I’ve always wondered, if walking involves more movement and presumably more energy, why does standing in one place feel more exhausting than walking for the same amount of time? How does our body differentiate between the two, and what’s happening in our muscles and circulatory system that makes standing still feel so much more tiring?
In: Biology
When you’re standing it might sort of seem like you’re motionless and so your legs aren’t really doing anything, but your body is not naturally that well balanced and your upper body is typically moving around and constantly shifting your center of balance. Even a slight breeze can shift your body weight enough that your legs need to do work to compensate. So your legs and the muscles in them are having to constantly make tiny adjustments what they’re doing in order to maintain that balance.
Our brains are generally really good at doing this work, so we don’t have to consciously think about it, so you often don’t even notice it happening. But it’s still occurring, and it means the muscles in your legs are constantly working, even if you’re just standing in place.
When you’re walking, that movement is typically “forceful” enough to counter-act a lot of those smaller body shifts, so the ways your muscles move is much more predictable and your body has to waste less energy reacting to external forces.
Kind of like how balancing on a bike is much easier when the bike is moving forwards, compared to trying to balance on a bike that’s sitting in place.
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