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
Imagine rowing a boat. Big stretch forward, big pull back, and repeat. This is like your normal walking motion. Each part engages a different muscle group, so there’s a nice back and forth of muscles working and relaxing.
Now imagine trying to keep a rowboat perfectly stationary in a lake. Waves are pushing you forward, so you paddle back a little bit… to much, paddle forward, now your spinning a bit, paddle left, too much, paddle right, now back, more back, left, forward, left.
All of those tiny twitchy movements will tire you out much faster. That’s what happens when you stand still. Your muscles are constantly bouncing back and forth tiny bits to keep you upright.
There are large veins that transport blood back up to our hearts from our lower legs and feet. Since this is so far from the heard theres not much pressure pushing blood back up. so we have basically valves that open and shut regularly like a ladder to help that blood get pumped up. The veins in our calves get compressed when we walk and help pressurize the veins carrying the blood back to our hearts. When we are standing this process doesnt happen as well so blood pools in our feet making them swell or feel uncomfortable.
Its easier for your blood to go back to you heart if you help It by pressing the softer parts of your feet. If you don’t, It gets “stuck” on your legs and oxygen doesn’t get as easily to your muscles.
Because tensing and relaxing muscles helps blood flow, oxygenation and helps remove lactic acid. Muscles that remain tensed don’t give the advantage of contracting and relaxing around blood vessels to improve blood flow.
Imagine the difference between picking something up in one shot vs. lifting it up slightly and then holding it there.
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