Better straighten up

Do you sit more than 2 hours a day? Worst, do you work sitting at a PC 6 hours a day and sit at home a few more hours in front of the tube. Do you still wonder why you are sore at various places and get frequent headaches? Moving only your fingers and one arm during those long hours is not healthy. Our body is a beautiful machine made to jump, run, band and twist. I don’t have to tell you this because you already know that muscles need to stretch and be stimulated to stay healthy. Consulting a doctor about your sore XYZ (replace XYZ with where you hurt) and the doctor will say "rest it, immobilize it, us a brace and adjust the ergonomic of your workstation." I’m sorry to tell you this but don’t you find that your sore whatever is resting enough all day? You will eventually feel pain somewhere if you exclude physical activities from your life for days, weeks or months, no matter how ergonomic your chair and workstation is. Pain is your body’s way of saying there is something wrong.

I was hit by a car and dislocated my left leg out of the hip socket when I was 10 years old. X-ray did not show the dislocation so I endure the pain for 6 month until I went to see a Chiropractor who helped me out. I could still walk with a dislocated leg but not as gracefully mind you. My right leg became stronger because my left one was hurting too much. It is a great survival mechanism that muscles in close perimeter will take over weak, sick or even missing ones. The mechanism allowing me to keep on walking even if I had a dislocated tibia end up being detrimental to me in the long run. 5 months ago (that’s 27 years after my accident), the muscles in my right leg were almost two times stronger then my left. You don’t need to dislocate a leg to find out if some of your strong muscles have taken over. If you sit at a computer all day like me, muscles used while sitting are nice and strong but if you don’t use any other nes, you develop many opportunity to have strong muscles take over weaker one.

Look at yourself in the mirror, how is your posture, when you walk is one leg stiffer. Look at any distortion in your body. To explain what I mean by distortion, let’s do a couple of real easy experiments.

Stand up shake your legs a little, look strait ahead and do a walking movement for 10 seconds but stay in place. Stop and look at your feet. You are not standing up yet? Come on! Be brave! Try it! Now that you really did the experiment, are your feet uneven? Are your toes pointing outward or inward? Your feet should be pointing strait ahead and fall evenly on the ground, if not, you are at risk or already live with pain. But it’s not my muscles that are hurting it’s my bones! Guess what is moving your bones… it’s the muscles that are moving your bones. What I call distortion is when your strong muscles are pulling your bones away from optimum position.

Stand up again to do another quick experiment. While standing up, close your eyes for 30 seconds or so. What happened? Was your body waving back and forth? I bet it was! When you have distortion, your body is trying to center itself but can’t because your bones are misaligned.

The good news is your body can be restored back. You must include in your daily routine more stretching and moving. Move all your body parts to their full range of motion. Yoga and Tai Chi are excellent at re-establishing full range of motion. You can also get help from a Chiropractor (such as Millar Sports Chiropractic in London, Ontario) who is aware of the Active Release Technic (ART) that can quickly realign your body. I also recommend Pete Egoscue’s books.

Pete Egoscue is the author of a few books about non medical pain relief exercises. His books will show you exercises that will relieve any pain you may entertain from being sedentary to pain acquired from playing sports. I am confident that you will find the Egoscue method simple and effective. I have been using his method for the last 5 months and it subdue all my pain. It also helped my posture. The Egoscue method is not a quick fix because a series of his exercise may take up to one hour a day but I tell you the rewards are incredible. Gee! Are you serious! One hour? Yep, very serious! If you are working at a PC for 6 hours or more a day, how much movement do you think you need to stay healthy?

Pete Egoscue’s books are probably available at your local Libraries. If you live in London, Ontario, his books are available at the London libraries and the University of Western Ontario. I suggest you check out the link for the University of Western Ontario and read the excellent summary. On Pete Egoscue’s website you will find archived audio files of his radio show. I've listened to a few of them and they are quite interesting.

See you at the gym!