They say sitting is the new smoking. Research continues to show that spending a little less time in your office chair can reduce your chances of cancer, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and back pain. There are two groups of people reading this right now; people sitting at a desk that might be on the verge of a panic attack, and people that work manual labor jobs laughing at the desk jockeys. But, don't think you're in the clear just yet if you work a manual labor job. The British Journal of Sports Medicine recently published a paper that took data from 17 previous studies and found what the authors called a "physical activity paradox." So, while sitting at your desk for prolonged periods is bad for you, and exercise in leisure time has proven to be good for you, the "exercise" you get at work probably isn't good for you after all. The study found that men in physically demanding jobs had an increased risk of 18% of early death compared to men who work jobs requiring little to no physical activity. And, the link was only found in men who worked physical jobs, not women. So what's the deal? Why is an exercise in leisure time good, but not when you're at work? We'll do a deep dive into these questions below.