My back was killing me.

August and September had been particularly hot and humid, and I spent most of that time inside.

Gardening was exhausting. Cycling wasn’t particularly inviting. Hiking in that heat wasn’t something I wanted to do either.

So I stayed inside.

Mostly sitting in my home office.

I suppose you could call it a sedentary lifestyle.

My Chair Wasn’t Helping

Sitting itself probably wasn’t the only problem.

I have a bad habit of slouching in my chair because somehow that feels more comfortable than sitting upright.

And my office chair wasn’t exactly encouraging good posture.

I had been using the same old chair for a very long time. It was already in the house and must be more than 15 years old.

My wife’s office chair wasn’t much better.

Yes, we have two home offices.

I had thought about replacing the chairs before, but kept postponing it. They still worked, after all.

By the end of September, though, I wasn’t feeling very well.

My back had started hurting around the center of my upper back. It wasn’t a sharp or stinging pain. It felt more like someone was constantly pressing a hand against my back.

At first, I assumed it was because I had been physically inactive for so long.

But something didn’t make sense.

I Could Still Climb a Mountain

Not long ago, my wife and I hiked from Tatamidaira to Kengamine Peak on Mount Norikura.

I was perfectly fine.

I could climb a mountain, yet sitting at my desk in the afternoon made my back hurt.

The same was true with yoga.

I could do yoga in the morning without any problems. My back usually felt fine then.

Later in the day, after spending hours in my office, the discomfort returned.

And there was something else I noticed.

I could feel tired and miserable sitting at home, but whenever I managed to go outside for a bicycle ride, I often felt surprisingly good again.

As if nothing was wrong with me.

That made me wonder whether all that inactivity was actually part of the problem.

Maybe It Was Time for a New Chair

Eventually, the old office chair became an obvious suspect.

I started looking online for something better.

I couldn’t find much on Amazon Japan that appealed to me, so eventually I went back to IKEA Japan and ordered two proper office chairs.

One for me and one for my wife.

We both spend enough time working from home to justify having decent chairs.

We don’t have to be that frugal.

After more than 15 years, the old chairs have certainly done their job.

But ordering new chairs didn’t make my back feel better immediately.

Some nights I slept very little because I couldn’t get comfortable. Then I would be tired during the day, sit even more, and probably wasn’t helping matters.

My wife asked whether I wanted to see a doctor.

I wasn’t ready for that yet.

I still wanted to understand why I could hike, cycle and do yoga without much trouble, while sitting at home seemed to make everything worse.

The Dumbbells Beside My Desk

I started searching online, describing as specifically as I could where the discomfort was and when it appeared.

One possibility that came up was that the muscles around my shoulders and upper back weren’t getting enough use.

Considering how much time I had spent sitting, writing and editing over the past couple of years, that didn’t seem impossible.

Then I remembered something sitting right there in my office.

My dumbbells.

The ones I had bought but hadn’t picked up nearly often enough.

They had been collecting dust while I sat beside them complaining about my back.

So yesterday I picked them up.

I tried some simple shoulder exercises and repeated them several times.

And something unexpected happened.

My back started feeling better.

Not after several weeks.

Almost immediately.

I kept moving my shoulders and using the dumbbells, and I could feel muscles in my upper back working that I probably hadn’t been using enough.

My mood lifted with it.

Moving Again

I don’t know yet whether I’ve actually found the cause of my back pain.

One good afternoon with a pair of dumbbells doesn’t prove very much.

Maybe the new office chair will help.

Maybe I simply need to move around more during all those hours I spend writing and editing.

And if the pain continues, I’ll have to get it checked rather than trying to figure everything out myself.

But I did notice something.

Throughout the hottest part of summer, I had stayed inside partly because doing less seemed easier on my body.

Then my body started complaining about doing too little.

I could hike up Kengamine.

I could do yoga.

I could ride my bicycle.

It was sitting in my office for hours that increasingly made me feel terrible.

Yesterday, the dumbbells that had been collecting dust finally came off the floor.

And now two new office chairs are on their way.

Maybe I simply needed to start moving again.