If back pain (and the exhaustion and headaches that often accompany it) are a constant in your life despite your best intentions to exercise, lift carefully and seek hands-on help: the cause may be those long hours of sitting typing at your desk.
When you consider that each day, you are doing something similar (but probably worse) to sitting in the car and driving from Sydney to Byron Bay each day, this is unsurprising. But there is a solution (and it’s not quitting your job.)
We asked Matthew Squires, Founder of Physio Gym Physiotherapy, for tips on how we can turn the humble office chair into our own personal gym and beat back pain with therapy.
The risks of sitting
We were not made to sit for 8-12 hours per day, so if you are, you are very likely to experience spinal pain. Let’s be honest, even if you have the best ergonomic set up you will still find yourself slumping in the lower back on the chair, your head creeping forwards, getting closer to the computer screen and your shoulders aching. At the end of work you feel drained, exhausted and you may even feel a headache coming on.
The impact on your body and the spine is progressive with your posture developing a more rounded and compressed look. If not managed well it may become a “dowager’s hump” as you age, where the shoulders round and the neck compresses – and no-one wants that! I am going to offer you a deep and meaningful solution and some superficial make over rules to work by to help you stay at work and get the best out of your spine.
How to minimise pain at work
Stay active at work to minimize the chance of pain by following these tips every day:
- For every hour in the chair make sure you exercise 5 minutes. So if you sit for 40 hours you will need to do at least 3.5 hours of focused exercise a week.
- At work try getting up every hour to walk for at least two minutes.
- Be prepared to talk to the boss, even if you are the boss, to get the right ergonomic equipment.
- Relieve tension by doing spinal twists, side bends and hip flexor, neck and shoulder stretches.
- Do not be afraid to stand up and move in a prolonged meeting or presentation.
- Try having a meeting where you walk and talk.
The next-step solution
Training your abdominal muscles will help you body support your spine meaning you will sit up straighter, walk with better posture, and avoid back pain. Often Pilates and Yoga are used to do just that, and Physio Gym physiotherapy offers a new exercise system called the Gyrotronic method – a system used by the likes of Madonna for fitness, and Andy Murray to recover from back pain.
This system offers an abdominal training system that goes deeper than Pilates, it releases and refreshes you like Yoga. It was developed by two brothers — a dancer and a physiotherapist — and it is the perfect tool for treating lower back, neck and headache pain.
It includes a series of exercises that strengthen the torso muscles by exploring concepts like moving from your seed centre, burying the sacrum, elongating the spice, discovering the 5th Line, and narrowing.