Undoing Sitting

We all sit too much. Adults average 10 hours per day, which is sad because when you look at kids, sitting is the last thing they want to do. It's interesting that we have to teach kids how to sit still.

Kids don't need to stretch, at least not as much adults need to. The reason being they have less mileage but they also move constantly through the day. In their wisdom, they will sit on the floor, or lie on their tummy or squat down.

I had a horrible sitting arc, even though I was still active. I'd go lift, sometimes twice a day, but then sit the rest of the time (playing video games of course). I ended up with super tight hip flexors. I even had a horrible back spasm, which was probably the result of those tight hip flexors pulling on my lower back. Lifting tightens your muscles quite a bit, and you owe it to yourself to undo the damage with at least a little bit of mobility work.

Why should you care?

When it comes to the fitness world, we all know the importance of the core. It's what holds you together and at least prevents your back from hurting so much. When we think "core" we just stop short and think "abs." So we just have to do a bunch of crunches right? Wrong.

The back of your core, the thing that should stabilize you from behind, is your behind. Your glutes are the biggest muscles in your body. They help propel you forward when you sprint and they help the back side of your "core." All that sitting we do is turning off the abilities of the biggest engine we have. When we think of "bad backs" we think to just stretch the low back or strengthen it. While the spine is made to be mobile, your lower back isn't meant for stabilization. It's supposed to be your glutes. So eventually your lower back goes on strike and gives up.

All of the glute activation stuff we do could be made better if we had stronger glutes to begin with or just sat less.

Let's put together a plan so we can do just that.

Move More. Hurt Less.

Before you start wondering which stretches and exercises you should be doing, I want you to think a little bit deeper.

Remember when I said how mobile and not-injured kids are? Is it because they're kids and more flexible than you? Or is it because they move around more than you?

It's the second one.

For as much as we joke about "your back goes out when you hit 30," if you made a 5 year old sit as much as adults did they'd feel just as bad. Now you don't have to go get crazy at a playground for 30 minutes, walk around with a backpack and play with Legos on the floor (although that'd be really good for your body and brain). You just have to do what you can with what you have. What do I mean?

We all have to work. If you have a job where you're on your feet, you don't need this advice. If you have an office job, see if you can get a standing desk. You should definitely have one if you work at home. If you use a laptop, lie on your tummy while you work sometimes (at home, don't do this in the office because I said so).

Then at night we all scroll or watch TV. If you're old enough, you may remember watching TV while lying on your tummy. In Original Strength they call this (drum roll), the TV watching position. Use this to your advantage to watch a few episodes or even scroll on your phone in this position. You get to keep your hip flexors open and improve your posture because your head is up the entire time.

Aside from that, just move around and walk more. Take a walk break at work every 1 to 2 hours. Walk at lunch time. Clean your house. Try to get 10k steps. Anything is better than racking up more sitting time.

These are all ideas to give your glutes a fighting chance by just not sitting so much.

Now it's time to strengthen them.

Strength-Led Work

If you flex one muscle hard enough, the muscle on the other end will relax. I like to start here before regular stretches because it tackles two issues at once. You get to strengthen your glutes while also relaxing your hip flexors.

This knowledge also helps busy people. We will get into doing glute stuff for reps, but if you're short on time, holds will work too.

The roll holds, bird dog holds or bridge holds to the rescue. Rolls and bird dogs are great because they mimic our gait pattern and you can use them if one side is tighter than the other. Just hold the position for 10-20 seconds. How often? As often as you need until you feel better. You can also make the bridge harder by working up to your hands.

When you want to start doing these as a strength exercise, feel free to go crazy. You can do plenty of reps (think 10-25 at a time). Why so many? I want to assume the "worst" case scenario: you don't have a ton of time or even access to a gym. To counter all the sitting you do, you're going to need a decent amount of reps.

As examples, you can do 50 bird dogs or 100 reps of bridges. It's not that bad, trust me. You can do this any time of the day you want, but experiment with doing them towards then end of the day if you've been stuck in a chair at work all day. It should undo the damage.

After re-reading Combat Conditioning by Matt Furey, it opened my eyes again to frequent training. The reason I only gave bodyweight exercises is that it won't beat you up and you can do them anywhere. Since they're "gentle" they can be done often. Don't fret about "over training" or "rest days" with these. You're an animal. Move frequently like one.

Stretches to Take It Easy

Now we come to good old fashioned stretching. There's a lot of controversy about when, how much and if you should stretch at all.

Let me side step all of that.

Just do it anyway.

If you want to leave no stone un-turned, just stretch your hip flexors out and be done with it. The couch stretch is easy enough. You can do it on the couch as the name implies and even watch TV. If that's too much for you, just do the basic hip flexor stretch until that feels good.

A super duper hip flexor stretch is the ATG split squat. Usually Ben Patrick talks about it as a leg exercise for strengthening your knees, but you can also use it as a static hold position because working on it also opens up the hip flexors. If it seems too intense, you can always scale it back by elevating the front foot on a chair. (We get to use a chair to stretch your hip flexors and not tighten them. Take that, modern world.)

Work on the ATG split squat first since that's more intense for about 30 seconds, then you can move on to the couch. I've always found that working in that order makes the couch stretching much easier.

The Anti-Sitting Protocol

I just threw a lot at you, so let me give you a bare bones daily schedule. This is at a minimum so it shouldn't eat up a ton of time.

Morning:

• Wake up and do a bridge hold.

• Throw in some rolls or bird dog holds.

During work:

• Try to stand at your desk as much as possible.

• Go for a walk at lunch time after eating quickly (even if it's just 10 minutes).

Gym or at home workout:

• Bridge to your heart's content.

• Do them as a hold to warmup or for reps after the main training.

• Stretch your hip flexors after lifting (a short stretch before if it's really bad).

Night:

• Bridge holds.

• Stretch hip flexors.

• Watch TV or scroll while lying on your tummy.

If any of this seems silly, ask yourself: is it sillier than scrolling on your phone for 2 hours every night? Probably not, and only one of those things is actually good for your back.

If you've suffered from low back pain in the years, this should fix it relatively quickly. If you complain about having a "bad back" but aren't doing these things…I don't know what to tell you.

Go try it out and let me know what you think.

Thanks for reading!

As always if you have any questions feel free to respond to this newsletter.