Sit Disease – Identifying Office Posture and using Exercise to Counteract it.

Humans have come a long way in the past millennium. But if there is one major area that we have begun to get lax in, it would have to be practicing good posture. Gone are the days of parents persistently informing their children to sit straight. We have begun an age of distraction like no other, and what that has meant often is an unhealthy amount of time being seated.

Waves of research have come out in the recent years suggesting that diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer and obesity are all associated with sitting for extended periods of time. While an attempt to argue correlation does not necessarily mean causation concerning the above diseases, there is irrefutable proof of sitting and the damage that it causes to the human spine.

When you are seated, your bodies weight is held against the back of the thighs, relieving the glutes and hamstrings while tightening the abdomen, lower back and hip flexors. The pelvis begins to shift over time, and if it is done continuously over a long period, is moved out of alignment. “While” being painfully uncomfortable and costly to your mobility, it is also costly to your wallet, as at this point, it will take some extra help from a chiropractor to relieve the issues.

So how do you prevent this issue from occurring? Being seated for an extended period is nearly mandatory, in fact in schools, offices, and cars, it almost always is. You may not be able to avoid a chair, but you can pick up habits that will counteract the effects of sitting.

Regular exercise is key, get active in that environment regularly, preferably daily. There are activities that are more beneficial than others when it comes to the exercises to choose:

Yoga – increases flexibility, strength, and balance. Most yoga sessions attack the areas primarily affected by sitting.

Rowing – this activity strengthens the spine, from the glutes to the upper back and is a great cardio workout.

Weight Training – versatile enough to fit the needs of everyone that practices it, weight training builds strength and endurance, which in the areas affected by sitting disease makes it “beneficial” to include.

Of course, perform any or all of these three regularly and in variation to affect a wider area of the body.