The Modern Environment Is Pathologically Sedentary

The modern environment is pathologically sedentary, but there are things you can do about it.

Let me paint you a picture you’ll probably recognise.

The alarm goes off, you roll out of bed, and shuffle straight to the kitchen for coffee. You plop into a chair with your laptop because the morning meeting starts in five. From there, it’s back-to-back calls, emails, maybe a quick bite at your desk. Afternoon hits, and you’re still in the chair, maybe in a different room. If you have to commute to and from work, you sit down in your car or on public transport to do it. Dinner is a serving of more sitting. Then, finally, the sofa, because you “deserve” to unwind. 

By the time your head hits the pillow, you’ve easily spent 10, 12, maybe 14 hours sitting. And the wild part is that you didn’t plan to be sedentary. It just happened.

That’s the modern default. We live in an environment that quietly, almost invisibly, pushes stillness upon us. Work happens on screens. Food shows up at the door. Entertainment streams straight into our hands. Even our cars, trains, and planes are designed to minimise movement. If you’re not deliberate, the day simply erases motion.

This also isn’t a personal failing. It’s not laziness. It’s the architecture of the modern world. The way our lives are set up now, stillness is the path of least resistance. Chairs, sofas, and screens are everywhere, whereas opportunities for natural movement are engineered out. 

The solution isn’t just “exercise more”, as most people who exercise are doing so for maybe an hour per day. The rest of the time, they are in the same loop described above. So, the real job is learning to integrate more movement back into our daily life.

That’s what this article is here to do. I’m going to give you a step-by-step, no-guilt plan to weave motion into the fabric of your daily life, whether you’re chained to a desk, working from home, juggling kids, or just tired of feeling stiff and drained all the time. You won’t need a perfect schedule, a gym membership, or monk-like discipline to do this. What you’ll need is a little bit of strategy, and some small, smart shifts that actually fit real life.

By the end of this article, I want you to see movement differently. This isn’t about punishment for what you ate, or penance for sitting too long. Aristotle used the word eudaimonia to describe the good life. A life of flourishing, and not just surviving. Movement is a practice of flourishing. It’s how we bring energy into our days, how we sharpen our minds, and how we reconnect with the kind of body we were built to live in. Without it, we are just surviving, not flourishing.

So yes, the modern environment is pathologically sedentary. But you don’t have to accept that as your baseline. You can reclaim movement and fight against the pathologically sedentary world. And by the end of this article, you’ll know exactly how.

TL;DR

• Modern life defaults to stillness. It’s not laziness, it’s design.
• A workout can’t undo 10-14 hours sitting, so NEAT (all-day micro-movement) is the real solution here.
• Think frequency over heroics: tiny “movement snacks” every 30-60 min beat occasional grind sessions.
• Engineer your space so motion is the easy choice: rotate sit/stand, make cues visible, and add friction to sitting.
• Build the minimum effective plan: 2-3× resistance, 2-3× easy cardio, 5-10 min daily mobility, all stacked on a higher-step baseline.
• Progress, not perfection: anchor habits to routines, track simply, and advocate for a movement-friendly work culture.
• Redesign your environment + sprinkle constant low-level motion, and you’ll go from surviving to flourishing.

What “Pathologically Sedentary” Really Means

When I talk about our environment being “pathologically sedentary,” I’m not saying sitting is evil or that resting is bad. What I mean is that stillness has become the default setting for modern life, and it affects us in ways most people don’t actually realise. To make sense of it, it helps to untangle a couple of ideas.

Being sedentary isn’t the same thing as being physically inactive. 

Sedentary refers to how much time you spend sitting or lying down, with very little energy demand on your body. 

Being physically inactive means you’re not meeting the exercise guidelines. Perhaps you are doing no workouts, no structured training. 

You can tick the exercise box and still be sedentary if the other 23 hours of your day are dominated by chairs, cars, and screens. That’s why so many people are surprised to find that hitting the gym doesn’t protect them from the stiffness, fatigue, or creeping health issues that come from long stretches of stillness.

This is where NEAT (Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis) enters the picture. NEAT is the energy you burn through all the small, seemingly trivial movements in daily life. It’s stuff like walking around the house, standing up to stretch, climbing the stairs instead of taking the elevator, even fidgeting in your chair. It might not feel like much in the moment, but over the course of a day or a week, it adds up to a huge difference in metabolism, weight regulation, and overall health. 

In fact, NEAT often explains why two people with the same workout routine and diet can have completely different outcomes. One is moving more in the in-between moments.

The big issue is that our environment almost completely strips those in-between moments away. You can do a hard workout in the morning, but if you then sit for ten straight hours at work, drive home, and spend the evening on the sofa, your physiology is still stuck in sedentary mode. Blood sugar regulation drifts from the ideal, circulation slows, and your muscles spend most of the day inactive. A workout is certainly powerful, and we are big advocates of working out, but it doesn’t erase the cost of chronic stillness.

This wasn’t always the case. Human bodies evolved for constant low-level motion. Hunting, foraging, carrying, building, and whatever else was required to stay alive. Movement was embedded in the rhythms of daily survival. Fast-forward to today, and effort has been engineered out of existence. Chairs, cars, elevators, delivery apps, and screens make stillness easier than motion almost everywhere you look. 

This is what scientists call an “evolutionary mismatch”. We have bodies built for movement, living in environments designed for sitting.

The deck is stacked against us, and it isn’t just you personally who is feeling it. The way the environment shapes the decisions we make is called “choice architecture” by behavioural scientists. Right now, the architecture of modern life favours stillness. Escalators are front and centre, while stairs are tucked out of sight. Offices reward you for staying glued to your desk and not walking around. Food, entertainment, and even socialising can all happen without leaving your chair. It’s not that people are lazy, it’s that the path of least resistance has been designed around not moving.

That’s what I mean by pathologically sedentary. It’s not just a personal problem, it’s a structural one, and the solution isn’t to white-knuckle your way through it with more willpower, but to start redesigning your own environment so movement is a part of your daily life.

How Stillness Impacts Your Body

We can’t fully discuss this topic, without talking about what actually happens inside your body when you spend hours sitting still. I’m not trying to scare you with this stuff, as these kinds of conversations so often try to do. No, I just want you to understand why breaking up long stretches of sitting matters so much. Once you see the mechanics, the small choices to move will feel a lot more important.

First, your metabolism. When you’re parked in a chair, your muscles aren’t contracting, which means they’re not pulling glucose out of your bloodstream as efficiently. Normally, working muscle fibres act like little sponges for glucose. They use a transporter called GLUT4 to draw sugar into the cell, even without insulin’s help. When those sponges aren’t being squeezed with exercise, they stay dry, blood sugar stays elevated, triglycerides hang around, and your insulin sensitivity gets worse. Over time, that adds up to more fatigue, more fat storage, and a higher risk of metabolic disease.

Your cardiovascular system feels it too. Long bouts of sitting mean blood tends to pool in your legs instead of circulating efficiently back to the heart. That can increase vessel stiffness and cause blood pressure to drift upward over the day. The vascular system is designed to be dynamic. It is supposed to be expanding, contracting, and pumping all day. Stillness turns it into plumbing that’s half-asleep.

Then there’s the musculoskeletal side. Your muscles, tendons, ligaments and joints all adapt to the loads you put on them. If the load is “sit in one position for hours,” then those tissues lose tolerance for anything else. Joints get stiff, tendons/ligaments become cranky, and little aches creep in around the back, neck, and hips. This is why people who sit all day often feel fragile when they finally do move. The body simply hasn’t been reminded what resilience feels like, and those tissues haven’t been getting the daily watering they need to thrive.

The brain and nervous system are also affected. Your nervous system is exquisitely sensitive to movement, or indeed the lack of it. Stillness reduces blood flow to the brain, which dampens your focus and sharpness. It also potentially ramps up stress reactivity, because your body interprets long inactivity almost like “hibernation mode”. Sleep quality suffers too, as the natural pressure that builds to help you feel tired at night depends on daytime activity, light exposure, and regular movement. Without those, circadian rhythms start to drift, and for most people, that means being wired at night, and tired in the morning.

At the cellular level, the story gets even more interesting (well, at least for a biochemistry nerd like me). Movement activates AMPK, which is the body’s internal energy gauge that plays a role in telling your cells to upshift fat and carbohydrate metabolism. When you sit still, that switch stays off. Another enzyme, lipoprotein lipase (LPL), which is like the “parking attendant” that helps shuttle fat out of your bloodstream into muscle, where it can be used, unfortunately, gets suppressed during long sedentary periods. 

Muscles aren’t just for movement, they’re also endocrine organs. Contracting muscle fibres release signalling molecules called myokines, like IL-6, that talk to your brain and immune system. They influence everything from inflammation to mood. When you stop contracting those muscles, that beneficial chatter goes silent.

Even very short bursts of activity can flip these switches back on. A two-minute walk, a set of bodyweight squats, a quick stretch, or whatever gets those muscles contracting and moving, all “reawaken” your metabolism, get blood flowing, and sharpen mental clarity. Cognitive research shows that those small “movement snacks” improve executive function, learning, and memory because they literally send more oxygen and nutrients to the brain in real time.

Ultimately, your body isn’t designed for marathon stretches of stillness. It’s designed for frequent movement. Every time you stand, move, or contract a muscle, you’re sending signals that keep your metabolism humming, your joints healthier, your blood vessels supple, and your brain sharp. It doesn’t take much, but it does need to be often.

The Traps Baked Into Modern Life

I have coached hundreds of people, and I can pretty confidently say that it’s not that people choose to be sedentary, it’s that the modern world makes stillness the easy option in almost every direction you turn. Our culture has engineered sitting into nearly every part of daily life. It is basically the default position now.

Take work, for example. “Work from anywhere” really means “sit from everywhere”. You can do an entire day’s work without standing more than a handful of times. The busier you are, the more likely you are to skip those little breaks because there’s always another email or meeting waiting.

Then there’s commuting. Whether it’s driving, taking the train, or flying for business, we sit to get from point A to point B. Add in frictionless delivery apps for groceries, meals, or even coffee delivered to your doorstep, and you’ve removed another chunk of natural movement. Combine that with entertainment on demand (streaming shows, video games, YouTube, scrolling endlessly through feeds) and you’ve got hours of stillness layered on top of more stillness.

Food makes this even more pathological. We live in an environment of calorie abundance. Highly processed, energy-dense food is cheap, available 24/7, and aggressively marketed. Pair that with a life of low movement, and you’ve got another evolutionary mismatch. Way more energy in, and way less energy out. 

Cultural norms pile on, too. We glorify being “always on”. Taking a short walk in the middle of the day feels like you are slacking. Standing up during a meeting feels disruptive. Even at home, people carry productivity guilt, so “breaks” are often swallowed by more screen time instead of actual rest and movement.

From an evolutionary psychology standpoint, your brain is built to conserve energy whenever possible. For most of human history, that was a survival advantage. Food was scarce, effort was constant, so taking a seat when you could made sense. In today’s world of chairs and convenience, that same wiring backfires, and it pushes you to default to the sofa, even when you know better. 

Unless you deliberately design your environment to override those instincts, your brain will happily keep you in stillness mode.

So if you’ve ever felt like you’re swimming upstream just trying to move more, you’re not imagining it. You really are. The traps are baked into the very system you live in. The good news is that once you see the forces at work, you can start to design around them, rather than beating yourself up for not having enough willpower.

The Principles That Actually Work (and What Doesn’t)

When clients come to me frustrated, saying stuff like “I tried working out five days a week, but I’m still stiff, tired, and not seeing results”, it’s almost always because they’ve been chasing the wrong levers. The fitness world is incredibly noisy. There’s a lot of advice floating around, and plenty of it is misleading, oversimplified, or just plain unhelpful and often wrong. 

I have been coaching people for years, so I have a pretty good idea of what actually works and what doesn’t. So, here’s what actually works when it comes to breaking free of the sedentary trap.

The first principle is frequency beats heroics. Your body responds better to regular, bite-sized movement than to the occasional all-out session. A ten-minute walk three times a day has a bigger impact on your health than one monster workout followed by twenty-three hours of sitting. Think of it like brushing your teeth. You wouldn’t skip all week and then brush for an hour on Sunday. Movement works the same way.

Second, stack your NEAT first, then add structured training. The foundation of your health isn’t your gym time, it’s all the little bits of daily activity: walking, standing, carrying, stretching, climbing stairs, and just moving more. Once that foundation is solid, then strength training and cardio multiply your results. Strength work builds resilience and capacity, while cardio keeps your metabolic engine humming. But without NEAT, you’re missing the foundations.

Third, design your environment before you rely on willpower. Willpower is like a battery, and it drains quickly if you keep leaning on it. Systems, on the other hand, make the right choice automatic. If your workspace is set up so you have to stand to take a call, if your shoes are by the door, if there’s a pull-up bar in the doorway, suddenly movement stops being an ordeal that you have to negotiate with yourself to do, and instead it becomes the default.

Fourth, respect proper progression. Your lungs and heart will adapt to exercise faster than your joints, tendons, and connective tissue. That’s why people often feel “fit” after a few weeks of training but then get sidelined with aches or injuries. Increase movement gradually. Add volume and intensity in small steps, rather than all at once. Think of it as training your soft tissues to catch up to your cardiovascular system.

Finally, we have to touch on the psychology side of things. Lasting change isn’t about grinding harder, it’s about aligning with your basic human drives. Self-Determination Theory is one of the most robust frameworks here. It says we stick with behaviours when they support three needs: autonomy (feeling like you chose it), competence (feeling capable and improving), and relatedness (feeling connected to others while doing it). That’s why movement plans that feel imposed, confusing, or isolating never last. The ones that stick are the ones you actually want to do, that you feel good at, and that you can share with people you care about.

But how do we actually start putting all of this into practice, so we can tackle the pathologically sedentary lifestyle?

Step 1: Audit Your Baseline

Before you change anything, you need a clear picture of where you are now. Think of it like a GPS. You can’t map a route to your end destination if you don’t know your starting point. Most people skip this step and jump straight into “fixing”. But if you don’t know your baseline, you end up guessing, and guessing usually means overdoing some things, underdoing others, and burning out. A simple audit gives you the clarity to focus on what really matters.

I like to start with a time map. Pick one typical weekday and one weekend day. Walk through the day hour by hour and note where you’re sitting, standing, walking, or moving. Be honest here. You’re not judging yourself, you’re just observing. Many people are shocked when they realise how much of the day disappears into chairs without them noticing.

Next, do a movement audit. If you have a smartwatch or phone tracker, check your daily steps, active minutes, and the length of your longest sitting streaks. If you don’t use a tracker, just estimate based on what you noticed in your time map. Even a rough guess is better than flying blind. This isn’t about hitting “10,000 steps” yet, it’s just about knowing your real baseline so you can make changes that are more likely to stick.

Then look at your workspace. What kind of chair are you in? Where’s your monitor? How’s your keyboard and mouse setup? Do you have decent lighting, or are you hunched in the glow of a laptop? Is cable clutter forcing you into awkward positions? Most people don’t realise how much their environment either encourages or discourages little movements throughout the day. Tidying cables, adjusting monitor height, or even adding a footrest can make movement breaks feel a lot easier.

Don’t forget recovery. Check your sleep, both quantity and quality. Are you waking up refreshed or dragging yourself through the morning? How’s your stress load? High stress and poor sleep often drive more sitting, more cravings, and less energy to move. If your recovery is tanking, it will blunt the benefits of your exercise and movement plan.

Finally, check your readiness red flags. Do you have any pain, old injuries, or medical conditions that might affect how you move? If so, it’s smart to get clearance from a clinician before ramping things up. Depending on the issue, this is more or less relevant, but it is always good to ensure that you aren’t building on shaky foundations.

Now, this can all be a little bit of a downer. You may notice that you are a lot more sedentary than you had hoped. Don’t be discouraged, instead, I would recommend that you use a little bit of Motivational Interviewing on yourself. Instead of asking, “Why am I not moving more?” flip it to “Why not lower?” In other words, if you rate your movement habits a 4 out of 10, ask yourself, “Why not a 3?” This subtle shift in how you view things helps you see the strengths you already have, and that can be very helpful in creating momentum. Change comes more from building on what’s working than from beating yourself up about what isn’t. I know my clients are sick of hearing me talk about “building momentum” and “keeping momentum going”, but it really is the key to long-term success.

When you’ve done this quick audit, you’ll have a clear snapshot of your real life, not the idealised version in your head. From there, the steps that follow become way simpler, because you’re designing from actual reality, not some fantasy you have created in your mind.

Step 2: Set Outcome and Behaviour Targets

Once you’ve got a clear baseline, the next step is to define what you actually want to change. The key is to not just focus on big-picture outcomes, and instead focus even more on the small behaviours that drive those outcomes. Outcomes are your “why,” behaviours are your “how.”

Think of outcomes as the things you’d notice if someone followed you around for a month and took notes. This is stuff like more energy during the day, fewer aches in your back and hips, a healthier body composition, maybe improved lab work at your next blood test, or better fitness markers like faster recovery or more stamina. Those are the results you ultimately care about.

But outcomes aren’t directly controllable. You don’t wake up and decide, “Today I’ll improve my insulin sensitivity.” What you can control are behaviours. These are the daily and weekly actions that add up to those bigger outcomes. 

Here’s what that looks like in practice:

• Break up sitting every 30-60 minutes with 1-5 minutes of movement. Stand, walk, stretch, or do a few bodyweight exercises. Think of this as pressing the reset button for your physiology throughout the day.
• Set a daily step range goal. Don’t chase arbitrary numbers. If you’re at 3,000 steps, aim for 4,000-5,000. Build this up gradually. Your baseline audit will tell you where to start.
• Strength train 2-3 times per week, making sure to hit the big movement patterns (push, pull, squat, hinge). This is your foundation for resilience.
• Do cardio 2-3 times per week, mostly easy conversational pace with the occasional burst of intensity. Walking, cycling, swimming, or whatever fits your joints and preferences.
• Add 5-10 minutes of mobility or prehab daily. Hips, spine, shoulders, ankles, and any of your joints that get stiffest from sitting. This is the WD-40 for your movement system. This doesn’t have to be overly systematic, you just want to move through your available ranges of motion.

To make all this stick, you’ll want to attach behaviours to specific anchors in your day. Anchors are existing routines you can hook movement onto. So, stuff like after your morning coffee, during lunch, when you finish your commute, right after work, or before bed. Anchors turn good intentions into reliable habits because they give your brain a cue to act.

One more framework that’s useful here is the COM-B model. COM-B stands for Capability, Opportunity, Motivation, and Behaviour. 

Capability is your skillset and physical capacity. Do you know how to do a basic squat or use resistance bands? 

Opportunity is your environment. Does your workspace make it easy to stand up and move, or does it trap you in a chair? 

Motivation is the identity shift. Are you starting to see yourself as the kind of person who doesn’t sit through an entire hour, and who moves as part of who they are? 

When those three pieces are aligned, behaviours stop feeling like chores and start feeling like part of your normal day.

So instead of aiming vaguely at “being healthier” or “moving more,” you’re setting clear, realistic behaviour targets that stack up into meaningful outcomes. That’s the difference between wishful thinking and an actual plan.

Step 3: Engineer Your Environment 

Here’s something I’ve learned from coaching hundreds of clients: your environment beats your willpower, every single time. 

You can be highly motivated in the morning, but if your day is built around a chair, screens, and friction-free comfort, that motivation will get drained before lunch. The smartest move isn’t to push harder, it’s to actually design smarter. When you engineer your environment to make movement the easy choice, the battle is half won.

I recommend that you start with your workstation. Check the basics first. Is your chair adjusted so your hips and knees are level? Is your monitor at eye height so you’re not craning your neck down? Can you reach your keyboard and mouse without hunching your shoulders? Do your feet actually touch the floor, or do you need a small support under them? Once those boxes are ticked, then you want to think about variety. There is no “perfect posture”, and it’s more about switching through various postures and positions throughout the day. Switch between sitting, standing, or even perching on a stool throughout the day.

From there, think about tools. These aren’t mandatory, but for some people they’re game changers. This is stuff like a sit-stand desk, a walking pad, an under-desk cycle, or an “anti-fatigue mat” if you stand often. A good lumbar cushion or footrest can make long stretches of sitting less punishing. Don’t get caught up in gadgets, though, as the point is to reduce friction and make variety easier, not to create another shopping list of “must-haves”.

Next, try to make movement an obvious choice throughout the day. Out of sight really does mean out of mind. Keep a kettlebell or resistance bands in view. Hang a pull-up bar in a doorway. Leave your walking shoes somewhere you’ll see them, not tucked in a closet. Use a timer app or smart watch reminder to nudge you every 30-60 minutes. Movement cues should be visible, immediate, and hard to ignore.

Then you can try to layer on some friction hacks. These are little things that make moving less of a hassle. Only half-fill a water bottle so you have a reason to get up and refill it. Keep a playlist queued for short movement breaks. Block movement time on your calendar like any other meeting, and protect it with “do not disturb” boundaries. Small tweaks stop your brain from negotiating its way out of doing what you know you need to do.

Finally, you can try and carve out movement micro-zones. A corner of your office or living room can be your “stretch spot.” A bit of clear floor space makes it easy to drop into mobility work or core exercises. An outdoor loop around your block can be your go-to reset walk. When every option requires zero setup and zero decision-making, you’re much more likely to follow through.

The goal here isn’t perfection, it’s lifestyle design. You’re creating an environment where movement is obvious, convenient, and friction-free, while sitting becomes the less automatic choice. Over time, those nudges compound, and your baseline day looks radically different without you feeling like you had to fight for it.

Step 4: Movement “Snacks” Menu 

You don’t need a full workout to reset your body and brain, just some short “movement snacks” sprinkled through the day. These are bite-sized bursts designed to wake up your muscles, increase circulation, and improve focus. Think of them like brushing your teeth. Small, frequent resets that keep things clean.

If you’ve got 30-60 seconds, try a brisk walk down the hallway, a set of calf raises at your desk, shoulder controlled-articular rotations (CARs) to loosen stiff joints, sit-to-stands from your chair, or even a quick set of desk push-ups. Don’t underestimate a breathing reset either. Standing up, opening your chest, and taking 5 deep slow breaths can flip your nervous system out of stress mode.

If you’ve got 2-3 minutes, climb a few flights of stairs, take a walking phone call, or grab a resistance band for pull-aparts or upright rows. Hip openers or a cat-camel with thread-the-needle are perfect here, especially if your back feels like it’s glued together. Two or three minutes is enough to get blood flowing and joints moving without breaking your work rhythm.

If you’ve got 5 minutes, build a mini-circuit. This can be something like a handful of squats, a hip hinge like a good morning or deadlift pattern, a push (push-ups, band press), and a row (band row, dumbbell row). Or run through a short mobility flow, moving your spine, hips, and shoulders through end ranges. Five minutes sounds tiny, but it’s long enough to leave you feeling like you’ve hit the reset button on your whole body.

Two more protocols I like can really make movement more automatic in your day. 

First, the phone-call protocol: if you’re on a call, you’re standing and pacing. No exceptions.

Second, the meeting protocol: whenever possible, make long meetings into “walk and talks.” Not only does it get you moving, but conversations often get sharper and more creative on the move.

As with any habit, progression matters. Add one rep per day to your snack of choice, or extend your movement snack by 30-60 seconds each week. Tiny progressions compound fast without overwhelming your body or schedule.

This isn’t just about the body. Movement snacks don’t just benefit your muscles and joints, they sharpen your brain. Every burst of activity increases blood flow, delivering oxygen and nutrients that support focus and executive function. On a cellular level, movement triggers the release of BDNF (Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor), a key driver of learning and neuroplasticity. So, arguably, those little breaks literally make you smarter and more resilient.

So don’t wait for the perfect 60-minute workout window. Sprinkle these snacks into your day, and you’ll feel the difference in your body, your energy, and even your thinking.

The Minimum Effective Training Plan (Busy-Proof)

You don’t need an elaborate six-day split, hours of cardio, or a garage full of equipment to build a resilient, healthy body. The truth is that most people just need a minimum effective plan. Something simple enough to fit a busy life, but comprehensive enough to cover all the bases. Think of this as your “no excuses” blueprint.

Start with resistance training. Two to three sessions per week, 30-45 minutes each, is plenty for most people. The goal is to hit the fundamental movement patterns your body is built around: squat, hinge, push, pull, and maybe some core. That’s it. A beginner-friendly template is as simple as 2 sets of each pattern, performed slowly and with control, aiming for an effort level around a 6 or 7 out of 10. You should feel challenged, but never wrecked. If you’re training at home, resistance bands, a pair of dumbbells, or just your own bodyweight are more than enough. Don’t overthink the tools, just focus on actually doing it consistently.

Next, layer in cardio. Again, 2-3 sessions a week is the sweet spot. Most of it should be at a conversational pace. For this, you can walk, cycle, swim, row, or jog as long as you can breathe easily enough to chat. This is your “engine-building” zone. 

Sprinkle in occasional intervals for a dose of intensity, but don’t spend the majority of your time there. If your joints are cranky, start low impact with stuff like the bike, elliptical, or even water-based work until your tissues adapt.

Mobility and prehab are your daily insurance policy. Five to ten minutes a day is all you need to keep your spine, hips, shoulders, and ankles moving well. Controlled articular rotations (CARs), end-range holds, and simple breathing drills help your joints stay healthy and your body more resilient to both workouts and daily life. 

Each day doesn’t need to look the same, and the sessions don’t need to be heroic. Here are three sample calendars that could work to split this up:

• 20-minute days: a 10-minute walk in the morning + a 10-minute strength circuit in the evening.
• 45-minute days: full-body strength or cardio sessions 3-4 times per week, with micro “movement snacks” sprinkled throughout the day.
• 75-minute days: a more comprehensive training session that includes strength, intervals, or longer zone-2 cardio.

Having different options gives you flexibility. Some weeks are hectic, others more open. You can scale your plan accordingly if you have options. 

Ultimately, this is what humans are built for. Our evolutionary history wasn’t about sitting all day, then occasionally sprinting ourselves into the ground. We survived through persistence hunting (steady running for hours), punctuated by short bursts of speed or power when necessary. Your physiology still reflects that design. 

Long, easy movement + periodic intensity + strength work = the formula your body desires.

Role of NEAT: Stacking Everyday Movement

If structured workouts are the backbone of your fitness plan, NEAT is the connective tissue that holds it all together. Remember, NEAT is all the energy you burn from daily, non-gym movement. Stuff like walking, fidgeting, carrying, standing, climbing, bending, cleaning, and so on. It’s not glamorous, but it’s massively powerful. In fact, for many people, NEAT has more influence on body composition, energy levels, and long-term health than their workouts do.

The beauty of NEAT is that you can stack it into your day without carving out extra time. Park farther away from the shops or work. Take the stairs by default. Get off the bus or train one stop early and walk the rest of the way. Combine errands into a walking loop instead of driving to each one. These step-ups sound small, but over weeks and months, they add up to thousands of extra calories burned and countless little investments in your health.

At home, NEAT opportunities are everywhere. Carry your shopping in two trips instead of one. Do laundry squats as you unload the basket. Turn garden work into a nice little workout. Raking, hauling, trimming, and lifting all count. Household chores might not feel like “fitness”, but your muscles and metabolism don’t care what label you give it, they just know they’re being used.

Social NEAT is another powerful lever. Instead of coffee dates that lock you into chairs, suggest walking dates. Make family bike rides or after-dinner walks part of your weekly rhythm. Join a team step challenge with coworkers or friends. Movement tied to connection is super sticky, and will more than likely be something you keep up.

Workouts build strength, endurance, and capacity, but NEAT is what keeps your body healthy in the long hours between. If you want to thrive, not just survive, you need both.

Deskbound Comfort: Everyday Ergonomics

Now, this is not all just about adding more activity into your day, we can also work on the times you do have to sit.

Fortunately, there’s no such thing as one perfect posture. If anyone tells you there is, they’re oversimplifying. “Perfect posture” doesn’t exist. What your body really needs is variability, not a single “correct” position. “Standing all day” doesn’t solve the problem of sitting, it just trades one static posture for another. 

And no, you can’t out-exercise sitting. A hard gym session is great, but it doesn’t undo twelve hours of stillness.

What your body craves isn’t a magic alignment you can hold all day, it’s variability. The healthiest posture is a variable one. That said, there are a few fundamentals that make a big difference when you’re deskbound, and they’re worth dialling in.

Start with the core setup. You want your head and neck roughly neutral, meaning you’re not craning forward like a turtle or tilting back to look up. Shoulders should feel relaxed, not shrugged toward your ears. Your feet should be supported (flat on the floor or on a small footrest), so you’re not dangling or tucking them uncomfortably under the chair. Wrists should sit neutral, not cocked up or bent sideways, when you type or use a mouse. These tweaks sound small, but over hours, they reduce a ton of unnecessary strain.

Next, don’t just sit, cycle through various positions. Rotate between sitting, standing, and maybe even kneeling. What you’re trying to avoid is locking yourself into any one static position all day. Standing desks can be great tools, but “standing all day” just trades one form of stagnation for another. Aim for variety in your positions.

Learn your chair skills. Most office chairs have adjustments people never touch. Set seat height so your hips and knees are level, adjust seat depth so your thighs are supported without cutting off circulation, and use back support so you’re not collapsing into a slump. Then, move often. Shift your posture, lean back, sit forward, cross a leg, uncross it. Chairs can actually be used dynamically.

Pay attention to your screens, too. If you’re working on a laptop all day, elevate it so the screen is closer to eye level, and pair it with an external keyboard and mouse. Hunching down at a laptop for eight hours is one of the fastest ways to guarantee neck and upper back tension. Small upgrades here go a long way.

And don’t forget your hands and wrists. Typing and mouse work are repetitive by nature, so sprinkle in micro-mobility: wrist circles, finger stretches, opening and closing fists, shaking out tension. A minute here and there can prevent hours of stiffness later.

Posture should be dynamic. Your tissues thrive on change, not on being locked into the so-called “right” shape. Variability is protective. Move often, shift regularly, and let your body experience a range of positions. That’s the real key to comfort at the desk.

Behaviour Design: Make Adherence Easy

If there’s one thing I’ve learned as a coach, it’s that the people who succeed aren’t the ones with the fanciest plans. It’s the ones who make following through easy. Behaviour design is about lowering the friction so movement becomes automatic, not another decision you have to wrestle with. 

Let’s break down a few simple tools that work in real life.

One of my favourites is habit stacking. Take something you already do every day and attach movement to it. Coffee brewing in the morning? That’s your cue for 10 squats or a quick stretch. Sending an email? Stand up for a set of calf raises before you hit “send.” Phone rings? That’s your reminder to stand and pace. When you piggyback new habits onto old ones, you remove a lot of the friction.

Next is implementation intentions (if-then planning). This sounds fancy, but it’s really just writing yourself a tiny rule: If X happens, then I do Y. For example: “If it’s 11:00, I do three stair laps.” Or, “If I end a Zoom call, I go for a two-minute walk.” These little scripts take choice out of the moment, and your brain just follows the rule.

Another powerful lever is the identity shift. Instead of telling yourself, “I should move more,” start seeing yourself as the kind of person who does. “I’m the person who doesn’t sit through a whole hour without standing.” “I’m the type who always takes the stairs.” When the behaviour becomes part of your identity, it stops being negotiable, it’s just who you are.

For tracking, keep it simple. You don’t need a complicated app or dashboard. A paper calendar and a pen work wonders. Tick a box every time you hit a movement snack or break up an hour of sitting. Streaks are motivating, but only if they’re easy to track. You want to make success visible, not buried in an app you’ll forget to open.

Don’t underestimate the power of accountability. Humans are social creatures. A buddy system, a small team channel at work, or periodic check-ins with a coach or friend can drastically improve your consistency. When you know someone else will notice whether you did the thing, you’re much more likely to follow through.

Philosopher William James said: “The more of the details of our daily life we can hand over to the effortless custody of automatism, the more our higher powers of mind will be set free for their own proper work.” In other words, the less energy you spend fighting yourself, the more energy you can spend on living, creating, and flourishing. That’s exactly what behaviour design does. It takes movement from something you have to remember, to something that just happens.

Dealing With The Pathologically Sedentary Environment Conclusion

Your body isn’t broken or lazy. It’s doing exactly what it evolved to do: conserve energy whenever possible. The problem is that the modern world exploits that wiring by making stillness the default. The modern environment is pathologically sedentary. 

However, your job in dealing with this isn’t to summon endless willpower, it’s to build systems that make movement automatic again.

And as you do this, remember that the goal isn’t perfection. It’s more about trajectory. One skipped movement break or missed workout doesn’t erase your progress. What matters is the overall trend line. Are you moving a little more, sitting a little less, stacking one small choice on top of another? 

On a deeper level, this is about embodiment. For too long, we’ve treated mind and body as separate, like Descartes’ old mistake of thinking they could be pulled apart. But the truth is they’re inseparable. Living well requires moving well. Your thoughts, moods, energy, and even sense of purpose are tied directly to how you use your body throughout the day. Movement isn’t punishment, it’s participation in life.

As with everything, there is always more to learn, and we haven’t even begun to scratch the surface with all this stuff. However, if you are interested in staying up to date with all our content, we recommend subscribing to our newsletter and bookmarking our free content page. We do have a lot of content on how to design your own exercise program on our exercise hub.

We also recommend reading our foundational nutrition article, along with our foundational articles on sleep and stress management, if you really want to learn more about how to optimise your lifestyle. If you want even more free information on exercise, you can follow us on Instagram, YouTube or listen to the podcast, where we discuss all the little intricacies of exercise.

Finally, if you want to learn how to coach nutrition, then consider our Nutrition Coach Certification course. We do also have an exercise program design course in the works, if you are a coach who wants to learn more about effective program design and how to coach it. We do have other courses available too. If you don’t understand something, or you just need clarification, you can always reach out to us on Instagram or via email.