“Rosa”
5 Rounds for time:
10 Handstand push-ups
400 Meter run
Post time to comments or BTWB
The Sitting Disease continued……..
In a previous post, we discussed the affect poor posture and sitting has on our neck, shoulders, and upper back. Now, we will tackle sitting and the nether-regions know as your hips and lower back.
Before I go into detail on how sitting affects those areas, I want to introduce our friend fascia. Fascia is a tough connective tissue that covers all your muscles, much like the thin outer skin of a chicken breast. While fascia is pliable, it tends to “set” in the position your muscles are in most often. So if you sit most of the time, your fascia adapts to that specific position.
Now think about where your hips and thighs are in relation to your torso while you’re 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 the fascia will aid in keeping your hip flexors shortened. You will begin to notice this when you go to air squat, front squat, overhead squat, or simply trying to stand straight and you can’t keep your chest up, no matter how much the coaches yell “CHEST UP!”
This starts a downward spiral of effects on your glutes, hammies, and lumbar spine. Sitting too much in improper positions will lead to a phenomenon nicknamed “Gluteal Amnesia”. Gluteal Amnesia is when you sit so much not using your legs, that your glutes actually forget how to fire. If your largest muscle group is not firing properly, it will lead to weaker squatting, deadlifting, and a general decrease in bad-assery . It gets worse. 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.
What do you do if you HAVE to sit for long hours at work? Here are some great tips from a very informative article I used for research by Dr. Len Kravitz Ph.D.
Some (but not all) spontaneous physical activity options to discuss to break-up these sustained sitting periods at work might include:
1) Stand up and walk around the office every 30 minutes
2) Stand up and move every time the person needs to get some water
3) Walk to the farthest bathroom in the worksite facility when going to the restroom (if multiple bathrooms are an option)
4) Always stand and/or walk around room when talking on the telephone
5) Consider getting a standing workstation. Try to sell you boss on the health benefits and decreased health costs associated with not sitting
6) Consider doing a 5-minute walk break with every coffee break
7) Don’t email office colleagues; walk to their desks to communicate with them
For the time frame of watching TV and reading at night consider some of the following spontaneous physical activity options:
1) Get up and move during every commercial
2) Take a 5-minute walk break every 30 minutes
3) Get a stationary piece of cardiovascular exercise equipment and use it for several minutes each half-hour of TV viewing or reading
4) Stand up and do some easy (i.e., not strenuous) lunges or squats at least once per half hour
5) Stand up and do some alternating leg balance exercises at least once per half hour
6) Stand up and move for the opening segment of each TV show
7) At the end of reading every 4, 6 or 8 pages get up to walk around the room or house
We do our best in classes to give you tools to help release your fascia and get your joints moving to their full range of motion before, during, and after workouts, but we can only do so much. The responsibility falls on you to make changes outside of the gym. Although I am sure, for the right price, Colby would be happy to come to your house or office and remind you every 15 minutes to get up and move around.
VERVE OUTING UPDATE – Glendale Raptors vs San Fransisco Golden Gates. It just so happens that the game tomorrow at 3pm is fan appreciation day, SO TICKETS ARE FREE!! Just show up and support/heckle Colby as he plays for the visiting team. We will meet at the bar inside of Infinity Park at 2:15pm for some pre-game cocktails.
