I opened this up today to share a revelation that I have had in the last three or four weeks. ERGONOMIC CHAIRS ARE SO IMPORTANT. For the last 15 years of my life, I have been blessed to work at a company where I was always provided an ergonomic work environment. I always had a nice chair, comfy chair to work in. But boy, did I take it for granted!
I never bothered to get a desk chair when I moved because I didn't see myself working at my desk too long too often. So when I did need to work from home (WFM) I usually had been sitting at our dining table in our dining chair. When the SIP WFH started, I did clean up my desk and decided to just bring the dining chair back and forth to my desk and back to the kitchen as needed. I posted a pic of my set-up on IG and my friend commented, "that chair does not look comfy to sit in for very long." I responded, "I'll have to modify it over time if needed... Or just make sure to get up often!" Sure enough, modifications were needed and I didn't get up as often as I should.
About a week in my but started to get sore, so I added a throw pillow as a seat cushion (thank goodness for Michael's colleague-friend who gifted us this one for our apt-warming -- sorry I sat on it!) That worked for a little while... Then two weeks in I felt like I needed to stand more... So I stacked my old college textbooks under my computer... Then I bought (on the recommendation of another friend) a little stand for my laptop... But then somewhere in there I found out my work laptop is a bit broken and doesn't like to be handled in a certain way... Making it annoying to lift it up and down (I have to do it very gently and not hold it in certain places and hope it doesn't freeze up on me -- I will get it fixed after all this is over.) I don't know if it was that or other reasons, I ended up not standing as much as I thought I would.
Then about two weeks ago, my lower back started hurting and my legs were feeling worse than usual and I finally thought, "Shit, maybe I should get a proper desk chair..." But by then it was already almost the end of April... I thought, the SIP could be over in a couple of weeks... I'll just wait and see. About a week later, later they extended the SIP and I finally ordered a proper desk chair. It's not arriving until May 11th. [insert facepalm emoji.] Ah well... Better late than never, right?
I felt kind of silly. WHY DID I NOT ORDER THE CHAIR EARLIER?! I actually wrote out a timeline of the SIP WFH to evaluate why I hadn't ordered the desk chair earlier on:
- March 16th -- SIP WFH starts. At that time thought this would be for two or three weeks.
- March 31st -- SIP gets extended to May 3rd. Thought "ah well, it's only four more weeks... no use ordering a desk chair just for four more weeks..." (Really should have ordered the desk chair at this point.)
- April 15th or so -- Discomfort/pain starts becoming enough for me to care (I generally have a high tolerance for pain and won't grumble about low to moderate discomfort/pain)... Thought "Well, shit... But now there might only be two more weeks...."
- April 29th -- SIP gets extended to May 31st and I finally order a desk chair. It won't arrive until May 11th.
*SIGH*
I am most worried about what impact this will have on my running. I had a thought a couple weeks ago about how much I love running and how devastated I would be if I couldn't run anymore. My right leg have been giving me problems on and off for a long time -- way before this SIP WFH and chair fiasco happened. {My right leg, I am convinced, is a bit defective, as evidenced from my midget 4th toe on that side. I also have less muscle mass on my right leg and butt when compared to my left [even though no one (OK, the two people who I have talked to about this and shown) believes me, I CAN FEEL IT! I would love to have this confirmed one day by a medical professional.] My left leg is perfectly fine. Never gives me trouble. But my right leg gives me trouble.} But it has been getting worse the last few weeks and I am thinking it is exacerbated by the lack of the proper chair wreaking havoc (OK, a bit of hyperbole here) on my back and hip. Furthermore, I think wearing my house slippers and dragging them around the apt all day might also be impacting my foot/leg muscles! (Maybe I should get more fitted house-slippers...) I think it's the chair and house-slippers because I haven't been running much more than usual -- frequency or mileage wise. In fact, compared to when I am training for something, it's been pretty low -- so let's call it baseline. Thinking about having to take time off running -- especially in the SIP where I feel like I need to run regularly (not that I didn't before run regularly before, but I mentally feel like I really need to continue to do so during all this) -- is a bit annoying.
But then, much of this is my own fault. I should take this time to stretch, foam roll, strengthen (I have a set of exercises my PT gave me to do a long time ago when I first started having ITB issues), do yoga, etc. I have been needing to do all this for a long long time. I love running but I am so lazy about all the maintenance that needs to be done to continue running. BUT I MUST DO THESE THINGS!! AND I SHOULD HAVE ORDERED THE ERGONOMIC DESK CHAIR EARLIER!
So the key takeaways from all this are:
- Ergonomic desk chairs are important for people who sit all day for work.
- A lot of progress has been made to make life better (i.e., the invention and implementation of ergonomic chairs) that you may not truly understand the important of unless you experience what it was like without them. So don't ever take things for granted!
- Make sure to stretch and strengthen your muscles. They are important/vital for injury free running.
UPDATE: The chair came on May 4th!! A whole week early!! YAY!!
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