Is “Sitting is the New Smoking?” even if you exercise everyday?
yes… even if you wake up and run five miles.
Founder of medicine’s Hippocratic oath, Greek Physician Hippocrates wrote 2500 years ago:
“parts of the body, if they are unused and left idle, become liable to disease, defective in growth and age quickly.”
“All parts of the body, if used in moderation and exercised in labors to which each is accustomed, become thereby healthy and well developed and age slowly; but if they are unused and left idle, they become liable to disease, defective in growth and age quickly.”
Scott Olsen and I talked about movement training, sitting and mechanics of proper movement. As Scott is a body worker and manual therapist to help reduce chronic pain and join pain around tendons, joints and muscles. He teaches them movement drills to biomechanically hold their joints and body structure in place for life movements each day.
From my experience in the fitness industry- there is a slow increase in awareness of recovery for training athletes of all levels. I believe in heart rate training to help train hard, train the aerobic engine (MAFF heart rate aerobic zone) and recovery movement days. Even if we sit all day long and train every day- we are all sitting too much and even standing with the poor posture alignment.
The Mayo Clinic shared an article back in 2013 about the effects of sitting… “Is Sitting the new Smoking” (see links below). We sit for work, transportation, television and more. We are training well and eating well (hopefully) but we could still be sitting 10-11 hours or more per day. We could be sedentary for 70% of the day or once I heard that the average person sits/lies/stationary 23 of 24 hour per day if you include sleeping, driving, eating, working and watching social media/television. Even if we workout each day then spend the rest of the day sitting…what happens? If you wake up and workout 30-50 minutes then head to the office the rest of the day- or perhaps your day is mostly spent driving kids around in a car- we are all sitting too many hours of the day!
What happens if we are disconnected with our own bodies? If we are sitting down in a chair- comfortable- we don’t stay engaged very long in our deep postural muscles as on our sofa. When you sit in your favorite chair or spot to watch TV…is your body becoming molded by the sofa cushion to the same position that you are sitting in? Then when you get up, move and participate in basic life movements – our mechanics suffer. Some muscles get longer/lengthened and some muscles get shortened or tight. Too much sitting as you may know- results in tight shortened hamstrings, the adductors let go, shortened hip flexors, round out the back and compress the belly. All of our basic human movement patterns have become turned off in order so we could efficiently sit in your favorite seat or position on the sofa. We don’t want to be walking around looking like our sofa!
When we sit on our booty most of the day we are compressing skin, lymphatic fluid, fascia, muscles, fat and other necessary layers of our body. When we take any parts of our body and compress it for too long- we will have trouble and dysfunction happens as limited blood flow …and cells will start to mutate or change to this chronic sitting patterns. Prolonged sitting will turn off muscles- and we can actually run higher risks of cancer and type two diabetes. If we are sitting too much- we lose the structure- the mechanical load on the body will force the body to behave in different ways than our normal healthy organism. .
I see an increased need to do more mobility training for my clients as well as for athletes prior to their main workout set. We don’t want to start the workout when our mechanics our off or out of alignment…then
We need a stimulation of a varied environmental conditions- the room, the temperature, the movement patterns that change the shape of the body instead of encouraging the same movement patters over and over again. As I say often to clients “muscle confusion” is ideal for workouts but also adding in “greasing the groove” throughout the day in between time sitting. Our hips are becoming so tight and our spinal alignment is becoming more forward flexion based on our daily habits and activities (computers and cell phones!).
Scott suggests to clients with complicated pain patterns from a health perspective to look at stagnation or flow. What is slowing down too much or slowing down to much. Think about compression or space…if we have a compressed joint it won’t feel good. If we have a compressed tendon- doesn’t feel good. The goal should be more space in our body as we have more compression in our body.
Solutions: how can we sit less and get more variety?
- stand up desks
- get up from your desk at least once an hour
- create an environment that you can get up and move or leave
- transport to the home setting- from work and from commuting- take away or don’t allow yourself to not use the furniture to sit on. Instead only sit on the ground- you will naturally move positions. You will find yourself leaning and shifting different positions when we sit on the floor.
Scott learned from his chronic back pain to sit in an uncomfortable chair – a wooden chair. He would start to sit more upright as he was less comfortable. You can trick your environment by setting up a less comfortable options- sitting in a wooden chair or on the floor.
We can create more deep engagement in our hips, push more into the ground and use our feet to help fire the correct muscles to stay upright. I have learned how to teach people how to move better and engage the glutes by pushing or driving more into the lead leg…feel your glutes and learn how to activate the correct muscles – then also avoid glute amnesia. As Scott suggests the drill of walking with a typewriter or use a heavy medicine ball. Walk around holding the medicine ball or kettlebell – you should become more alert as you are walking more comfortable and turn on the postural muscles…then go sit with the weight and feel the structure of the body change with you increased awareness of postural muscles.
We need to be strong enough from going from lying on the floor to standing up but most people have lost healthy structure and strength to move correctly as well as activate the correct muscles and movement patterns. I started training clients how to move from the ground to standing based on observing people’s movement patterns. I actually threw some cards on the floor and taught clients how to pick up an item or object off the floor with proper form. Our dysfunctional movement patters are probably a result of too much sitting and too little movement during the day so we have lost strength in our hips and posture muscles. Clients of all ages are struggling to squat down to the ground properly or get off the floor without grabbing a railing or chair to stand up all the way.
As I continue to write and share on the podcasts is we need to train movement and get up an move more frequently… a form of stagnation is not good for our health. If we could get up and move more frequently…it sounds so simple but so challenging to do for most of us. Scott suggests rock or sway- sit comfortable on the chair and to the ground with your feet then allow your body to sway in a circle. The suttle movement as you let the crown of your head lead the circle- moving staying engaged vertically through the spin and crown of the head to created this swaying movement left or right.
Start small… creating new habits takes time so pick one goal at a time to implement into your daily schedule. Find the minimum effective dose that doesn’t feel too challenging and a habit you can create – and stick with for longterm. If sitting is a new smoking- then it may be a hard habit to quit! You can do it…start with one goal now that you can do today. What will work for you? Standing is better than sitting but inactivity is the issue. Shift, move, sway and take breaks. don’t stay still for too long… try sitting on the floor more often and re-arranging the furniture in your home so the floor is more appealing!
Click here to ask Scott Olsen questions on manual therapy and movement patterns
http://www.beyondthemuscle.com/
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References:
Physical inactivity is the fourth leading risk factor for global mortality
Globally, 6% of deaths are attributed to physical inactivity. This follows high blood pressure (13%), tobacco use (9%) and is equal to high blood glucose (6%).
Moreover, physical inactivity is the main cause for approximately 21–25% of breast and colon cancers, 27% of diabetes and 30% of ischemic heart disease burden.
Mayo Clinic
What are the risks of sitting too much?
Answers from James A. Levine, M.D., Ph.D.
http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/adult-health/expert-answers/sitting/faq-20058005
One study compared adults who spent less than two hours a day in front of the TV or other screen-based entertainment with those who logged more than four hours a day of recreational screen time. Those with greater screen time had:
- A nearly 50 percent increased risk of death from any cause
About a 125 percent increased risk of events associated with cardiovascular disease, such as chest pain (angina) or heart attack
Runners World
http://www.runnersworld.com/health/sitting-is-the-new-smoking-even-for-runners
Spine Expert Stuart McGill, Ph.D says: “Even breaks as short as one minute can improve your health,”
Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-active-times/sitting-is-the-new-smokin_b_5890006.html
Forbes
http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidsturt/2015/01/13/is-sitting-the-new-smoking/#70817f70239a