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A comment on Screw your standing desk. How about squatting?. Parent comment

Re:Screw your standing desk. How about squatting? by vidarh on Thursday January 30, 2014 @11:39AM (#7151576)
I do power lifting, and had significant problems with my squats until I spent a few weeks practicing asian squats and generally improving my hip mobility. I still can't stay in a squat position nearly as long as my four year old son, but it's been steadily improving.

When I started squatting, my knees were so weak I couldn't walk up a flight of stairs without pain. I finally started exercising because my doctor gave me a look of disdain, handed me a sheet of basic exercises and told me to get out (edit: when I went to her to ask about my knee pain...)

I'm not going to argue for (or against) working in squatting position, but squats done properly are not going to hurt your knees.

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Re:Screw your standing desk. How about squatting? by nailer on Thursday January 30, 2014 @11:53AM (#7151647)
> until I spent a few weeks practicing asian squats

Is that a specific type of squat, or just a normal squatting position without any weight?

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Re:Screw your standing desk. How about squatting? by dredmorbius on Thursday January 30, 2014 @12:53PM (#7152080)
It's a form of natural unweighted squat that's commonly practiced in Asia as a rest position.

A crucial difference from how many westerners squat is that the weight is carried back on the heels. Westerners tend to squat with weight forward on the toes, which is highly fatiguing.

There's a vintage video on the topic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y76UbfBr5vo

(This was linked in the article, but it's since gone walkabout).

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Re:Screw your standing desk. How about squatting? by vidarh on Thursday January 30, 2014 @12:00PM (#7151688)
Knees wide, butt touching ankles, pretty much.

When people unused to squatting squat down, they often end up barely reaching parallel.

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Re:Screw your standing desk. How about squatting? by kyllo on Thursday January 30, 2014 @01:05PM (#7152187)
It's a squat where the heels are flat on the ground and you're sitting back more.

In contrast to the western "catcher's squat" (from baseball) where the heels are off the ground and the weight is on the balls of your feet.

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Re:Screw your standing desk. How about squatting? by glynch on Thursday January 30, 2014 @11:58AM (#7151676)
They're referring to the resting squat position talked about in the article.
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