Something hit me hard in the hamstrings today — something I’ve tried to ignore for more than 20 years.
What was this not-so-overnight revelation?
Journalism is not a business that is good for the health of most of its practitioners. For the better part of the past 10 hours today, I have sat mainly in one place and paginated the 12 pages of this week’s 16-page paper for which I was responsible. This is the longest I have sat in one place since Feb. 27, when my last journo job was eliminated in a cost-cutting move by Lee Enterprises Inc., the company for which I had worked 21 years. In all of that time, I piled up a lot of time on my expanding backside.
Since then, however, I have spent a lot more time at the gym or out on a bicycle. It had become rare for me to sit too long in any one place. That is, until I returned to journalism at least temporarily as interim editor of the West Liberty Index.
And, friends, let me just say my hamstrings aren’t going to stand for this much sitting — especially on a day after having done 90 squats in the Helton workout at Warrior Crossfit Muscatine.
Not sure what I’m going to do about this. After all, I’m having fun in my temporary gig. But I don’t plan to stop biking or doing Crossfit either. I may have to look for a different chair. Or, at the very least, remind myself to get up and move around at least once an hour.
My hamstrings can no longer take this kind of sitting around. I do know that much.
More maybe-not-so-healthy choices: After putting those 12 pages together, I had an hour or two to kill before the proofreader could read them so I could make corrections and send finished pages.
The best choices I could come up with were:
- Go to Hatchet Jack’s, the bar down the street that is owned by a former professional wrestler.
- Buy a 12-pack and a sandwich at the grocery store across the street and stock up the fridge in the back room at the newspaper.
Since I am also blogging while waiting for the return of this week’s pages, let me say it’s highly likely someone else has put beer in that fridge in the past. At least that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Brome Hill 
Is there any way to paginate while standing up? There’s got to be some sort of furniture that could help with this.
I am reading A. J. Jacobs book Drop Dead Healthy and he made a makeshift treadmill desk and set it for one to two miles per hour. He wrote most of the book while walking.
I could probably work standing up if I there was a counter or something where I could put the computer. Not sure about walking and writing at the same time. You know the old joke about walking and chewing bubble gum, it has been applied to me in the past.
walk while you work video. Put one in your contract at your next newspaper job!
Here’s what I do at school – instead of calling or emailing one of my colleagues, if I have the time, I get up and walk to their office/classroom to talk to them. And sometimes I add a lap around the whole inside of the school.
Of course, now that school’s out…I can go for a walk whenever I want to!!!
Thanks, Mike.That’s pretty cool.