Is 2020 the year you want to take the next step in your career? Then it might be a good idea to focus on increasing your physical activity. Good fitness actually makes you both more productive and more efficient at work. In fact, your fitness level is very important even if you have a sedentary office job.
Studies show that 45 percent of employees at Sweden’s 100 largest companies have too low oxygen uptake capacity – that is, fitness – to be productive and efficient for a full working day. In many cases, health then becomes a limitation on the ability to do a good job.
But all of us can become more efficient at work and make use of more health-promoting activities on the job. It is actually relatively easy to improve your fitness so that instead of being a limitation it becomes an asset and helps you do a good job. And if you are alert and engaged at work, you can also become better at supporting and motivating your colleagues.
But do you really need to be in good shape to do a regular office job? Yes, actually – if you want to avoid the classic afternoon slump and still have energy left after the workday is over. Here’s how it works: the level of physical activity affects how much of our maximum oxygen uptake we can use. We then talk about the so-called utilization rate. A well-trained person can use between 40 and 50 percent of their maximum oxygen uptake during an 8-hour workday without any change in lactic acid levels.
For someone who is untrained, however, lactic acid starts to rise already at about 20–25 percent of maximum oxygen uptake, which then makes continued physical work much more difficult. Untrained middle-aged men and women have a maximum oxygen uptake of about 2.0 liters per minute. For someone whose maximum oxygen uptake is lower than this level, the utilization rate will then be down at 0.4–0.5 liters per minute. Measured values show that office work requires an oxygen cost of 0.5–0.75 liters per minute. So it’s not very surprising that many people feel tired both during and after a workday and that they don’t have the energy for family and an active, meaningful leisure time.
