an unlimited.

Budget, but enough money to play around.

Well, I'm a thrifty individual, so I always try the same token. I realized the only time price comes before value is in the dictionary. So I would start with the visual environment. I would make sure that I had the best lighting. And so there's actually a measure of lighting that is called the color rendering index. I would work towards at least lighting that had CRI of greater than 90, clearly outside lighting and natural lighting as a hundred. I would start with that. I would work on the acoustics and actually allow me to vary. Just like a villager at town might have different zones, I'd create my office so that I'd have a zone for heads down, focused work. An area where there might be some acoustical privacy. I might actually have a standing collaboration area that might. Meetings that have more than five or six people I find aren't very productive. So I'd kind of keep it small and keep it active and keep it upright. Using an upright collaboration area, I'd have a nice measure of light. I mean color. So I'd actually look at, you know, turns out the human eye is most receptive to about 420, 430 nanometers of light. So Roy G. Biv that's sort of the GB part of it. So a nice green and blue.

Wait, so a green and blue mix of light would be the best form of light for a workplace.

I would actually use that for color accents. I would say the color rendering index of a full spectrum light or an LED light. And having that you're seeing a number of different light manufacturers provide.

Okay, so you mean the actual, like color of the wall or say like the, the ceiling or something like that. You would use greens and blues?

I would use some of that. I would actually mix up with some of the different colors that are out there. I would, I would say that yellows are also a nice sort of inspiring creativity. And, you know, red's been given a bad name because it sort of generates additional heart rate. But that might be not in my heads down focus area, but more in maybe the active collaboration area. Clearly one of the things we're finding, and this was from the School of Public Health at Harvard, they found that fresh air turns out it's really important. So going green for it has lots of benefits, but it's also good for creativity. And the people that have access to fresh air and make sure that we let the outdoors in is a really important thing. I'm a big advocate of the kettle ball as well. Taking some time out of the day and getting the heart rate up. Maybe in my door jam, having a chin up bar so I could do a nice lean or a nice hang. And then, you know, so in the furniture world, there's a big focus on the sit to stand desk. I'm going to tell a dirty little secret here that no one wants to hear. After the shininess is born off of those sit to stand desks, very few people, I'd say six to eight weeks, stand at all because their hip flexors are so tight. And I would make sure that I have a stand assist paired with whatever desk I have, whether it's a competitor varidesk or whatever it might be.

Yeah, well, my dirty little secret on that is that I typically leave the actual varidesk in the standing position. And because I have it on the the kitchen table, I simply sit at the table next to it and then stand up when I want to stand up at it. So I'm too lazy to actually push the button that makes it go down to the seated position myself. So I have the opposite problem of not having it in the seated position. These are some really interesting tips, and it'd be very cool to compare our respective offices. A couple of things that I've added to my office, my wife bought some of these houseplants that, based off of a NASA study that was done on houseplants, have been proven to be some of the better ones at detoxifying the air and producing oxygen. And I've got a couple of those in the office. I also use These bulbs, I don't know if you've heard of these, Josh. They're made by a company called Lighting Science. They're called Awake and alert bulbs that produce high amounts of light from the blue light wave spectrum to enhance wakefulness. Obviously, you wouldn't want these anywhere near, say, like a master bedroom where you'd want to be sleeping, but for an office. They're actually in recessed cans in my office ceiling for enhancing wakefulness. I have them on right now during the day. And then one of the other little things that I've added into my office, among a variety of other things, is the treadmill that I use is called a trueform treadmill. And it is impossible to move the belt on the treadmill to make it walk unless you are leaning forward and activating your glutes. It's a manually powered treadmill with no motor, so it doesn't produce a lot of electrical pollution or anything like that. But it also trains your body how to both walk properly and run properly when you're on it. So I can kill two birds with one stone and not only be moving, but also training my butt how to stay activated, which is actually pretty important from an athletic standpoint. So those are a few of the little tweaks I have in my office.

Those are great, great tips. Yeah, absolutely. And just as a quick note, on the whole blue discussion and visible spectrum, after age 18, it's all downhill. We lose our visible ability to see those blues dramatically, almost logarithmically. So it's a thing that people tend to like blues, but we lose the ability to see that. So it makes sense to replenish.

That would also be an interesting topic to bring up. Again, not to geek out too much, and I know we're starting to run short on time, but there's a company that makes an in ear phototherapy device used for things like seasonal affective disorder or resetting your circadian rhythm after you've traveled to a new location. It's called a human charger. And rather than targeting blue light receptors in your eyes, it actually targets blue light receptors in your ears. You can literally have this thing on and in your ears while you're working, say at your office, to enhance wakefulness via hitting the actual photoreceptors within your ear with blue light.

Oh, that's awesome. I would tell you, there's one other thing that has really sparked my curiosity. I had the privilege of being on a panel during one of these ignite sessions in LA recently, and I got to. I Don't know how I got to be one of the speakers, but I was positioned next to a guy named Ben Weber and he runs a company called Humanize. And they're really talking about, I don't know if you ever saw the movie Moneyball, but using analytics to help sort of Sporting world. They're using analytics to help how people work in space and in the office space. And, and the best example of this was recently done by Deloitte in Amsterdam where they actually have every light fixture as a URL that monitors where you are. And you know, although it does sound a bit big brotherish, it does tell me and tracks where I'm at during the day and who I'm connecting with and whether or not I'm being sedentary. So it is technology at the next level. And I would say that a combination of organic and technology science here together might be the best office that I would have if I wanted to be as creative as I'd like to be.

I love it. Well, I've been taking some furious notes as we've been talking, Josh. I have for folks who are listening in everything from a link over to your guys website, Focal Upright, where if you're listening in you can peruse everything from their stand up conferencing tables to the Mogo stool, their standing desks, some of the other kind of beautiful functional furniture that Josh's company produces. And also I'll link to some of these other things, these studies that we talked about, the apps that remind you to take a break, different forms of mats like a balancing desk mat or a topo mat, Josh's Yoga for the Upright Desk article and oh, so much more. So check all that out at BenGreenfield Standmore. That's BenGreenfieldFitness.com Standmore and when you're there, if you have an unanswered question, if you want to share your own office tips that you've found to enhance your own productivity and health at the same time in your office or anything else you want to add, be sure to leave a comment in the show notes. And either myself or Josh or someone who knows something about workplace ergonomics and stand up desks and the like will reply to you and help you out. So in the meantime, Josh, thanks so much for your time and for coming on the show today.

Oh, absolutely, Ben. It's been a pleasure to chat with you today and I hope everybody gets a chance to live it up, you know.

Awesome. I like it. Live it up. Don't be an active couch potato. Cool. Well folks, this is Ben Greenfield and Joshua Curse from Focal Upright signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com have a healthy week.

You've been listening to the Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast. Go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com for even more cutting edge fitness and performance advice.

Sa. It.