| Danger of the Seated Position |
| Mason Murphy / CG Instructor |
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During our workouts, and more specifically, our core training, at Camp Gladiator, perhaps you recall the instructors talking with regards to the detriment associated with long bouts in the seated position. Unfortunately, the common workplace has its employees sitting for the majority of the workday whether at ones desk, in meetings, in the car, or even at lunch. Many in this situation will follow the workday with a trip to the gym in which they will sit down on a bike or sit down on one machine after another in an attempt to get strong, lean, and healthy. This is a real problem with serious life altering consequences and the contents of this article will address why.
To break it down in its simplest form, we as human beings with our intricate and sophisticated neuromuscular system are not designed to sit down for hours upon hours a day. Our bodies are built and designed for movement in all varieties. It was discussed in the April newsletters article titled, ‘Functional Training 101’ about the seven major movement patterns that we are built and designed to perform in life. Squat, lunge, push, pull, bend, twist, and our gait cycle as we walk, jog, and run are the movements that we perform in some capacity everyday, as these are life movements. However, sitting down all day at work for hours and hours, everyday over the life of a multiple decade long career can wreak havoc on our bodies and affect our ability to efficiently perform those life patterns, ultimately affecting our everyday movements.
As you are more than likely sitting down reading this now, lets examine briefly the shortened/lengthened state of some of the muscles in the body. Inevitably, no matter how much of a concerted effort you may put forth, we all tend to slouch as we sit down for long periods. This slouching posture is really a matter of the spine flexing (bending forward/rounding) and our shoulder blades protracting (sliding away from the spine). Generally speaking, most muscles of the back during this slouched position are in a lengthened/elongated state as if they were being mildly stretched. Keeping these muscles in this position for hours a day and months out of the year will literally condition them to this position, becoming elongated and weak. Not surprisingly, if the muscles on the posterior (back) of the upper body are in a lengthened position, naturally the muscles on the anterior (front) of the body are in a shortened position. Your anterior deltoids (front shoulders), pectorals (chest), rectus abdominus (abs), as well as others are an example of these muscles and they react to years of the seated position by becoming very short and tight. As a result of years in this position, posture is negatively affected as well as mobility, strength, and even respiration.
The lower body is also negatively affected by the seated position as it puts our hamstrings in a shortened state, thus causing our quadriceps to be lengthened. Our gluteals (rear end) muscles are elongated and stretched while some of the hip flexors are shortened. The same scenario plays out after years of sitting, conditioning these muscles to their unnatural length and affecting our range of motion and ability to squat, lunge, and run for example.
So what can you do? Its not practical to stand all day (quite frankly, that would not be good for you either), nor is it likely you will trade your desk job for that of a park ranger, hiking to maintain trails all day as you enjoy the outdoors and your new non-chair dependent occupation. What you can do however is focus on strengthening the muscles that have become elongated and stretching the muscles that have become short and tight. It will take time and discipline to correct. Just as it took years to condition the muscles into this unnatural state, it will not be remedied overnight either. Exercises like the superman, quadriplex, bridge, and single leg toe touch for example are just a few that focus on this. Luckily for the ‘contenders’ of Camp Gladiator, we spend a lot of time focusing on counteracting the negative effects of the seated position. |
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