If you sit at a desk all day the answer is most likely: yes.
Let’s face it when you spend most days curled up over your desk like the Hunchback of Notre Dame it’s only natural that bad movement patterns would develop.
Luckily the fix is easy; it just requires consistency. I’m going to explain this in the simplest terms.
First, let’s look at what sitting down for long periods of time does to your body. For this article we’re going to focus on the hips and shoulders:
1. Tightens your hips. Sitting down for long periods of time causes the hips to get tight and eventually limits mobility. This can eventually lead to many problems, most commonly lower back pain.
2. Internally rotates your shoulders. Sitting down hunched over your phone or computer puts your shoulders in a forward position that eventually restricts mobility and cause that hunched over look.
Luckily- there are two easy exercises that will fix both of these problems over time and have you feeling like a young athlete again. If you don’t have a problem with posture these are great preventative exercises to reduce your risk of injury.
1.Banded pull aparts
This exercise is exactly what it sounds like.
Grab a resistance band and place one hand on either side. Put your arms out as straight as they can go, right in front of your face. Slowly pull the band apart until you are standing like the letter T. Squeeze the shoulder blades together and keep the core tight. I like to start people off with 10 pull aparts and eventually move on to a static hold for an allotted amount of time, you can start with 15 seconds.
2.Glute bridges
Here, we’re focusing on opening up the hips and strengthening the glutes.
For this exercise you will start laying flat on your back. With both feet flat on the ground about a foot away from your rear.
Next, elevate your hips off the ground until your hips are in line with your shoulders and your body is in a straight line. It’s important to keep your core tight so you keep that flat back at the top of the bridge.
Hold the top position while squeezing your glutes as hard as your can for 30 seconds. Be honest with yourself, if you can do another round of this, go ahead- if not know that you need to work on hip openers more frequently. For a more advanced move, try keeping to one leg on the ground, one leg in the air as you lift up to the bridge.
Add both of these workouts to your warmup and watch how quickly your posture and back pain improve. For my clients these are warm up staples- especially when training after a long work day.
Let me know what you think and be sure
To tag @brendan.kelley.fitness with your results or contact me at http://brendankelleyfitness.com with questions.
