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If you spend the majority of your day in front of a desk or computer, don’t be surprised if you…
Get out of bed with a back that is sorer than the night before.
Throw your back out just getting off the sofa or in and out of the car.
not enjoy shopping (or travelling) because of the aches in the back and heels.
movement is the solution.
For most people with back, foot, knee and shoulder pains, the problem is muscular. It’s particularly obvious if you have pains in multiple locations. Perhaps it started as a lower back pain, and now it’s in your upper back, neck and feet. It tends to be a dull aching pain and seems to get worse when you sit for prolonged periods or bend over.
If its muscular, let’s get down to brass tax. The root cause of the problem is weak muscles that aren’t ready for the workload it’s been put under, in angles and movement’s they aren’t ready for. This is the simple truth for most people, particularly those who live sedentary lives which revolve around the home and the office.
If the pain is acute (i.e. it suddenly happened) then you’ve recently done something that was more than your body was ready for (which injured it).
If the pain is chronic (keeps going on and on) then you haven’t dealt with prior injuries properly and fixed the root causes, causing your body to compensate.
The following are the root causes and the corresponding fixes.
Over time, we forget how to co-ordinate the body properly and activate muscles in the correct sequence. The solution here is to improve your muscle activation and retrain the muscle memory. Learning to reactivate muscles is something we teach in bodyweight fitness.
L9’s PureMotion class trains activation, awareness and proprioception which leads to better muscle activation and body control
Lack of strength (or having strength imbalances) lead to compensation. The typical everyday person doesn’t train in a holistic way which keeps the body balanced and strong which means that small muscle groups compensate for the workload which large muscle groups need to do.
Bodyweight Strength Training is particularly effective in creating balanced and harmonious strength throughout the body.
Poor mobility in hips, hamstrings, torso, back and more lead to increased compensation and poor form in basic everyday movements such as the squat. Overuse in these positions mean that your weaker muscles (e.g. lower back) get over-worked and strain easily.
If you enjoy training in a flow, consider L9’s yoga classes or our very popular Flexibility and Stretch class. The PureMotion class is also an excellent mobility class.
Being overweight doesn’t help as this increases the demand on your muscles. (being 10 kg overweight means 10 extra kgs you have to lug around each time you squat or bend over!). Overweight people tend to compensate and make weaker muscles do the job of the stronger muscles which in turn lead to long term pains.
Consider joining our 8 week transformation program which is an effective way to lose weight, gain strength and improve mobility all at once.
Embark on an 8 week journey to transform the way you move. Lose weight, gain strength and improve mobility at the same time. Each week we will run body composition analysis & fitness tests as you take on L9 fitness classes. Everything you need to transform your body is provided… all you need to do is join in!
Let’s start with the obvious… Start this journey with a visit to a medical professional / physio / allied health. Proper diagnosis is needed to understand what the cause is, particularly if the problem is serious and structural. Meet with the professional and be certain that there isn’t something terribly wrong that exercise isn’t going to fix.
A good physiotherapist / allied health professional will be able to tell you if you are ready to exercise, what exercises you should avoid and prescribe specific exercises you should be doing. If your physiotherapist or health professional refuses to give you advice around exercise… consider getting a second opinion. If you need recommendations, reach out and if possible we could help recommend a good health professional.
Don’t push past what’s been recommended. Train sensible today so you can train more tomorrow.
You should be aiming for regular exercise, at least 4 times a week with relative consistency. You should be mixing up strength and mobility exercises in your programs i.e. it shouldn’t ever be one without the other. Ideally you should be looking for movement based exercises such as pilates & yoga. Get a good instructor because GOOD FORM IS EVERYTHING.
If you’re considering training at L9 Fitness, great classes to try include Yoga, PureMotion, Stretch & Flexibility & Beginners BodyWeight Strength.
Here is the general rule of thumb, keep your training balanced and prioritise what you are weak at. e.g. if you are bad at flexibility, then that’s the entire case to do more stretch and flexibility work.
Thanks for getting this far, we hope you got something useful from this article.
Book in a free fitness assessment, body composition scan, take a tour & learn about our classes