Use 'em or lose em

One big benefit of moving from our old lab and office space to our current building at work is that the stairwells are wide, brightly lit, and conducive to "taking the stairs" if one should want to do so. My lab is on the second floor and my cube is on the fourth floor, so I'd would take the stairs instead of the elevators at least a couple of times a day. There's a mezzanine level at each floor, two, so it was something like eight or nine flights of stairs (if a flight is 10 steps or so).

At first, I couldn't do it without stopping, but in a few weeks, I'd be a little less out of breath as I got back to my desk. It's nice when you can do something at work that is totally permissible (like getting to your desk) and have it be exercise too.

Well, last December, they started doing construction within the building to increase the amount of office space so the rest of the people in our division can go over to the new building. As much as I like my fourth floor cube, I'll be ousted moved to the second floor. I have no power in this, and I'm glad not to have to share a cube, so there is really no problem.

During the construction, they have closed the stairwell that I used to use. So I've been taking the elevator like everyone else. A couple of days ago, as I sat at my desk for another day of writing stuff, I decided to use the stairs in the other stairwell, and go from the first to the second floor. Well, I thought those stairs only went up to the second floor or so, but they go all the way up to the top, and there's no signs saying people can't use them. Hooray! I'll now do those a couple of times a day.

However, after the first day of doing stairs, I got up from my chair at work and my calves were so tight, I couldn't think what that could be from. Spin class? We didn't do anything different than usual. Then I realized it must have been walking the stairs. Wow. Use it or lose it, and those muscles got used to not being used. It's funny how losing the strength there is painless and unnoticed. And getting it back is a little ouchy.