06 Jun Is Sitting For Work Causing Your Leg Pain Or Aches?
Our body is created to support natural movement throughout the day – and to do so without pain. Yet between the high rates of sedentary jobs and the at-our-fingertips TV streaming services, we’re now spending an average 9.3 hours per day sitting down according to Southern Cross Insurance – that’s longer than most of our overnight sleep!
While it’s obvious that it’s bad news for our overall health and our ability to meet NZ’s exercise guidelines of at least 30 minutes per day, the sitting we’re doing may also be affecting our foot and leg health.
Today, our podiatrists here in Masterton are sharing how and why prolonged sitting should be considered a potential cause of leg pain, and what you can do about it.
How Sitting Affects Our Body
When we sit down, our muscles, bones and joints can start taking on pressure in an unnatural way. We’ll get to what this means for the feet and legs shortly, but let’s also have a quick look at what this can mean for our spine through the illustration below – as we find this super interesting!
Simply sitting in our seat increases the pressure on the intervertebral discs in our spine by 140%. And when we slouch forwards when sitting, like so many of us do, this pressure then jumps up to 190% compared to standing. It’s no wonder so many NZ’s are coming home feeling physically exhausted from their work days and developing back pain.
Now, to the legs.
Sitting And Leg Pain
Leg pain after prolonged periods of sitting can indicate some venous insufficiency, where our circulation is affected due to our constant sedentary posture. Venous insufficiency describes the circumstances where our veins don’t work properly to keep blood moving efficiently from our legs to our heart – a job that is made harder by constantly having to move the blood up against gravity, without any physical activity to get our heart pumping and promote healthy blood flow. When this happens, blood can instead pool in the legs and feet, causing pain and swelling. The pain is typically described as a burning or cramping sensation, often in the calves.
Sitting For Long Periods Affects Our Muscle Strength, Too
One of the reasons that prolonged sitting is now deemed “the new smoking” by Australia’s Better Health network is because sitting for long periods can lead to weakening and wasting away of the large leg and gluteal muscles. These muscles are important for walking and for stabilising you throughout the day. If these muscles are weak, you are more likely to injure yourself from falls, and from strains when you do exercise.
How Much Is Too Much Sitting?
Research shows that sitting for longer than four hours each day significantly increases your chance of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and several other obesity-related conditions.
From our perspective, it’s not uncommon to see patients with sedentary jobs and limited movement breaks throughout their day be more vulnerable to foot and leg pain and injury, as a result of a relatively sedentary lifestyle, poor muscle strength, or circulatory problems.
What Should You Do?
Without sounding cliche, getting moving and treating any existing pains are the best way to help. While you can’t control the nature of your job, you can control:
- Adopting a standing desk
- Taking a few minutes to walk around and stretch every 30 minutes
- Choosing to walk to and from work
- Taking the stairs instead of the lift
- Going a few blocks over for your morning coffee, instead of in the same building
- Committing to an exercise routine
- Treating any existing foot and leg pains that are limiting your ability to be active
If you are currently experiencing foot or leg pain that is limiting your ability to be active, our podiatrists can help. We’ll help you recover from any injuries, and implement the right care to strengthen and stretch weak or inflexible muscles, to help set you up for success and pain-free movement for the future. We have Wairarapa’s leading range of innovative, proven treatments to support your recovery.
To book your appointment with our experienced podiatry team here in the Wairarapa, call us on 06 370 4057 or book your appointment online here.