Archives for 2016

A follow-up to these reviews can be found here.

Around the turn of the new year I upgraded both my office chair and desk. I did a ton of research, contemplated the principles of feng shui, prayed to Milton, and sprung for the Herman Miller Embody + Jarvis Bamboo combo. My goal was to create a working environment that was more conducive for good posture. I make my living off the internet, so I’m constantly on a computer, and for years I worked from a stiff wooden chair hunched over my 13-inch MacBook Pro that sat directly upon an old dinner table. I hauled ass with this setup (i.e., much work was completed) but one day I caught a side view of myself in a mirror and realized what in my mind felt like me standing straight was actually me slouched over. (Talk about body language …)

I wanted to correct that. I believe good posture can go a long way toward well being. The tools needed? An adjustable desk and ergonomic chair. And because these are both fairly big-ticket items and few truly critical reviews exist, I thought I’d share my impressions of said purchases as a singular entity (and not some possibly-maybe-definitely bribed or incompetent review website).

Some Ergonomic Education

An adjustable desk is great because it not only allows you to stand while working from a computer, but while sitting it can be adjusted to the perfect height. Consensus is that your keyboard should be right around belly-button level, creating a 90° bend at your elbows — a natural resting position. I don’t necessarily know if or think that’s “correct” (I prefer the keyboard slightly closer to lap height) but it does feel much better than having to raise your hands like a velociraptor to touch type.

Your computer screen should then be high enough so that you don’t have to tilt your head downward or upward to view the glowing real estate; all that should be necessary is to glance straight ahead.

If I were under a tight budget and could afford only one or the other, I’d say the desk is the more important of the two commodities. Even if your chair isn’t great, with the adjustable desk you’ll be able to alternate between sitting and standing. As one J.B. might say, you can “get up offa that thing.” (But I’ll be open and say these thoughts on partiality may be influenced by my mild disdain toward my purchased seating apparatus. More on that later!)

The Desk

The Jarvis Bamboo desk looks nice and it’s fairly stable. I’m working from a carpeted room so there is of course some wobble when I type, but from hardwood floors I believe the sway would markedly be less so.

The control panel should be a mandatory inclusion. I would not purchase this desk without it. At the press of a button the height recalibrates automatically. It’s great! I programmed only two of the presets — there are four — but the extras would be good if you had another person using the desk. Each user would want to configure a sitting height and a standing height, and that should be it. (If you switch between high heels and bare feet or jump between different chairs of fixed height, that’s perhaps maybe when you’d personally want more than two presets.)

The price is about as affordable as you’ll find for an adjustable desk that looks and functions this well. I paid $634 total configured with the 48″ x 30″ rectangle top, black frame, and digital display with memory preset. I perhaps should have opted for a contoured frame, as the lip of the table isn’t super pleasant. I’ll elaborate upon this and the other negatives I’ve found now which allude to how the desk is priced so competitively.

The Lip

The way I type, I rest the fatty bottom part of my palm along the edge of the table. This feels most natural to me. I suppose I could push my keyboard forward and — you know — simply not do this. Maybe I should. But I like putting my hands in this position!

Anyway, the lip of the tabletop is a bit scratchy, abrupt and unpleasant to the touch. It’s bothersome enough that I actually requested a replacement from Jarvis, thinking mine was anomalous and damaged. Turns out that’s how all these tops are. The edges lack love. Six months later I’m still mildly irked by it.

For this reason, I’m curious whether their contoured top is any better in this regard. From the photos I’ve seen, the lip is more graduated. Perhaps it’s more comfortable. I simply can’t recommend the rectangle top with my current knowledge and typing habits.

The Noise

I persist in face of waning tolerance for the gear-crunching that emanates from my desk as it churns its way up and down. The right leg in particular sounds nasty at times, and I am suspecting it might have a slight defect. My left power box arrived defective — the connecting pins were malformed and the unit had to be replaced — so it would not surprise me if something’s off with the right leg as well. It doesn’t seem to move in perfect unison with the left.

Now, I may be dramatizing to an extent, but I do switch between sitting and standing quite often, and I’ll just say my life would be slightly more cheery if the motors were more muted.

Here is a recording from my MacBook’s microphone so you can hear what my fuss is all about:

Sun Damage

This again speaks to the economical nature of this desk: it’s subjectable to sun fade:

Where I situate my keyboard, trackpad, and monitor stand are noticeably darker than the rest of the table. If I cared that much I’d move my peripherals around to try and let the color even out. Still, it was disconcerting when I first noticed this.

Wire Management

Jarvis ships the desk with adhesive self-locking cable ties, which I think are a perfectly fine solution to managing the muddle underneath, but the adhesive is not so adhesive. I resorted to cinching everything up with clear packaging tape. It’s held together so far!

Final Thoughts

Having not demoed any other standing desks, and despite its shortcomings, I suppose I do recommend the Jarvis. Being able to stand while typing is awesome. The desk is stable enough to let you do that. However, if given a redo, I’d take a chance on the contour top or venture third party instead. (The Ikea Gerton is an option.) You aren’t going to find a much more affordable frame than the Jarvis, which is sold separately.

I’m not sure if something like the NextDesk Terra would be worth the extra $1,000 or so for a quieter ride. (And by the looks of it, slightly better all-around quality.) Maybe. I’m actually inclined to believe it’s the better buy.

The Chair

Oh man. So, my intuition was telling me to go with the Steelcase Leap. I’d made trips to both Herman Miller and Steelcase showrooms to give all their flagship offerings a sit. The salesperson at the Herman Miller showroom — Spectrum — was awesome. Mark was his name. He really knew his stuff and sold me on the Embody. I also demoed the Aeron and Mirra 2, but I liked the Embody way better. The Steelcase showroom I visited — Corporate Interiors — wasn’t really much of a showroom, but more of an office building that had the Leap and their newest iteration, the Gesture, sitting in a common area where I could test-drive them. The person who showed me the chairs wasn’t a sales guy, and so I walked out not feeling at all obligated to follow up with a purchase. But the Leap was quite comfortable — definitely comparable to the Embody in terms of thoughtfulness of design — and I could see myself purchasing it if the Embody didn’t exist.

Anyway … I signed the paperwork for an Embody with black base and splurged on Balance fabric (graphite color) since I disliked the Rhythm fabric. The texture irked me visually more than anything. It looks bad. Ironically I also ended up not really liking the graphite color I went with so much (straight black may be better) and this prompted me to drape an emphatic plaid shirt I don’t wear that often over the back to try and draw attention away from the imbalance of grey tones. It’s hard to tell how a color will look in a setting of your own compared to in a showroom or photos you might view online. This is a case where in practice the graphite didn’t look as great as I’d hopefully imagined. Black might not be any better though. I’m not sure.

Sticking with the discussion of visuals, the exoskeleton back of the chair grew alien in the context of my office. Plaid shirt doubly to the rescue.

For all the dirt I’m throwing on the Embody, I really did like it in the showroom! It was comfortable to sit in. I liked how the back conformed. The arms were most accommodating. Overall it looked cool. However, long term I’ve found that I cannot sit in it for much more than half an hour at a time. It becomes unbearable … for me. I should note that I have a sciatic nerve issue and this chair seems to aggravate it no matter how I sit. The cushioning is kind of a suspension system with plastic tendons and springs — not your typical foam padding — and this causes less even dispersion of pressure (it’s more pinpointed) and I believe that is what exacerbates my issue.

So take that for what you will. I’m an edge case in this regard.

Aside from my personal discomfort, there is one last major qualm I have with this chair: it’s noisy! I’ve only owned it six months and I swear it creaks when I look at it. I’d noticed murmurings over Twitter about excessive noisiness when I was doing preliminary research about the Embody, but I assumed A) my chair would be different and not creak or B) if my chair did creak, I wouldn’t mind. Welp, wrong on both counts. It creaks, and it annoys me. There’s something to be said for a quiet chair.

Here’s another audio recording so you can get a glimpse of my world:

Final Thoughts

I cannot recommend the Embody, solely because of the noise issue. A chair this high-end should have all aspects well accounted for — including its auditory nature. Six months is way too little for this to already be a part of the conversation. It’s inexcusable.

Because of my unique condition, I ended up finding myself not able to sit in the chair for long periods of time, which is unfortunate because for the most part it feels pretty good. I will be purchasing a Steelcase Leap sometime soon once I run out of ways to rationalize to myself why I need to stick it out with the Embody and live with the consequences of my expensive mistake — hopefully the Leap doesn’t make two.

I last babbled about my fitness regiment in September 2013 and since then (over two years!) I’ve done quite a bit of experimentation with movements and techniques, and I am still continually tweaking my routines. Every workout I try to make a small adjustment and learn something new. And it’s that perpetual state of flux that’s caused me to not want to report any of my findings — because I feel like I know nothing! (“That’s deep, man. Far out, man.”)

But let’s be real: does anyone really know anything? (“No.”) So in the interest of potentially contributing even a sliver of understanding to our entropic cosmos, I’ll share my current viewpoints on recreational physical fitness.

No. 1 Idea: Don’t Get Injured

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I am a steadfast believer that if you want have any interest in maintaining physical fitness, absolutely do not engage in any activity that causes discomfort. If you sense your body breaking down — most commonly in the form of joint pain — then stop. It’s the opposite of your objective, which should be to empower your tangible self. Getting injured sucks. It’s the worst. And injuries only exacerbate as you get older.

I’ve come to better terms with this notion, and have dropped a bunch of exercises I previously considered to be safe and effective. Dips, for example, were nagging my wrist and elbow. I liked doing dips, and so did my physique, but eventually I was honest with myself and accepted that long term they’re not for me. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do dips though! I have a trick elbow and glass wrist. You might be fine.

Please note: not all pain is bad. Learn to recognize the difference between eustress and malfunction.

No. 2 Idea: Move in Bilateral Symmetry

By this I mean avoiding exercises that isolate one side of your body (e.g. lunges, 1-armed push-ups, etc.). Your stability is way better during exercises displaying bilateral symmetry in movement and — surprise! — you are less likely to injure yourself.

Machines and barbells can often fit this notion; dumbbells, while appearing to coincide, are too precarious. I want both hands involved with the same weight.

No. 3 Idea: Weights are Necessary

In continuation with the last idea, to make an exercise challenging enough to gain significant muscle, an auxiliary form of resistance must be added. Don’t isolate one arm or leg to increase the intensity.

This is not to say you can’t get in decent shape doing bodyweight exercises like push- or pull-ups. With immaculate form and technique, you can! But your progress will be slow and eventually stall and unless you’ve got access to a gravity chamber like Goku in Dragon Ball Z.

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No. 4 Idea: Be Able to Bail

I believe in pushing your muscles to failure — i.e., maximal energy expenditure — and consequently that means you’ve got to be able to easily bail out of the exercise so you aren’t crushed by a weight or whatever.

(Hint: It’s pretty hard to bail out at the bottom of a squat.)

No. 5 Idea: Reps are Dumb; Go till Failure

I hate numbers. They’re pointless. You should be aiming for a high intensity level with your movements. Who cares if you can crank out a ton of reps with shitty form?

The burn. Feel it. That’s the barometer to go by. I know it’s an abstraction and unquantifiable, but if you feel lactic acid building up then it means your muscles are doing meaningful work.

No. 6 Idea: Limit Range of Motion

I’ve slowly picked up on the idea of limiting my ranges of motion after some instruction and some failed experimentation. The seeds for this concept were planted when I realized I was messing up my rotator cuff trying to do pull-ups at too broad a grip. I could suspend myself — and quickly fatigue — but any attempt to get my chin over the bar resulted in obvious mechanical discord. So from this I learned that holding form could be better than completing a full range of motion.

Likewise, certain HIT exercises I’ve played around with (wall sits in particular) advocate maintaining a 90º angle, which is said to be the point of “highest resistive force” (or something … I’m not an expert on levers and fulcrums). The big-picture idea is that the moment at which a right angle is formed is most challenging.

Now, these HIT movements I’d read about instructed to hold the right angle until failure. My current notion is that holding is bad. I think locking into any position under force will cause undue stress on your joints.

BUT — I think moving back and forth around 90º is cool. That’s the sweet spot. Don’t hold at 90, but rock as best you can between say 85º–95º so you are in a controlled motion and repeatedly approaching that most challenging 90º angle from both sides of the plane. Doing this also expedites the onset of fatigue. Less time under stress is good!

This brings me to the main epiphany behind today’s article and

Rock the 90™*

To engage in a controlled, limited motion of exertion about a 90º angle.

*Patent Pending

With that preamble out of the way, let’s discuss: what exercises are part of my routine at this point?

Exercise 1: Pull-ups

I’ve been humbled by the pull-up. I’ve grappled them with the utmost regularity for over five years, experimenting with dozens of variations in that time, and yet … I still don’t know how to do one. But that’s ok! This process has taught me a lot about the uncertainty knowledge.

The 90 thing is sort of new. Last I wrote I’d been keen on the towel pull-up, and I had kept up with them until only a few months ago. Yes, towel pull-ups are challenging and they will improve your grip strength. But I will argue against them because of the stress they impose on your fingers. To do a towel pull-up, your grip becomes oriented like a handshake, unevenly dispersing the 100+ pounds of tension between fingers, and this consequently contorts the hand. It’s bad news bears. When gripping a standard bar, each of your fingers contributes more equally to the pull. Stability is markedly better.

So I reverted back to pull-ups without a towel, and I’d been playing around with this technique where I’d hold at the top of the pull-up — squeezing upward as tightly as possible — and descend slowly as I fatigued. This was a novel concept to me, and the challenge at first exceeded my skill level. (That’s good!) But eventually I caught up to the difficulty and to progress any further I would need to add weight. So after several hours of research and days of contemplation, I purchased an expensive weight vest online. Protip: Weight vests suck for pull-ups. Save your money. I returned mine immediately.

A weight belt is what you want to go with, and I opted for this one:

It’s legit. I like it. It’s unobtrusive and pretty easily adjustable. I haven’t tried any of the less expensive chained dipping belts, so I’d be remiss to say this one is superior, but I’ll certainly be sticking with it.

Anyway, once I started adding weights, it became apparent that holding at the top of the pull-up was stressing my elbow joints more than I’d cared to admit. It’s not a technique I could keep doing long term. This got my brain churning for an alternative, and I remembered back to my inefficacious days of wall sitting. Maybe I could transfer that theory here? After some trial and error I arrived at my current protocol.

The Technique

• Start with your widest comfortable pull-up grip (which should be not much more than shoulder width).
• Rock the 90 as described above; you’re not going for reps. Drop out at failure.
• Regain composure, then try again at the same width. Repeat until you’re unable to hold form.
• Take an extended breather, then repeat with your grip closer together — but in chin-up orientation (palms facing toward you). Then switch back to palms facing out at that same width.
• Repeat this progression until you’ve exhausted all sensible options.

Narrowing your grip is an elegant way to gradually reduce resistance (which is necessary as you fatigue). The reason for alternating grips is to engage slightly different muscle groups.

This sequencing has felt intuitive and substantial to me.

Exercise 2: Leg Press

I’ve actually only recently added the leg press to my repertoire, so — DISCLAIMER — I have not been doing the following long term. Heed these thoughts in particular with skepticism.

For the longest time I’d been relying on a combination of cycling and sprinting with hills thrown in for good measure to keep up a semblance leg strength. Squats are scary, and wall sits, which you’d think are pretty benign, destroy my knees. So I’m understandably cautious about pushing myself much when it comes to “leg day.”

However, I’m optimistic about this conservative approach to the leg press I’ve been practicing. So far, so good! The same philosophy from pull-ups applies with the technique listed here.

Technique

• Begin at a sensibly challenging weight. Rock the 90 until failure.
• Catch your breath.
• Lower the weight and repeat until it feels right to stop.

Pretty simple. Once again, the underlying theory is to gradually reduce resistance until thoroughly fatigued.

Exercise 3: Cycling

There is a certain blissful je ne sais quoi to cutting through a warm breeze on a balmy midsummer evening. Cycling isn’t without flaws, but man, a day on the bike is a good day.

I enjoy cycling. That’s the foremost reason I do it. It’s not an activity that’s going to get you a great body (professional cyclists are a skinny bunch) but there is an overwhelmingly positive sensory aspect to it. It makes you feel like a kid again. When is the last time you went on an adventure?

I also give cycling bonus points for being a low-impact sport and conducive for taking intermittent breaks.

Technique

• Hop on your bicycle.
• Explore the open road.

I personally get a kick out of climbing up big hills and flying down them with no hands.

And that’s pretty much it. I sometimes do sprints, or jog, or walk, or play tennis or frisbee or basketball, and I’m dinking around with some bodyweight squat and ab stuff right now, but in terms of regularity, pull-ups and cycling in particular have been my go-to’s.

Why? They don’t take a lot of time. I don’t get injured. I find them sufficiently challenging. And I’m happy with that!

My goal isn’t to become an underwear model or Mr. Universe. I’m putting in a calculated effort to reach a functional physique that makes me feel positive about myself and allows me to be active in other areas. I find the whole process a righteous challenge.

If I cared more about having defined musculature, deadlifts would probably the first heavy movement I’d add into the mix even though they don’t really match the philosophies laid out here. But who knows … maybe at some point I’ll mess around with them.

In regards to frequency, a full workout for me consists of just one of the above exercises. I like to put full focus onto one exercise so I can concentrate on my form and technique. It’s difficult to maintain composure over a long session! I don’t exercise every day, I always warm up, and I take a cautious approach to recovery (i.e., I will wait out soreness).

After all this explanation, let met me reiterate my sentiments from the intro: I don’t know what I’m doing!! You should figure out what works for you. I’m just one dude trying to chart his internal compass. The likelihood is high that I change course.

An Aside: Nose Breathing Follow-up

I previously wrote an article about nose breathing and why it’s likely beneficial to avoid breathing through your mouth during exercise (or at any time for that matter). The dude still abides to this philosophy, but when riding my bike I’ve found it impractical to consciously avoid lapsing. The energetic demands are too persistent. If anything I think this is a subtle knock on the premise of cardio.

Anyway, one new technique I picked up on not long after writing that piece is to drop your jaw while breathing through your nose. Doing this helps expand the airway. It’s like a cheat code for when you’re struggling during periods of high intensity.