Do you sit down all day while at work?
Do you then get up and go straight out for a run?
Of course!
Do you know it could cause long term health problems in doing so?
Whaaaat?
Hello and welcome to The Running Channel. I'm Rick and I'm joined by our resident
physio-therapist Manni Evola to talk to you about how to make sure you don't
pay the price for sitting down all day and then heading straight out the door
to run your workout.
I'm here to talk you through a few simple things that you can introduce
throughout your working day,
whether that's at home or in the office to help you feel and move better during your run.
And make sure you watch this right to the end for a top tip that Manni recommends
to all his patients. We're going to jump right into it right now,
but before we do make sure you hit subscribe and tap on that bell icon
so you get notified when we upload new videos all about running,
which we do every single week.
You might remember seeing a news story doing the rounds a few years ago,
claiming that sitting all day is as bad for you as smoking. The link between
illness and sitting first came to light in the 1950s,
when double-decker bus drivers were found by researchers to be twice as likely
to have heart attacks as their conductor colleagues,
the drivers sat for 90% of their shifts while the conductors climbed about 600 stairs
each working day. It's thought excessive sitting slows the metabolism,
which affects our ability to regulate blood pressure and blood sugar,
as well as metabolizing fat and may cause weaker muscles and bones.
So how does it affect us as runners?
There are many articles that claim that sitting all day shortens your hip flexors.
Now, the hip flexor muscles include your iliopsoas and your rectus femoris,
which is part of your quadriceps.
The main work of your hip flexors is to bring your knee towards your chest and
to bend at the waist. So pretty key for running movements.
But, the claims about them shortening while you sit?
Well, they're not really accurate. The tissues may well shorten temporarily,
but any long term effect will be cancelled out
by you simply getting up every so often, which most of us do
to go to the loo or grab a drink.
So if sitting down doesn't shorten our hip flexors,
what kind of damage as runners are we doing Manni?
Well Rick, some of the things that can happen
when you sit down for too long, are:
Your blood flow slows down.
This can affect the nervous system and sometimes make us feel sluggish on the
first few miles.
When we start running. This lack of blood flow in combination with
slowing in your body's ability to process fats can also
lead to fatty acids building in our blood vessels, okay.
Potentially leading to heart disease.
Sitting for extended periods also leads to insulin resistance,
which can ultimately cause type two diabetes and obesity.
And I know personally that I just feel like I've got a stiff back as well as other joints,
like my ankles, potentially from poor posture and the lack of movement.
So it feels like I'm ending up with worse mobility, would that kind of all fit in?
It does. Absolutely. I think a lot of people feel that way.
So to counteract all that, I'm going to show you guys,
some dynamic moves to help get you moving and ready to run.
After sitting down all day, let's do it. Let's do it. Let's go.
So here we go. We're going to go through the daily mobility. But first,
if you have any injuries or any problems that are not diagnosed,
I want you to go and seek some medical advice first.
Your thoracic spine is part of your spine from the bottom of your neck down to
roughly the bottom of your ribs,
whether it's being hunched over a laptop or just not moving enough,
you can become really stiff through this area. At your desk,
I want you to put your arms across your chest and gently start to rotate your
shoulders to the left. Ensuring your hips continue to face forward.
Do not move your hips. Now gently rotate back to the centre.
And I want you to rotate your shoulders to the right then back to the
centre. Did you feel those stretches? Okay. If you didn't,
we're going to take a little bit further. Let's go back to the left.
Take your body,
as far as you feel comfortable and it's movement from your upper back.
Remember that. Do not move your lower back and do not move your hips. Okay?
Let's do some side flection of that thoracic spine. So back at the centre,
we are going to move our shoulders down towards our left side. Okay?
Keeping our arms across our chest. Perfect. Can you feel that side flection?
Excellent. Now bring your shoulders back to the centre.
We are now going to bring our shoulders down to the right hand side. Good.
Perfect.
Now we want to move our focus down to the lower back or lumbar spine is essential
to ensure we've got good rotational mobility in the lower back as it has been in
one position for long periods as we sit. So what I want you to do again,
hands across your chest, slump that lower back nice and slowly.
Nice and relaxed. Okay.
Now we're going to move our pelvis and extend our lower back.
Got it? Perfect.
Now this time I want you to move your hips.
This is going to be different to the thoracic stretches.
You're going to turn your hips to your left, slowly
creating that rotation in your lumbar spine. Can you feel that? Great.
Now we're coming back to the centre. Let's rotate those hips to the right.
Can you feel that stretch? Brilliant. Okay.
Let's bring those hips back to the center again.
That was flexion extension. Now we're going to do side flexion.
All you're going to do start to lean over to that left hand side.
Side flexing through your lower back.
You'll definitely get some side flexion through your thoracic spine as well.
That's okay.
Let's come back to the center and now we're going to side flex to our right.
Perfect. And back to the center.
So guys, this is one of my favorites.
The hamstring walks. I'm about to show you how we can increase blood flow in the
legs and fluidity of movement. It's key not to do these too aggressively.
It's all about nice dynamic movement that feels increasingly smooth
the more you do it.
So, all you're going to do is find yourself some space, nice flat ground.
And you're going to take three to four steps. Nice and gently.
You're going to put one heel out in front of you. Resting on that heel,
you're going to sit back with your opposite leg. Bending at the knee.
Your hip comes forward. And as you do that,
you should feel a nice stretch in the back of your legs.
Really gently sit into the stretch,
holding for about one to two seconds and dynamically.
Come back up to the top. During the movement, your arms are by your side,
try and keep your balance and stay relaxed.
Keep alternating legs as you step forward.
So now I want to show you an ankling drill,
which should help ease your ankle joints and promote an increase
in synovial fluid.
This helps with the health of your joint and will make everything feel that more
comfortable. So what you want to do standing nice and tall.
I want you to stand still facing forward, chest up, looking forward.
And all you do really,
really simple is you're going to come up on your tip toes on one leg, okay?
Just one side,
then your opposite side and slowly sequencing alternating one
side to the other.
Now let's add a small movement and start moving forward with that movement.
Okay. And now let's pick up the speed. Nice and gently.
Perfect. There you go. And now you're ankling.
Excellent.
Your muscles will thank you for these calf warmups. Personally,
I really enjoy doing these. A really good increase in blood flow,
that gets you ready for your run. Don't go crazy.
Keep your body in a comfortable position and start slow.
Once you put your hands on the object, a tree or a wall,
what you need to do is take your feet further away. So really simply,
you're gonna lift one heel,
keeping the other heel down on the ground and alternate lifting
your opposite side slowly,
allowing those calf muscles to stretch.
Leg swings are brilliant for releasing your hips. For me,
it's a key component of my warmup, but make sure not to go for it
on the first few repetitions, look to start slow and gradual,
be relaxed and composed.
Again, we need to find something to apply our hands to. Stand nice and tall.
And we're going to start by swinging our legs side to side.
So keeping your body facing against the object that your hands are on.
You're going to move your legs from the center out as far as
possible. Now bring your leg back in across your midline,
over the front of your other leg. Then away from your body, build the momentum.
Think of this like a pendulum.
Let's go for eight to 12 repetitions and switch sides. Once we've done that,
we're going to change our direction. Let's turn our body to the left.
What we want to do is move our leg front to back.
We can move the leg on the inside,
closest to the object that our hand is on.
Ensure that we don't push our leg back too far.
So what we'll do first of all, is we're going to swing our leg back.
So our heel comes up into the air forwards and backwards.
Try not to extend through your lower back turn to the opposite side.
So our left hand now is on the object or wall and we're going to
swing our leg forward and back 8 to 12 repetitions again,
feeling nice and smooth supple and opening our hips.
So those should get us all moving after a day,
spent sitting down and some of them are really great to add in, during the day
if you get a chance, although you might get a few strange looks in the office,
if you are looking to take it a step further, though,
you should also check out our video about what to do before a
run for some more activation drills. But before we got stuck into the exercises,
we had promised you a top tip that I recommended to all my patients.
So here it is, it's a big buildup.
So I'm hoping it's almost certainly going to be a let down.
So many people forget to hydrate properly when they get lost in work or the rest
of their routine. We've already said,
one of the main issues with sitting is decreased
blood flow and dehydration can make it worse. Drink regularly,
and it sounds odd, but monitor your hydration stages.
Do you know how to do that? By looking at your urine. Pale straw colour is the target.
Thank you so much Manni,
I will check that as soon as you're out my eye line.
Let us know how you get on with this routine,
whether there's been anything that you struggle with after a long day sitting down,
or if you've got any tips yourself that you've found really useful.
Let us know in the comments below.
It's my pleasure, Rick.
My pleasure.
Please do subscribe to The Running Channel if you haven't already.
Thanks so much for watching and we'll see you next time.