I meet a lot of people who are inactive.
That’s just the nature of our lives these days, our jobs dictate that we are sat down for a hell of a lot of time.
At your desk, in the car.
If you are one of those people who uses exercise to bring structured activity into your lifestyle then while this is a good thing (I ain’t ever gonna put people off exercise, am I?) your background has to be taken into consideration.
In all cases you will probably experience poor posture leading to back pain or shoulder and neck pain.
I think the stats say that 8 out of 10 people will currently experience some element of back pain at some point in their lives.
Over time it is normally the case that any back issue is because of an issue that has been slowly been getting worse over time.
A big part of this is lack of movement and in the right patterns.
As your back becomes more and more stiff, it is less likely to function as part of your movement patterns, thus making it alot worse and putting stress on other areas, over compensating and maintaining a poor posture that also tends to put more pressure on the discs in the lower back.
To avoid any further deterioration starting doing these things.
Obviously activity is a major part of any back issue dpeneding upon what stage you are at.
I would not recommend strenuous activity unless you are confident. If you are not that confident, don’t put it off. In my experience you will not be far from using activity but get expert opinion from someone like a osteopath, physio or a personal trainer.
Get some details ready
What postures hurt?
What movements hurt?
An expert will take you through some tests to confirm what your response to these questions are.
If it is not that severe (what I’d describe as more stiffness and ache rather than pain) then you are probably ready for activity.
Exercise on a daily basis. By exercise start gaining more range of movement using all joints and in all planes of movement (forwards, backwards, sideways)
Work on your core muscles
A strong mid section takes pressure of the back and improves your posture
Work on you flexibility
Tight muscles around the back area can cause poor posture and aches that may develop into more serious problems.
Muscles and joints that affect the back are the hamstrings (back of the thigh), the glutes (your bum), the pelvis area and hip flexors.
Exercise is not only to reduce weight.
It is used to prevent health problems like this and rehab areas of injury to make them stronger and reduce the chance of reoccurence.
Back pain has a way of really limiting what you can do, it is one of the major causes (just behind the sickie) for work days lost dues to absenteeism.
It has a habit of limiting what you can do from a mmore mental point of view as well, it ha a habit of kicking the crap out of you.
When your body is more free of pain and stronger and more functional, then you will have much more freedom in life and the activities that you take up.
When you do undergo an exercise program to get lean and healthy the last thing that you need is an outage because you back has tightened up and cannot function properly.
It becomes demotivating and it’s not a shock to see some use it as a means to avoid exercise.
“It hurts too much so I better not do it”.
Obvioulsy, this is a load of nonesense and worse but I do know it has been used.
You want continuous improvement that takes you towards physical excellence.
It’s their for the taking
Look after your back and keep the walking stick away!
Mike
Dream, Act and Succeed
