Sitting Too Much Is Catching Up With Us
It feels normal. Comfortable. Earned, even. After all, we’ve worked hard to build lives where we don’t have to be on our feet all day.
But there’s a quiet cost.
And most of us don’t notice it… until something stops working the way it used to.
When Simple Things Start Getting Hard
It didn’t make sense at first. I stay active. I walk regularly. I try to take care of myself. But there were days when climbing a set of stairs felt harder than it should.
Not painful exactly—just difficult.
Like my legs weren’t quite cooperating.
I definitely couldn’t do two steps at a time.
My first thought was what most people would think:
“I must be losing strength.”
But that wasn’t the full story.
It’s Not Just Weakness — It’s Disconnection
Sometimes the problem isn’t that your muscles are too weak…
it’s that they’ve forgotten how to work together.
There’s actually a term for it—glute amnesia.
When you sit a lot, your glutes (the largest, most powerful muscles in your body) stop doing their job. Over time, your body adapts. Other muscles try to take over. Movement patterns change.
So when you go to do something simple—like climb stairs—your body hesitates.
Not because it can’t do it…
but because it doesn’t quite remember how.
You Can Feel It When It Happens
There were times my legs felt heavy for no good reason.
Times when movement felt awkward instead of natural.
Times when I just didn’t feel as capable in my own body.
And I know exactly what was behind a lot of it:
Too much sitting.
Not just relaxing at the end of the day—but hours and hours of being in the same position. Over time, that adds up.
I drive a desk during the day and a shuttle bus in the evenings.
The Body Adapts… For Better or Worse
That’s one of the things that continues to amaze me.
But it adapts to what we give it.
If we move well, it supports us.
If we stop moving, it starts to simplify.
Muscles go quiet.
Joints stiffen.
Movement patterns fade.
Not all at once—but slowly enough that it’s easy to ignore.
Until it isn’t.
The Good News: It Can Come Back
Just like the body can forget… it can relearn.
I’ve been working through that with my own glutes. I’m not all the way there yet, but I’ve made progress. And the biggest shift wasn’t some complicated program.
It started with awareness.
Paying attention to how I move.
Breaking up long periods of sitting.
Re-engaging muscles that had gone quiet.
Sometimes it’s as simple as standing up more often.
Sometimes it’s being intentional about how you walk, climb, or move.
Sometimes it means walking backwards a little, or skipping.
A Small Change That Matters
But it’s worth asking a simple question:
“How much of my day am I spending sitting… and what is that doing to me?”
Because the effects don’t always show up right away.
They show up later—
when stairs feel harder,
when movement feels off,
when your body doesn’t respond the way it used to.
Stay Capable
A lot of people lose the ability to do simple things—not because they had to… but because they slowly stopped using those abilities.
Getting down on the floor.
Getting back up.
Moving with confidence.
Those are things worth holding onto.
And they don’t disappear overnight.
They fade when we stop using them.
Keep Moving
It’s about awareness.
Sitting isn’t the enemy—but too much of it, without balance, starts to take something away.
The good news is, we can take it back.
One small change at a time.
One movement at a time.
One reminder to stand up, move around, and stay engaged in our own bodies.
Because the goal isn’t just to live longer—
It’s to stay capable while we’re here.
There’s actually some interesting research behind all this. I pulled it together in one place if you want to see what’s going on beneath the surface. Read it here »
