Do you sit all day at a desk? If yes, then you’re encouraging muscle stiffness, poor balance and mobility, and lower-back, neck and hip pain. But to understand why, you’ll need to know what happens to some specific muscles when you are seated.
Think about where your hips and thighs are in relation to your torso while you are sitting
They’re bent, which causes the muscles on the front of your thighs, known as hip flexors, to contract slightly, or shorten. The more you sit, the more your hip flexors get shortened. Some people walk with a forward lean; it’s often because of shortened hip flexors. The muscles don’t stretch as they naturally should. As a result, they are not walking tall and straight because their hip flexors are more adapted to sitting positions.
This same effect can be seen in other areas of your body. For instance, if you spend a lot of time with your shoulders and upper back slumped over a keyboard, this eventually becomes your normal posture. This frequently leads to chronic neck and shoulder pain. Also, people who frequently cross their legs a certain way can experience hip imbalances. This makes your entire lower body less stable, which decreases your agility, mobility and increases your risk for injuries. So, a person who sits a lot is less efficient not only at exercising, but also at simply moving from, say, the bed to couch, to the refrigerator.
Turning off the burners
If you spend too much time in a chair, your glute muscles 0r butt muscles will forget how to fire. This is called gluteal amnesia. Your butt muscles are your body’s largest muscle group. So if they aren’t functioning properly, you won’t be able to squat or dead-lift a suitcase or a baby from the floor comfortably. And, you won’t burn as much fat either. After all, muscles burn calories and that makes your glutes a powerful furnace to burn fat. Unfortunately, this furnace is switched off by those who spend most of their day seated.
Just moving constantly may keep you out of that doctor’s office and medications
Think of your body as a computer: As long as you’re moving the mouse and tapping the keys, all systems are ready to respond, But let it idle for a few minutes, and the machine goes into power-conservation mode. Your body is meant to be active, so when you sit and do nothing for too long, it shuts down, and when your muscles are not active, they become stiff and weak.
Posture and spine health
When you sit all day, your hip flexors and hamstrings shorten and tighten, while the muscles that support your spine become weak and stiff. It’s no wonder that the incidence of chronic lower-back pain has increased threefold since the early 1990s.
Weak glutes as well as tight hip flexors cause your pelvis to tilt forward. This puts stress on your lumbar spine, resulting in lower-back pain. It also pushes your belly out, which gives you a protruding gut even if you don’t have an ounce of fat. The changes to your muscles and posture from sitting are so small that you won’t notice them at first. But as you reach your 30s, 40s, 50s, and beyond, they will gradually become worse and a lot harder to fix.
So what’s a desk jockey to do?
There are two spectrums of activity. One represents the activities you do that are considered regular exercise at the gym, such as stretching, strengthening and your cardio activities such as walking, biking, swimming, etc.
The other denotes the amount of time you spend sitting Vs the time you spend on your feet.
Even mini frequent moves through the day plays a big role in keeping you pain free
Make the small choices that will help you move in the right direction on that sitting-versus-standing spectrum.
Create some work to stand up or just take a few steps to fetch a glass of water, move around while you’re talking on the phone, walk to your colleague’s table at work, etc. There are a hundred useful reasons to be on your feet.
Just because one works out for an hour or day, one can’t declare that it is okay to be seated for the rest of the day. Make it a challenge.
Just as you make goals for running a marathon or doing 100 push ups, you also have to do the same for everyday movements, if you want a pain free and carefree life.
So get off that chair and start moving.
Bhaskar is a fitness professional. Read more about fitness on his website www.60minuteworkouts.com
