Image Credit: mandj98. Even Animals are Affected by Sitting around too much
Firstly, I am going to refer to this article by JC of JCDfitness: Improve Your Life by Improving Your Posture
Additional Resource: Soft Tissue E-manual
To sum up the article, a young and athletic 22 year old managed to get Lower Cross Syndrome simply because he was sitting around too much. What do you think would happen to older folks?
The problem is that we can do an intense workout for 1 hour, but we sit around for 8 hours after that, what do you think the effects would be?
One of my favourite quotes from a fitness insturctor is, “I was my client’s coach for 1 hour a day. They were their own coach for the other 23.”
Essentially, those 23 hours made or broke the progress of his clients.
The point I am trying to drive home is simple: Remember that what we do directly affects us. And that which we spend more time on affects us more.
If you eat healthy sometimes, don’t expect to be healthy. The same logic is true, that if you eat unhealthy only sometimes, you can still be healthy.
Specifically on this issue, I think that anyone can make a change to their habits that will help them greatly.
This is discussed in the last part of the article, and simply means moving around more. Clarence Bass talked about this in his article, ‘Miracle of Movement’. Basically, whenever you have the chance to get and move around, do it.
Use reminders, make a hybrid sit-stand workstation (put the laptop on the desk and put your notes on a high shelf so you have to stand to get them). Get an ergonomically designed chair. Take breaks every hour to stand and strectch. Use an alrm clock to remind yourself about this!
For many people (especially cubicle workers), sitting for 4 hours straight isn’t uncommon. By introducing a simple habit of standing up every say 20 minutes, the benefits reaped are enourmous. Of course, you won’t thank yourself until 10 years later.
For those you are futher interested, I have linked an Additional Resource, a reference manual for Self Myofascial Release Therapy. This is basically a type of treatment directly to muscles and ligaments employed to increase range of motion, relax the muscle, etc. It is often employed to athletes, but anyone can benefit from this.
I am experimenting with such techniques, using only a cheap $1 tennis ball, so stay tuned for future updates.
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